Sweden

We awoke on our overnight trainride from Oslo to find ourselves pulling into Stockholm central station. Lucky us, our friend Malin offered up her apartment for us to stay in, so we headed out to her place by subway. What a joy to see her, not only for her company, but also for her priceless insight and knowledge of her home city. We had our own personal tourguide! On our first day in Stockholm, we spent some time exploring downtown, a bustling cosmopolitan center filled with shops, restaurants, bars, more shops, and oh so many people! Though it has modern aspects, Stockholm retains an extremely charming feel, partly due to it's layout - it is sprawled across a number of small islands connected by bridges. Wherever you are, you are never far from the waterfront and it's flanking of magnificent buildings, waterfront bars, ice cream stands, and moored boats. After checking out the newer center, we strolled over the bridge to Gamla Stan, the "Old City," a tangle of cobblestoned streets, little shops, and cafes. Blessed with sunny weather, we found a nice little Greek restaurant and enjoyed a meal on the patio with the sun setting behind us.

The following day we spent exploring the royal palace. With over 600 rooms, Stockholm's palace is the largest in the world. We limited ourselves to the State apartments, where we found luciously decorated rooms and halls of royals' portraits. One of the rooms, newly constructed for the King's 25 anniversary of rule, was outfitted in modern Swedish design. Following close behind a tour, we heard one of the tourists ask if the furnishings were Ikea... the tour guide was not amused, to say the least. We spent the rest of the afternoon wandering around, and soon found ourselves at Riddarholmskyrkan, one of the oldest churches in Stockholm. Inside are buried many of Sweden's kings and queens, and it houses the Royal necropolis.

After finishing up the "touristy" stuff, we met up with Malin and took a nice walk around the island of Djurgarden, home to some beautiful mansions set in the woods. We twisted our way around the waterfront, the crossed over the island to make our way back, and in doing so stumbled across loads of tiny, incredibly sweet blueberries. Delish! After our foray into the bush, Malin took us to a wonderful sushi restaurant hidden on some side street downtown.

The next day we woke up early to head to the Vasa museum, only to be met with hoards of tourists who had apparently set their alarms earlier than ours! Thankfully we decided to wait out the line, because inside we were awarded indeed by one of the most interesting museums I have ever seen. The warship Vasa sank in 1628 (about 20 minutes after being launched), and was incredibly well preserved in the mud beneath Stockholm's icy waters. After much restoration, it now sits grandly in the center of the museum, making for a powerful visual. The pictures below don't do justice to the impression this ship leaves on you, and the exhibitions of the surrounding museum on further this effect.

That night we treated Malin to dinner at her place, a nice home cooked pasta meal. We needed an early night in to prepare for the strenuous activities planned for the following day!

We awoke to a beautiful sunny day and packed our bags...we were headed for the archipelago! We caught the ferry downtown headed for the island of Grinda, about 2 1/2 hours out. When we disembarked, we found ourselves amidst forest, sheep, cows, shorline, and so much sun! We found a sunny spot to camp for the day, and gave ourselves over to some mega R&R. After feeding ourselves (and feeding the swans), we went for a swim in the chilly northern water. Very "refreshing". We spent the rest of the afternoon reading, snoozing, eating, and just enjoying the serenity of the archipelago...what a dream! We hiked across the island to catch the ferry home, sad that we would be leaving Stockholm (and Malin) the next morning.