Scandinavia Day 17 Lake Siljan to Stockholm

Day 17 was another travel/stop and visit things day.  We started at Lake Siljan, stopped at Sweden's longest pier, visited a medieval copper mine, some Viking burial mounds, Uppsala University and finally ended in Stockholm.  All in all another pretty good day.

We had a good breakfast in our apartment before packing up to leave Lake Siljan

On the way out we stopped at Rattvik to talk the longest pier in Sweden.  It was over .6 km!

Lincoln rode when he got tired

 View from the pier

At the end of the dock there was this strange sauna/art exhibit

View of the walk back

Lincoln got the play on the dala horse themed playground while I shopped and got some tourist info

Then it was about an hour drive.  The scenery was great!

Next stop is a very old copper mine. It was an underground mine that became a pit mine when it collapsed almost 500 years ago

It is the source of the red paint for all the houses in Dalarna 

The museum we didn't have time to go see

We had picnic lunch at the playground near the mine

On the way out we stopped for coffee and of course Lincoln's pink drink

On the way out of town it rained super hard.  Like we could barely keep going.  Thankfully it didn't rain that hard for long

Next stop was the 6th century and viking burial grounds just outside of Uppsala

This is a 12th century church built on top of a pagen site

Old tryptic

Original baptism font

Ruin stone outside the church

We walked around the mounds, but our visit got cut a little short because rain was coming again

Pretty fields around the mounds

Lincoln finally let us take his picture.  We then raced to the car and made it just before it started to rain

The final stop before getting to Stockholm was Uppsala to see the University including the library, Linneaus garden and the Cathedral.  We quickly walked through the botanical garden to try to avoid the next round of rain

Sadly the library was closed when we got there

The Uppsala cathedral where lots of important Sweeds are burried

Including Linneus

Common mary statue

The beautiful ceiling

The place was huge.  We took a ton of pictures while we wondered around and waited for the rain to let up a little

The cathedral and University on our walk to the gardens

Old iron bridge

Linnaeus's garden 

There was an annual side and perennial side 

Lincoln loved getting in and smelling the flowers

Pretty delphiniums

Linneus and the museum (which was closed by the time we got there)

Look at the botanical gardens on the quick walk back to avoid getting a parking ticket

We stopped for gas in Stockholm is this gas station built into the side of a building

The rental car return went ok, but we had to lug the broken suitcase a few blocks

Our room on the top floor was pretty neat

We couldn't find an open non expensive restaurant so we ate in the hotel.  Which was still pretty expensive and not super great.  But at least it was food

After dinner we walked around for just a few minutes to see Stockholm before the rain in the morning

Cool buildings by the train station

For some reason the street our hotel was on had all these pink birds hanging over the street

Then we put Lincoln to sleep and stayed up way to late trying to make a plan for the next day that allowed us to see things, but avoid the predicted rain as much as possible.

Scandinavia Day 18 Stockholm

Day 18 was a busy day sightseeing in Stockholm while dodging rain.  We saw city hall, the nobel museum, the stockholm cathedral, went on a short cruise, and Skansen.  A very busy but fun day

We had a very good breakfast in our hotel.  Lots of options, even Lincoln found things he liked

We had a brisk walk over to city hall to catch the 9 am tour and avoid the rain

City hall courtyard we got there just as it started to rain

The blue room, which was never painted blue.  This is where the Nobel banquets are held

Where the 100 members of the city council actually meet.  The ceiling is supposed to be like a viking ship

The gold room, there is actually a bunch of gold plating on the walls

Closeup of the queen of the lake

Next we went to climb the tour shown

There was a cool little exhibit on some of the art in city hall

The first walk up looked like this

Then we reached the wooden stairs

And finally the top with great views all around

Family photo

Old town (which the entire town used to fit on this island)

The bells at the top

On the way down Lincoln wanted to crawl into every window to look out

View of old town from the bottom.  At this point it started raining

Rainy walk through old town to the Nobel museum

Nobel museum 

They had artifacts from lots of nobel prize winners

Then we walked over to see the changing of the guard at the palace in the rain

Lincoln was having a great time dancing to the marching music in the rain

Next stop was a coffee shop for lunch

We had some pretty delicious sandwiches

After lunch it was raining less so we walked over to see the Stockholm cathedral

I think this is where some relic is?

Lots of important old tombs

The queens' booth.  This is also where royal weddings are

Then we walked over to catch a 50 min boat tour of the harbor.  On the way we learned Stockholm also has those stupid bus/boat things

Our comfortable boat

View of stockholm

This is where the rich people lived at the turn of the century

After the boat tour we had a 20 min walk over to an island to see the Vasa museum and Skansen.  The Vasa is this incredible boat that sank in the harbor 20 min after it took off.  It was from the 1600's and they raised it I think in the 60's.

Lots of intricate carving in the back

Gustavus Adolphus family seal

Lincoln had a bit of a meltdown in the museum so we didn't spend too much time there before we were on to Skansen which was a perfect stop for Lincoln

We took the funicular to the top of the hill

First stop was the children's petting zoo.  

Then we walked around and saw the Nordic animals including some moose

And reindeer who had a lovely view back to old town

Sadly we didn't have much time to explore all the building from all over Sweden.  We did stop in this church just as the sun finally came out

And this bell tower

On the way out we stopped at the aquiarium/zoo.  Lincoln loved playing with the fake alligator

And of course he loved the fish

Then it was time for another walk to dinner.  This was a park dedicated to another King Gustavus (the 4th maybe?).  He liked gardening

We got to walk through the gates that used to mark the King's hunting ground

Lots of cool buildings on the way to dinner.

When we made it to dinner they were almost out of food.  We had one of every dish that was left and it was all good

We stopped for gelato.  Also at the same place as this other american family that was next to us at dinner

View of one of the main squares as we walked back

We pretty much went straight to bed as we were exhausted from getting to nearly 30000 steps.  We did have to deal with the fact that amazon didn't deliver my suitcase as planned.  I guess I will be lugging around a 2 week suitcase and hopefully amazon will refund our money.  Tomorrow we have half a day to finish sightseeing in Stockholm and then on to Norway!