Stockholm and home

My, how time flies! One minute we’re on the train to the airport, the next we’ve been home for four days! Anyway, for the sake of completeness here’s the last footprint that I drafted earlier.

What an exciting, many-faceted city Stockholm proved to be!

We’ve just spent three days admiring historic buildings and winding cobblestoned streets, looking into a couple out of a huge selection of museums and sailing out to the Stockholm archipelago for a look around a quiet and scenic outpost of the city.

Gamla Stan is the island that contains most of the old stuff, as well as the comparatively modern Royal Palace, with its ceremonial trooping of the guards around the square, and hoards of tourists (not us) disappearing inside for various tours.

It’s also souvenir central, should you need a fluffy reindeer or snow dome.

Many of the museums are on another island - Djurgarden. On a damp day we walked there - the trams being temporarily out of action - and found both culture and technology.

The ABBA Museum gave a good insight into the lives of the band members before, during and after their reign at the top. It was also, like their records, slickly commercial, with crowds in every room juggling their audio guides and cameras and jostling for some clear space.

And life for the band members after ABBA? Well, Bjorn did Mama Mia and dabbled in real estate, but who knew that Benny is Sweden’s very own Red Wiggle? The Benny Anderson Orchestra plays regular gigs and has a few recordings to its credit as well.

We then got wet walking to the Vasa Museum, the giant building housing the poorly designed ship that sank in Stockholm Harbour in 1628 and was raised in 1961, remarkably intact.

It’s a huge object, and remarkably well-preserved for its 450-plus years. And, ironically, if it had been seaworthy, we wouldn’t have the opportunity to look at it today.

Our last expedition was out to Waxholm, an hour and a quarter on the ferry from the city.

It was a quiet, peaceful spot, and we visited on a beautiful sunny day, timing the return trip perfectly so that we not only had time for a drink before we sailed but our returning vessel was a vintage steamer, built in 1908. It was very stylish, all polished wood (and heat from the boiler), and a perfect last memory for our visit.

And that’s that.

We’re now - hopefully - back home enjoying a newly-renovated house and the closeness of our family, but the fun we had with our friends and the stunning places we saw over the last six weeks will be long in our memories.Read more