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.
An 18th century farmstead.
And windmill.
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 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!