Blogs from Stockholm, Stockholm County, Sweden, Europe - page 6

Up early today and tried transit for the first time. The bus stop is 50m from our house and we took the bus to the Fruangen metro station with some help from a very helpful neighbour who it turns out has twice visited London, Ontario (where we went to Uni). From there we took the metro to central Stockholm. It was very easy, clean and fast. Arriving in the city, we found a shop to pick up a bit more Sweden swag including a snow globe for Rachel's collection! Check! Then we found our way to the ticket booth where we were to catch the Panorama Bus Tour. This was a double decker bus tour that took us all over Stockholm. There were some areas we had already cycled and some areas that were new to ... read more

What a fabulous and exhausting day! After some rearranging of the bikes (there are about 8 bikes to choose from), I chose a different bike today which has no basket but more gears, bigger tires and a smaller seat. It was a better choice! Rachel also swapped hers for a bigger bike (her last one was just too small) and her new one has a basket. She likes her new one better too so I think we now have the bikes sorted. Nigel also felt more confident with the bike trails. So, we headed off and the trail route we took was great. The bike network here is comparable to what we experienced in the Netherlands. One difference is that the lights for the bike trails in Netherlands were actually little bikes that lit up red, ... read more

I awoke this morning as we were cruising through the archipelago on our approach to Stockholm. I looked out of our window and thought I could be in Muskoka or the Thousand Islands…..many small rocky islands with single cottages perched on rocky outcrops. We sat out on the balcony and had our coffee. Stockholm is much larger than Helsinki and we had decided to do the Hop On/Hop Off bus and it worked out fine to get us around Stockholm which is quite spread out across multiple islands. We started off with a trip through the town and got off at the VASA Museum which houses a massive intact 17thcentury wooden war ship. The ship, intended as a propaganda showpiece proclaiming the strength of the at the time, current ruler, sank within the first 20 minutes ... read more

We flew to Stockholm from Oakland on Norwegian Airlines. We bought our tickets on sale when Norwegian announced they going to start flying out of Oakland. We were surprised to find our seats were like business class. There was lots of leg room and the seats reclined with a foot rest, we had individual tv sets and free wine, beer and after dinner drinks. This was looking to be a great flight. When the lights were dimmed and we started to nod off a toddler a few rows back started screaming. She continued screaming for about three hours. So much for our great flight. We arrived in Stockholm and got through customs in record speed. After collecting our bags we took the elevator down to the Express Train into central Stockholm. We could have purchased our ... read more

First stop the Vasa Museum. On 10 August 1628, Vasa set sail on her maiden voyage and sailed about 1,000 metres then sunk in Stockholm harbour. The wreck was salvaged in 1961 after 333 years under the sea. The reconstructed vessel, 98 percent original is adorned with hundreds of carved sculpture. It is a great exhibition and is a forerunner in conservation processes for wooden ships. From here a short walk to the Museum Ships were we were able to explore the lightship Finngrundet and the icebreaker Sanit Erik. The lightship Fingrundet was built in 1903 and lay at anchor Finngrundet to warn seafarers of shallow banks out at sea. The ship was decommissioned in 1969 and has been a museum ship since 1970. The icebreaker Sankit Erik was Sweden's first sea icebreaker built at Finngrundet ... read more