Day 54 Visby, Sweden

Before I talk about today's destination I wanted to show you a photograph that I took as we left Stockholm  yesterday and sailed through the Stockholm Archipelago back into the Baltic Sea.  It is a gorgeous evening as we cruise through the 24,000 islands with hardly a breath of wind and the ship leaves artistic waves in its wake. Perfection.

Visby is on the Swedish island of Gotland.  Gotland covers an area of 3160 sq km, a population of 58,000 and a coastline of 800sq kms.  It is not always a destination that cruise ships arrive at cruise ship but Philips guide said that they were trying to build the tourism industry on the island.  Once again Philip and I went separate ways for our tours.  Philip did, you guessed it, yet another bike ride and I did an historical train ride.  Philips tour left in the morning and mine was one of the last in the afternoon.  Tours are always on a strict deadline and today we departed our tour almost half an hour later than scheduled.  Two ladies were on the wrong tour and it took ages to track them down and relocate them.  Stupid women, but also stupid tour guides who weren't checking the tickets properly as people boarded the buses.  Consequently our tour was very rushed.  

Philips was much more leisurely and he thoroughly enjoyed it.  His bike ride took them first to the old town with its heritage listed 3.4km wall that protected the town in medieval times, then the botanic gardens and then inland to Högklint and lastly to Fridhem for coffee - a bike riders tradition.  Here are some of his photos

This photo is from the UNESCO world heritage website. 

My tour was not nearly as picturesque as Philips but I was trying to avoid another ABC tour.  As it turns out I still couldn't avoid a church.  Our bus drove inland to Dalhem where we boarded the train.  The train journey is only 5km long but took us 45 mins.  

After our short train trip we are back on the bus and heading to the well preserved 13th century Anga Church.  Inside, the walls of the church are lined with medieval murals.  Gotland is nickname the island of a 100 churches.

Next on the agenda is the tiny little hamlet of Gnisvärd.  We are shown inside one of the tiny fishing huts.  Watch your head as the ceilings are very low.  These little huts were only used seasonally and fitted out with only the basic items.

The one thing that I was very interested in seeing we only got to see from the bus window as we didn't have enough time to leave the bus!  This is the stone ship burial site where important people were cremated and the ashes spread over the stone ship ground.  This site is believed to be dated around 1100 to 400 BC.

We arrived back at the pier with minutes to spare.  Our guide did ask for an extension of time but the captain was very adamant that all tours should be back in time.  Once we were on board - the last tour - our ship set sail.

 

Day 53 Stockholm, Sweden

Talk about four seasons in a day, we certainly had them today! Sunshine, Cloud, Rain, Wind and then Sunshine again.

This is our second day in Stockholm and today we visited the City Hall and Steig Larsson's Stockholm.  First was the city hall.  A competition was held to choose the person who would design the city hall and the winner was Ragnar Östberg. Construction commenced in 1907 and was completed in 1923 using 8 million red bricks.  The City Hall is notable for the Nobel Prize Banquet held after the awards.

We enter the large courtyard and to our left we find the entrance and walk straight ahead into the Blue Hall that is the banquet hall.  The kitchen is two floors above this hall.  Pity the waiters and waitresses who have to walk up and down all those stairs!

The next room we enter on the first floor is the Golden Hall.  The walls of the entire hall are covered in tiny little mosaics, 18 million of them.  The artwork depicts Swedish history and is a masterpiece.

After our walk our guide suggests we take some free time to wander the waterfront garden area that is also impressive.

Our bus arrives to drive us to the island of Sodermalm where Stieg Larsson lived and gained the inspiration for his Millennium Trilogy.  The three books are Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl who played with Fire and The Girl in the Spiders Web. Millennium is a series of crime novels written by Larsson who unfortunately died before the books were published.  I won't bore you with details about the places we visited on our hour and half walk because unless you have read the books they wouldn't mean anything to you.  Of course the books are a work of fiction but it is known that the places Steig mentions in his novels are taken from real life places with name changes. All I will say is the two main characters are Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist.  Millenium has also been adapted to screen.  

We are now back onboard the ship and sailing towards Visby, another Swedish town.  I took this photo shortly after we left the dock.  This is definitely the newer and posher end of Stockholm and look at that sky.  Five minutes after the photo was taken, you guessed it, it was raining…...

Day 52 Stockholm, Sweden

 To reach Stockholm we have to travel around 80 kilometres west from the Baltic Sea into the Stockholm Archipelago. Our captain does a great job sailing between the 30,000 islands that make up the Archipelago.  

Stockholm is not a single land based city but rather it is spread out over 14 islands that are all connected by a system of bridges.  The smallest island contains just one building. During World War 2, Sweden was a neutral country and allowed the German troops to cross their country.  However they also aided the allies by accepting refugees from Norway and Denmark.  Because of their neutrality the old town of Stockholm was not bombed to obliteration in WW2 like we saw in other Baltic nations but remained untouched. 

We chose today's tour because it included a visit to the Ice Bar - the first in the world built in 2002.  Each year the bar is re-built using a different theme.  It takes 40 tonnes of ice, taken from the Torne river. Every part of the Ice Bar is made from ice including the seats and even the glasses are made from ice.  We are given insulated poncho's and gloves to wear inside and they are definitely needed.  A vodka cocktail is provided to us as we enter but it's hard to drink from the square ice glass.  The room is quite small - much smaller than we envisaged - and nobody stayed in the bar very long, just long enough to down our drink.

From the Ice Bar we move into the old town for a guided walk.  It is quite interesting, but a lot of these towns are beginning to look the same but there is always something a little unique, like this small street that is just 90cm wide.

We start in the old town centre where the royal palace dominates.  The royal family does not live in this palace but rather another palace outside Stockholm.  The guards, however, still watch over the building.

As we wander around the old town I've fallen just a little bit in love with it.  Most of the buildings are around four stories and have lovely colourful facades.  We also wander into some small courtyards that look very cosy.

We walk for around an hour before heading back to the ship.  Stockholm is a very green town at this time of the year but our guide tells us it is like a wonderland in winter with snow covering all the surfaces.  We pass by many street stalls that are selling fresh produce or flowers.  

We didn't arrive into Stockholm until 1.00pm and our tour finished around 5.30pm so it was a quick shower and change of clothes as Philip had made us a dinner reservation to celebrate my birthday.  We had cocktails in the bar outside the restaurant and we had just finished them when the butler arrived at my side to escort me to the restaurant.  The butlers always do this.  I was surprised though when we were seated at a table for 6 people and was just about to complain to the Maitre'D when four of our friends walked in.  I was gobsmacked that Philip (with help from the butler) had organised a surprise birthday party!  It was a wonderful night that I will always remember.  But what I was really impressed with is that Philip kept the whole thing a secret.  I had absolutely no idea!  If you remember, last night I had organised for the same friends to join us for sail-away cocktails in our suite.  Philip said that threw a spanner in the works, but our new friends did a very good job at not letting the cat out of the bag!

I love you my darling husband 💜

PS

The cleaner also had a surprise waiting when we got back to our suite.  There were four balloons on the bed originally but two had exploded before we arrived home from dinner.  The other two went off with very large bangs through the night!