Land of the midnight sun - Stockholm, Sweden

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The sun sets at about 11:30pm and rises again at 4:30am. So… we never see night anymore. We’re in bed before the sun goes down and we don’t get up till it rises again… very strange ;-) We never leave our stateroom without sunglasses! Well, we have been VERY lucky once again. The three ships before us had to skip Stockholm as it was too foggy to navigate the 58 miles of islands that are the entrance to the port of Stockholm. But for us, the sun came out and it was 85 degrees and sunny. The Swedes think it will be the hottest day of the year.
Stockholm is beautiful, very green with thousands and thousands of islands. There are 700,000 registered boats for 1 .5 million people ;-) We saw the old town with its narrow streets and shops and and also the new town with modern shops and goods from all over the world. But the highlight was the Absolute Ice Bar! It is a bar made totally out of ice. The bar is ice, the walls are ice, the glasses for the vodka and orange juice are glass and…it is 23 degrees all the time ;-) You put on a heavy poncho with a hood and heavy gloves before you enter. Inside there’s low blue light and ice sculptures. Great fun.
It has been pretty exciting for the Swedes during June. Princess Victoria of Sweden married her Personal Trainer ;-) The city had lots of activities and excitement to go along with the wedding. Pictures of the Royal couple are everywhere.
It is very expensive in Sweden and Stockholm in particular. We were told, if you want to rent an apartment in the City Center, there is a 20 year waiting list. And, if you can afford to buy, the prices are in the range of 60,000 kroner’s per square meter!!!! But, it is lovely there.
Our time in Stockholm was short but certainly made us wish we could return one day-the quality of life and standard o living is very high. On to Helsinki, Finland, our next stop.
Oh, guess what? We are about an hour from Helsinki and we’re sitting in the restaurant writing this blog, there’s some excitement around us. Someone with binoculars just spotted a NATO submarine on the starboard side, yep, there it is ….wish it would come closer!!!

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Photos

Islands surrounding Stockholm
58 miles of passage through these islands to Stockholm.

Comments

[Sandy]

Happy 4th!
Admiring your stamina. My multi-cultural experience today will be dinner at Julio's with a friend! Elaine, Steve and Ben visiting Linda this holiday. Continued safe and fun travels. Love, Sandy