Stockholm
We fell in love with Stockholm! I am sure summer is a perfect time to visit with the sun shining, breezes blowing, and the flowers in bloom. A winter visit might make me change my mind with piles of snow everywhere and about 5 hours of daylight (not sunshine, but daylight!). Stockholm is a bunch of islands/peninsulas that are surrounded by water. Cruise ships come right into downtown and dock so in the summer it’s full of tourists. The city has a great vibe to it with lots of cultural things to do, plenty of parks, great museums for adults and kids, and many historical sights.
One place we all loved was the Vasa Museum. It’s actually an embarrassing story for Sweden that they’ve turned into a national treasure. It took almost 2 years to build this impressive ship and on her maiden voyage in 1628, she sunk right off the harbor. In 1956, an explorer found the ship preserved in the water only 300 meters from where it sank (not sure they were really looking for it that hard!) and in 1961, the Vasa was recovered and work began to restore the ship to its former glory. For 17 years, they sprayed the ship with a chemical compound that replaces the water in waterlogged wood to prevent shrinkage and cracking. The museum opened in 1990. Their website is full of information if you want to learn more: http://www.vasamuseet.se/en/
While we were in Stockholm, we were also able to take a short boat ride through the archipelagos to another island and also visit a place called Junibracken (tribute to the author of the Pippi Longstocking series). We stayed with Swedish friends that we have met here in Belgium and were able to see two different parts of Stockholm through them as one lives in the country, and the other more of a suburb. Paul and I got time alone to explore the old town, Gamla Stan, and enjoyed drinking a beer on a floating bar/restaurant. Knowing that we have friends there, it’s a place I would love to revisit if possible. :)
Cruise
Our friends, the Diehl’s, suggested we all take a short 4 night Royal Caribbean cruise this summer leaving from Stockholm with ports in Tallinn, Estonia and St. Petersburg, Russia. It was a great vacation! The length of the cruise was perfect for our family, although the ports weren’t very interesting to the kids. A typical day was to get up and have breakfast from the buffet in the Windjammer. We’d then leave the ship for some sightseeing (took a Hop-on Hop-off bus around Tallinn and a walking tour around St. Petersburg), back to the ship for lunch and swimming. Nicholas and Jason would then spend some time at the climbing wall. They loved it there and were actually quite good at it. Then time to shower and change for dinner. Our wait staff was great with the kids and attentive to their needs. The kids also spent time in the kids’ club and one night stayed through dinner on a special pirate themed evening.
We had amazing weather with high’s in the 80’s and rarely a cloud in the sky, which we are so grateful for. Especially since St. Petersburg gets only 60 days of sunshine a year! (Clearly we won’t be moving there anytime soon!) One night the adults felt like kids again as we played BINGO after dinner with people two to four times our age. Brian and Danielle won $184 so it was well worth our $16 investment. :) One night Paul and Brian went out after the kids fell asleep and another night Danielle and I did the same. Summertime is known as the white nights because the sun doesn’t set until 11:30. It rises at 3:30, so we were very pleased to have interior rooms without windows! All in all, it was a great, relaxing vacation!
