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























