Stockholm - Day 4

Our flight wasn't until 20:00 and as we had to be out of the apartment by 11:00 I'd found a place online which would store our luggage for the day and was literally in the next street to us - so much better than dragging cases around with us.  

Having dropped the cases off our plan was to go back to the Royal Palace and watch the Friday Changing of the Guard Ceremony which luckily was advertised as a mounted one.

In front of Parliament House is this sculpture entitled The Sun Singer which depicts Apollo singing to the sun and was the subject of a 20th century poem.  To me it just looks like an exhibitionist waving his bits around and shouting "wahay, look at me"

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Or maybe it should be called You Can Leave Your Hat On!

There are Pétanque games going on either side of the water feature.

We had almost an hour to wait for the procession as due to the upcoming event the usual route was blocked.  We found ourselves a good spot on some steps in front of the Palace so could see the lead.

Then raced back up to the outer courtyard where the actual ceremony takes place but unfortunately the place was already jam packed with people and we were only able to squeeze in and get mostly rear views.

They were so funny when they suddenly broke into a high step run, bayonets at the ready.

Only to turn round and run back again.

The whole thing lasted almost an hour and although we didn't really know what was going on, it was interesting to watch and the marching music nice to listen to.  

This young lady's parents were there watching and told us how proud they were of her.

We wandered around a little more killing time really as there wasn't a great deal left we wanted to see and the weather wasn't at its best.

Around 16:00 we headed back to Gamla Stan to retrieve our cases and then made the return journey via Flixbus to the airport and home.  I'm pleased to have visited Stockholm as it's been on the radar for a few years, but I have to admit it wasn't one of the most interesting cities we've been to.

Stockholm - Day 3

To be honest, Stockholm isn't one of the most exciting cities we've been to and the route for the bus and boats are pretty uninteresting, so today we decided to go to the Skansen Open Air Museum on neighbouring Djugarden.  It is the world's oldest open air museum and showcases the whole of Sweden with houses and farmsteads from every part of the country.  We visited something similar in the outskirts of Bucharest a few years ago and thoroughly enjoyed it, so fingers crossed.

We decided to walk instead of messing around with the bus as the museum was near the end of the route.

The domed roof of Fersen Palace which now houses a bank.

This horse sculpture was totally unprotected on a building site.

Monument to John Ericsson who apparently invented the ship screw propeller.

These next few pictures are pretty much the same as I took from the bus yesterday.

This is the Nordic Museum which I didn't get a shot of before.

Villa Lusthusporten, a historic 19th-century merchant's house.

The museum covered a large area and we decided to start at the top and work downwards, so paid extra to use the funicular - no idea why I didn't take any pictures.  Anyway we started off with wooden structures.

This poor lady was being chased and terrorised by the peacock; every time she tried to move the pushchair he went to attack her.  I explained to her that he was seeing his reflection (straight where it's looking now) and thinking it was a rival.  We eventually managed to shoo him away so she could recover the pushchair.

Walking through a thickly wooded area we saw this beautiful Great Grey Owl which is the world's largest by length with females averaging 28" and males 26".  Apparently it's commonly known as The Phantom of the North.

I wish I could have got a head on shot but there were too many branches in the way.  Still I'm absolutely thrilled we got to see it at all.

An 18th century farmstead.

And windmill.

Skogaholm Manor

And the kitchen (in a separate building on the right so can't help thinking the food would have got cold before it arrived at the big house's table.

An apothecary store.

Seglora Church, unfortunately closed.

There were a lot more buildings to visit, including a glass blowers, but I don't seem to have taken any other photos.  Inside quite a few were staff in costume giving very informative talks about the times and the buildings and one fact which has stayed with me is that people weren't necessarily a lot shorter in the old days as we'd assumed from the length of the beds.  It was that many people had TB, or consumption as it was known then, and so generally slept upright rather than lying down flat as they coughed less.

We spent an interesting few hours there before heading back to pick up the boat which would drop us quite near our apartment.  Passing the amusement park on the way you can see the various tortuous rides.

This one looked particular horrible, you literally hurtle towards the ground from a great height.

This looked good against the dramatic sky.

And there we were back to Gamla Stan

For our last meal here we found a lovely pizza restaurant a couple of streets down from the main drag and run by a husband and wife couple.  I had what was probably one of the best pizza ever plus a very reasonable wine and it only came to around £35 - result!