D12 Wednesday 28 August

We slept in a bit as I didn’t set the alarm last night due to staying up later than normal trying to catch up on blogs. Accordingly I missed the sunrise, however last nights spectacular show will remain as a lasting special memory.

What we did see out our window was that the boat was well and truely in the Archipelago by 7:30am. The sea was like glass still and green tree covered islands were all around us. Some had holiday homes in bright colours or white, most with jetties, and others were uninhabited. The Baltic is still a dirty green sadly, and it seems so wrong to see it in this state. I did a bit of research and due to its positioning of being quite protected, being shallow and freezing over in winter, it does not get a chance to refresh from the surrounding countries with 90 million inhabitants. Industrial and general pollution is the culprit, and the nations are trying to do something about it. The main entry to the wider and deeper sea is near Denmark and apparently it takes 25-30 years for the water to be able to refresh itself fully. Poor nature is on the back foot here in being able to restore herself.

The sun was out in force and promising an out of the box hot day for Stockholm of 26-27 degrees. We found out later that they have really not had much of a summer and this is very unusual albeit appreciated for this time of year. We must have brought the good weather with us!

Arrival time was 10:15am so it was a quick shower in our compact but efficient water room and after a quick peek on the sundeck to take in the absolutely beautiful view we enjoyed a very good breakfast in the grill bar. I announced to Vern that after my overdose on seafood last night that I would give that a break this morning. My words were short lived when I saw the caviar and smoked roe…. Ah well when in Rome eat as the Romans.

The fish on offer has progressed to gravlax salmon with generous dill sprinkles and along with the caviar, sour cream and onions, smoked roe spread, and beetroot and mustard herrings verses the plainer ones in Russia and Estonia.

On top of my caviar, I had gravlax, pickled sweet herring and smoked roe spread. There was also the lovely rice bread and next to it ‘egg butter’ (hard boiled egg mashed and whipped with butter and lightly seasoned). I tried some of that on top of the bread and it went very well. Also a thin bread with a cabbage filling like we had in Russia which was also tasty. Another addition is the toast Skagen which is basically shrimp in mayonnaise which they love to eat here with boiled egg and salmon. Groan.

After breakfast and some good coffee and cream to fortify us for the day we went back up and enjoyed the archipelago some more. Simple as it may appear, gliding quietly through multiple little islands on such a perfect morning was just magic. Almost as good as the sunset last night but that was really a surreal experience.

Back in the cabin to get ready for disembarking Lili video phoned in so it was awesome to chat with her and show her some of the view real time! Got to love the technology – she has seen some great places from mountain tops to lakes chatting to us whilst we have been on holiday.

The ferry trip/s has been a real highlight for us and like the trip over, I could have stayed on board longer and settled right into cruising mode. Clean, modern, comfortable and efficient – also space away from city noise, air and people. It’s interesting to note that despite there being hundreds of people on these ferries (and cruise ships) we have been on, we have never encountered a lot of crowding.

The port is undergoing a big renovation and development and is huge, clean and modern. There were 4 other big ferry in – the cruise ships actually dock somewhere else closer to the city. We got some local currency from an atm and followed the crowd in the general direction of the metro which is about a 10 minute walk. (The tally for steps today is 20,425 by the way). We found the metro and got a ticket which was a direct line and only a 10 minute ride to our historic quarter – and island of Gamla Stan.

We popped out of the metro and found a map which gave us the general direction of our hotel along with our paperwork and set off through the town delighting at its historic charm. Tall yellow, mustard and pale orange buildings lined the cobbled streets that were killing our bag wheels, and giving our flat feet a workout. Decorative doors of merchant houses with typical wooden cellar doors at the base and hooks for hoisting at the tops. We learnt later on our self guided RS tour that plaques with a phoenix above the doors indicated whether they had fire insurance so the fire brigade would know whether to put it out or not!

Our hotel is a nice renovated property covering three buildings with the earliest dating back to the 1600’s. It is on the waterfront, but our ‘cheaper’ room is at the side so that is fine, as it is also a bit quieter facing a lane into the old quarters than the waterfront. We settled in, had another fuller shower than our shower box allowed to wash off the dust and sweat from hauling our bags from the ship to metro to hotel, then headed out for lunch after selecting a cheap eats out of Rick Steves book.

Sweden is very very expensive and we chose a well rated vegetarian restaurant buffet for 140 kroner – about NZ$ 22 each. It was really delicious and regrettably I ate far too much and the beans etc made me a bit bloated, even though I felt nice and healthy for getting a good feed of vegetables. There was a beautiful yellow lentil soup with fresh tarragon – which made it green. Then a vegetable and chickpea stew in a rich tomato and capsicum sauce, spicy whole baby roast potatoes in their jackets, brown rice and cold dishes such as cucumber in dill and cream, babaganoush, hummus, jalapeño, and a delicious kohlrabi and cabbage slaw. A very good hand made herb, seed bread with carrots in it that Vern went back 3 times for…. The spices were amazing – not Indian food maybe Turkish or other around the Mediterranean

Groaning and wishing I didn’t have the second bowl of soup we headed towards modern central town across the bridge to find a SIM card for our iPad before doing the Rick Steves tour of old town. Easier said than done – about an hour wasted trying to find a telecommunications shop, which we were unsuccessful despite asking three different people. I did however, buy a bottle of multivitamins which I forgot to pack and that wait for it – cost me $18 from the chemist. The nice chemist did explain that there used to be provider shops like we were looking for but he didnt know where they were now – people just bought phones from electrical store. Another information person at the train station actually gave us a spare sim out of his wallet – very kind but it didnt fit our iPad. People here just buy boost top ups and he had suggested we could do that.

The city is modern, a lot of construction going on and a few older buildings. Lots of mixed ethnicity of people around – you can see a lot of refugee type immigrants and very few of what might be considered typical Swedish looking people. The Finns were more Finnish looking and more attractive in general from what we saw just walking around. Whilst not dirty per sea the city was not as clean as I expected or attractive. Again Helsinki city centre is a lot nicer than Stockholm. Stockholm is a lot busier and crowded too. We bought a small – 300ml water from a convenience store $5 – eeek and headed back to old town grumbling still at the waste of time for something as simple as a SIM when 80% of the population are glued to their mobile devices!

Our feet and legs were feeling the heat and work of navigating the uneven and large cobbles but we just kept swimming (Nemo) putting one foot in front of the other and did our self guided tour through Gamla Stan. The Royal Palace is at the city end of it and is a large not so attractive building with a series of museums you can pay to visit. We had planned to go to the treasury and see ceremonial clothes, carriages and bling, but feel we had a good dose of that in Russia so will give it a miss.

Along with the lovely old town buildings, I loved the little 6cm high statue of a boy and the massive ornate St George slaying the dragon. I have a fascination for doors too, and it was a delight to see the different doors along the street – clearly making important statements about the owners. The old town square is not huge, but is very quaint and cosy with very pretty buildings surrounding. It was also a place of massacre where the streets ran red with blood… there are ghost tours (of course) around at night.

We paused for a wee rest at the square to look inside a cafe with typical painted ceilings. So as not to be too rude we bought one of their specialty marzipan cakes called Princess, and another water as we needed the fluid. The cake was truely superb – a thin layer of marzipan covering an airy and moist sponge type roll filled with more fresh almonds, jam and cream. $13 for the both. We pressed on finishing the tour and then returned to the hotel to lie down for a bit and put our feet up before heading out late for a very light dinner.

We choose a very well rated and reasonably priceD place called the Hairy Pig, which specialised in hand made sausages and pork dishes. We had a pork sausage in a roll with a small salad, Reindeer croquettes, and pulled pork pancake with lingon berries. It was nice, tasty and only cost $70 LOL. Yep that is a cheap eat. Comparatively it was actually very good quality and value for what else we saw on other diners plates. We did go to a small supermarket to do a picnic dinner but it was sold out of anything we could have put together. Maybe we will find one in the city tomorrow.