Gorgeous Stockholm

After our first night in Stockholm, we wake to a beautiful, sunny morning, although the sunshine is deceiving, and the actual temperature feels bitterly cold as we exit the hotel for a day of exploring Stockholm.

We haven't planned any official tours for the next couple of days as we'll be boarding the ship tomorrow afternoon and have a full day of ship-organised tours booked in Stockholm the following day before we sail out at 6pm.

Instead we do as we always do and just set off on foot, with a vague plan to walk along the harbour esplanade towards the Djurgarden area - a route of about 13kms that would take us through an area of museums, embassies, a theme park and parkland on established walking tracks.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Djurg%C3%A5rden

Stockholm is proving to be all we hoped it would be and the walk is stunning, with wonderful views of the harbour and the many incredible homes lucky enough to be situated here...

Despite it being a sunny Saturday, albeit a cold one, the streets and walking tracks aren't as busy as we would have thought and, once we return to the city area, most of the shops are shut. This seems a bit weird but maybe it's just a Swedish thing to take it easy on a weekend and confine shopping hours to Monday to Friday and Saturday morning. Probably a good thing as the windows were full of lots of very gorgeous things I would have loved to purchase but Stockholm is not cheap and I would have needed to exercise extreme levels of self-control. However, it all does seem a bit odd, it's also odd that there are only a limited number of cafes and restaurants open. Whilst we would have liked to find something in keeping with our locale, we were just too hungry to conduct a wide search and, instead, opted for Lebanese, as you do when in Stockholm. I absolutely love Lebanese food but would not ever have guessed I would need to travel to Sweden to eat the best version of it I have ever had. So good!

Stepping out of the restaurant there seems to be a bit more activity, and we follow the crowds further into the city to find cherry blossoms and moose burgers (thankfully Andrew had already eaten.)

We've now done many, many 1000's of steps since starting out for the day but we keep on walking and soaking up the sights...

It wasn't until we started chatting to our barman over a drink prior to heading out to dinner that we learnt it was a public holiday celebrating Walpurgis Eve when Swedes welcome spring by lighting huge bonfires and celebrating the end of a long winter by singing songs and drinking huge amounts of alcohol. In anticipation, most spend a quiet day ahead of a huge night. This also explains why it was so hard to get a restaurant reservation a few weeks out from our visit, but very happy with our choice and, finally, I get some Swedish meatballs without going to Ikea

The next day dawns overcast and drizzly and, of course, cold. We are due to board the ship early afternoon but still want to get some steps in before we embark and are faced with all the calorific temptations a cruise liner is bound to offer. Once again the streets are empty and getting a coffee for Andrew and tea for me is proving harder than it should be. It's Sunday morning after a huge night, and maybe, this time, the Swedes are just sleeping it off. There are a few touristy shops open in the Old Town but other than that, nothing. This time we Google and, sure enough, it's another public holiday with May Day (or Labour Day/worker's day) following Walpurgis Night, and by the afternoon the streets are filled with May Day demonstrations, meetings and speeches.

It's on this walk, however, that we get our first glimpse of the Viking Jupiter which will be our home for the next 15 days....