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Published: March 30th 2010
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Stockholm #1
As you can see, the sun is out, but nowhere near enough to melt the ice! So the first trip of the decade and since my self imposed break to earn some money after my South American odyssey, it has been my longest break without a holiday since 2006! And to add to the torture, we weren't leaving chilly London for warmer climes, purely the opposite as he flew up north to freezing Stockholm. We arrived and it was a balmy -3 degrees (balmy compared to what we experienced further on in the trip anyway). We traversed the icy streets and found our hostel and eventually managed to get inside where we dumped our stuff and headed out looking for dinner. We ended up finding a cheap burger place and as I went to order, my brain kicked in that they wouldn't understand English so I would have to revert to a foreign language, so what popped out? Spanish. A lot of help that is in Sweden. And despite Hannah laughing at me, my my natural reaction was still to respond with 'Si, si', even when the girl started speaking English. Thankfully, my food arrived despite this and we went back and crashed at the hostel.
For our first full day, we didn't have any huge
plans so we took advantage of the clear skies, rugged up and went out to explore the streets and with a back drop of snow and frozen seas, it made for a very pretty city. We spent several hours wandering around and taking photos before relaxing with a very expensive beer before we headed up to the cliffs overlooking Stockholm a little bit before sunset. We got some great photos before having a relaxed evening. Our luck with the weather held the following day as we went and explored the indoor touristy sites like the Royal Palace, which was pretty cool, and then headed out to one of the islands to see the Vasa Museum, which houses a huge boat built circa 400 years ago. The King wanted it in a hurry and it wasn't built correctly and after a lot of money, time and fanfare, it sank 30 minutes into it's first departure and lay on the harbour floor for 350 years before it was rediscovered and pulled back up to be housed in a museum.
We signed off Stockholm with another expensive beer before a very traditional meal at a Mongolian BBQ restaurant. Next stop was well
Walking on water
We all have our talents above the Arctic Circle in a small town called Kiruna, and as the photos show, from the time the plane landed, it was a white out. Our plan in Kiruna was to see the Northern Lights, but despite it not being the biggest town, there was still enough light pollution that we were unsuccessful here. After checking into our hostel, we booked in to go dog sledding that night. On the way out there, we were told that it was unlikely we would get a chance to see the Northern Lights due to the forecast, but the previous night had been one of the best of the year. Talk about rubbing it in! The dog sledding was great fun and I was glad I let Hannah go in front as I don't know what they feed those dogs, but they have mastered the art of running while pooing and the smell was horrendous. I'm glad I was wearing a balaclava and not for the cold! On the way back, we saw a temperature gauge that read -17 - a new record!
The following day we headed out of Kiruna to visit the Ice Hotel, which as the name suggests
is made completely out of ice. It is only open 6 months or so of the year, but it was pretty amazing as about half the rooms have been designed by artists and feature different themes such as Easter Island statues, the Ice Age movie and even one with a giant girl staring at the bed. If the cold hadn't dimmed your ardour, that certainly would! In the evening, we trekked just outside of town where they had a few ski slopes. We were pretty much the only tourists there, which worked out well as got the beginner and intermediate slopes to ourselves as we relearnt our skills since both of us hadn't been skiing or snowboarding for several years. In the end, it didn't take me long to pick it back up and I was soon carving down the slopes while throwing envious glances at the neighbouring slopes as locals who had grown up with skis attached to their feet were doing flips and other tricks off huge jumps!
Our original plan after Kiruna had been to head south and across into Finland, but since we had yet to see the Northern Lights, our main reason for coming
Stockholm #4
From the cliffs overlooking the main city up here, we decided to fork out more money and risk it for one more night in the supposed best place in the world to see the Northern Lights, Abisko. The train journey itself was breathtaking as we had amazing views over frozen lakes and surrounding moutains backed by crisp clear blue skies. We slipped and slided our way to the hostel before a trek to the solitary food store and some dinner as we waited for darkness to descend. Then we headed to the Sky Station, where we added a further layer to make ourselves look even further like Michellin Men and setting in for the half hour chairlift ride to the top of the mountain.
Up top, it wasn't as packed as I imagined it would be and there were only maybe 20 other people there, most who wouldn't brave the cold for long periods of time as well. I don't understand why, it was probably only -25 with wind chill after all..... To begin with, we got glimpses of the lights flitting over the horizon as there was a bit of cloud cover, but as the night wore on (and people left!?!), the clouds receded and
Stockholm #5
From the cliffs overlooking the main city we were treated to an incredible aurora borealis showing. I took a lot of photos and although they came out rather well for my camera, they in no way compare to being there and experiencing the real thing. Luckily, there was an English guy there with a proper camera who got some amazing shots, including one of Hannah and I with the lights in the background. Hopefully I will add it when he sends it through. Otherwise see my photos on page 2 of the photos.
According to the guide we were very lucky for a few reasons, one for the perfect weather to see the show, two for the fact that the lights not only glowed green but red as well, and three because it is very rare that the lights show is as large as it was for us. As it approached midnight (when we had to leave because the chairlift was closing), the show just continued to get even more impressive and it spread right across the sky. You couldn't wipe the grins from our face as we walked back to the hostel, and we even got a bit of a show from our hostel window
Stockholm #6
From the cliffs overlooking the main city over the frozen lake as well. Definitely one of my top travel highlights. Probably just second to Machu Pichu.
The next day, we started to get out itiniery back on track and we accidentally saved a bit of money as well as we caught a day long train down to Lulea for free. Well if they didn't ask for our tickets, I wasn't going to offer! Then after waiting around for over an hour in the falling snow our bus arrived and we made our way to Haparanda on the Finnish border where we stayed the night.
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Eric
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I enjoyed your Sweden post. It reminded me of my time there. My blog is looking for some good travel photos. If you have time check us out at dirty-hippies.blogspot.com Continued fun on your travels, Eric