Stockholm, Sweden

A weekend in Stockholm....

There are not necessarily any "must do" activities or "must see" sights in Stockholm (which is sort of why we chose it). Just a really lovely city made up of islands with very friendly people.

It was quite a simple weekend away and we had a great time. On the first day, we got some oversized bikes from our hotel and rode around the city...

There was a great museum with an original square rig ship - The Vasa. It was raised from the bottom of the harbour only a few years ago, after being submerged for over 300 years! On the day it was first launched (back in the 17th Century) it only sailed for 20mins before water rushed into the lower gun deck on port tack and it sunk. It was a massive boat - to give you an idea of scale, you can see a person down on the ground floor with a red shirt on.

We visited a place called Skansen - basically a restored Scandinavian village. There were all sorts of things there, including a moose! (I'm not sure his name was Bulwinkle, but he was very tame!)

...there was a group of small shops, including a glass blower, a baker and a potter...

Gamla Stan (The Old Town) was on a small island in the middle of Stockholm. This is where Stockholm was first founded - covered in small laneways and interesting little shops.

...don't worry, he isn't a real viking!

On our second day we caught a ferry out to one of the more remote islands in the archipelago - it was like going back in time.

This was one of the small harbours on the island - it was beautiful and very peaceful.

Navigation was quite complicated, even though the circumference of this island was probably only 500m!

We found a nice restaurant on the water for lunch and had some local smoked salmon.

Saturday night was just fantastic and probably the highlight of the weekend. After getting a bit lost looking for our restaurant, we stumbled across the Glenn Miller Cafe where a live Jazz gig was just about to start. We watched the first set and were hooked, so we stayed for two more sets, a few drinks and a simple dinner - it was great and the music was phenomenal! Just a pianist and a solo singer, in a very small and intimate setting.