Ninth Post From Türkiye: Sweden

The first two weeks in October we took a little trip to and around Scandinavia. It was fun, beautiful, expensive, interesting, exciting & exhausting. We had a great time! So, as to not create the world's longest post, I am going to break it up into 3 posts, one for each country we visited. First off, we visited SWEDEN.

 (I have spent the last hour watching ABBA videos on youtube to prepare myself to write about Sweden. I think I am ready.)

We flew into Copenhagen, rented a car and drove into Sweden.

Right away Sweden was full of delights!

 We stopped for snacks and discovered that even the gas stations in Sweden are charming!

FINALLY! Lemon Fanta! It is my all time fav and I haven't been able to find it in Turkey.(You know they use actual juice to flavor their Fanta on this side of the Atlantic? You can pretend you are being healthy when you drink it!)

As we drove along, I just kept thinking, I could take a picture of that & that & that....everything was so picturesque. I finally did make Jack stop so I could take this picture.

Our first stop was on the Island of Öland. There are all of these old windmills scattered all over the Island and we stopped at an Iron-age graveyard with stone circles.

Next we headed into Kalmar. It was getting dark but we still toured around at the castle.

The next morning we wandered around the old town. I was taking pictures of this street and people were staring at me like I was a weirdo. I guess when you are surrounded by quaint streets like this everyday of your life you think it's weird to take pictures of it.

From Kalmar we headed to Stockholm.

We toured Stockhom City Hall.  

 Mosaic Mural (with real gold in the tiles) letting all visitors & natives know that Stockholm is the center of the world (I thought it was Idaho, until I saw this).

This is the hall where they hold the Nobel Prize banquet.

Then we headed out for a walking tour of the city.

Royal Palace

 

Trum's favorite sign.

 

 Iron Boy statue. 

Rune stone and cannon.

I like that my ZERO TOLERANCE stance is made clear in this photo.

 

Then we headed inside to tour the Royal Armory.

It had some truly terrific exhibits. We, of course, only took pictures of the dress-up section.

Wizard's Robes

 

More walking/touring around.

For day two we headed out, fortified with cinnamon rolls, to visit the Church of St. Nicholas to see the statue of Saint George.

Then we took the ferry to Skansen. Skansen is an open air museum and zoo. There are a lot of traditional buildings that have been moved to the island from all over Sweden. And you can see people dong traditional crafts like baking, glass blowing, pottery and what-not. We also had some Swedish meatballs for lunch!

Wow! Look at that, a picture of Jack with a normal face!

Why do I allow myself to be talked into this nonsense? I look ridiculous, and that horse was wet so I had wet pants afterwards!

  

Then we headed over the The Vasa Museum.

The warship Vasa sank on her maiden voyage in Stockholm 1628 and was salvaged in 1961. It was almost perfectly preserved underwater that whole time. The museum was great, so interesting and lots of interactive exhibits.

Replica of what it would have looked like, when it was built.

 

  

That evening we took the opportunity to go the the Temple. For sure, a highlight of Stockholm for us.

  The next day we drove on to Norway.

Here are some random pictures from around Sweden.

Unpleasant public art.

Museum Chickens

Possibly the most charming house in the world.

Enormous troll on top of a shopping center.

Abba Museum, that Jack did NOT let me tour.