Sweden - The Road Trip (part 2)

We arrived in Stockholm late on Friday afternoon to meet up with Jon and Beatta. Marcus went to school with and lived with Jon's family for a year or so when he was young. We parked the husbil bedside his apartment block and thought it would be ok. A few hours later there was a 300 kronor fine attached to the windshield. Oh well. We stayed there for the night anyway. The next day we headed into the city. Stockholm is a confusing array of small islands... It's really hard to get your bearings, luckily we had guides (Jon and Beatta). We went to a lovely little coffee shop in the city and then onto a great lookout spot over the city.



As I really wanted to see some of the Swedish animals we all went to one of the largest open air musuems in Europe called Skansen. Fanatastic. We managed to see almost all of the animals. I was especially impressed with the size of Elk, I think I could comfortably walk upright under it and not touch it's belly! They are massive. We also saw the brown bears, wolves, deer and other random animals. There were also historical bulidings and we particularly like the painted horses.



After all that walking around we decided to head to the pub. Not just any pub, we headed into the gamla stan (old town) to find a particular pub. We met up with some more of Marcus' friends. The old town has wonderful cobblestone streets and ancient buildings. During a time of civil unrest the square was a place of a massive battle. There is even a cannonball lodged in one of the walls. I'm sorry I just had to put the speed bump sign in, please read... And then we left Stockholm, we will be back. many thanks to Jon and Beatta for their hospitality



To break up the drive back to Gothenberg and to make a visit on the way we stopped in Karlstad to visit Jonathon and his family. His beautiful family live out by the lake in absolutely stunning settings. We had dinner on the canal, and it was freezing, luckily restaurants provide blankets, another excellent idea. The sunset over the lake was spectacular, one of the best I've ever seen. Mind you when I say sunset it was 11:30pm and the sun doesn't really set, it just sort of hides for a few minutes and then comes back up. We only stayed for the night and then headed through the wildflower filled fields back to Gothenberg. And then we had to say goodbye to the beloved 'husbil'.