The first day we walked around Gamla Stan (old town) and shopped, so there aren't that many good pictures of it. I also added in the first day pictures the pictures from the second days morning walking around the main castle and one of many harbors. It was so much more beautiful in real life!
The second day, after seeing the castle and harbor, we went to an area called Djurgarden, translated to Animal Gardenor Yard. It has alot of fun things, especially for tourists. The first thing we did was go to Aquaria. A very disappointing and somewhat dirty aquarium. Thank goodness it was included in the cost of our hotel. I actually got really upset seeing how the fish were kept and didn't get many pictures of them. The first area is a man made jungle and it was pretty cool. I will not be taking my child here, and that is a little sad to me. So this is Aquaria, or as I like to call it, Disappointia.
After leaving Disappointia, we walked past the Tivoli and decided to skip it since I cant ride anything and that's the real fun of a place like that. We will definitely bring little one there when she gets big enough!! It looks so nice. And Marcus, of course, loves it!
We took about an 8000 mile walk to an area called Skansen that is a sort of open air museum of how life was back in tha days. What days? Well, I'm not sure but they looked pretty inconvenient and apparently all they did in them was walk up hills. This part nearly killed me! But it was pretty. Hopefully I can enjoy it more next time we are in Stockholm.
Skansen also has an "Aquarium", though its more like a zoo. That's where we headed next. Before the entrance you can see some Pelicans and turtles. But then, when you enter you see these teeny little monkeys on your right and the other thing with the loooooong tail on the left. I love that he is lying in a bowl of lettuce!! It was so cute!
You then go outside where they have the other things running loose. Sorry, a zoologist, I am not so they re all called things. Or adorable things, cute things, weird things, whatever. These "things" are just adorable and come so close you really want to pet them, but you re not allowed.
The next area, after about 28000 stairs, had bugs, so I didn't take any pictures. And moving on... before entering the next building is the Baboon area. There were lots of little baboon babies running around. I so wanted to take one..haha. They're wild little things, climbing all over the place!!
We then went in to find the much touted Southern US Squirrels, which have been renamed Piff and Puff instead of Chip and Dale. Whatever! There are also some turtles and fish to see in there. The water was at least clean in this place, so I was ok.
At the very end, with no freaking warning were snakes. Obviously I didn't want to taint my camera with snake pictures, so you will just have to imagine that nightmare. LOL. That was the end of day two.
Day three started with a boat tour of the Canal of Stockholm. Whatever that means. It was pretty much a river ride that took an hour and was really boring with weird details and cheesy stories. But, I suppose its a touristy thing to do and some of the views of Stockholm were gorgeous.
The last major touristy thing we did was take a cruise to an island called Birka, or Björk Ö in Swedish. It translates to Birch Island. It is an ancient "viking" settlement. Well, we take the super long 2 hour boat ride there, which was nice, and its pretty, but nothing like we expected. Here are some highlights of the "cruise". Note the hilarious people in the inside picture!!
Once we got to the island, we had pretty high expectations of an old viking settlement. We quickly got ourselves to the English Speaking Tour and anxiously waited to see some cool stuff!!
Ok well, it was neat, but no remains of the settlement really because they built out of wood, which apparently gets sucked back into the Earth according to the "archaeologist" tour guide. I'm hoping its a translation issue, not an idiot issue. I personally have never seen the Earth open up and swallow wood, but what do I know?
Anyways, the first part we saw was the burial mounds. Burial mounds of Iron Age people. Not vikings. Vikings are explained as people who don't settle, they have to stay on the sea to do their pillaging and plundering and whatnot. So, she explains that its not really a viking place, but an iron age settlement. They should probably let the advertisement people know this because its NEVER mentioned in the brochures. Neither is the fact that there is nothing left of the settlement.
You get a long boat ride a hilly walk with some interesting facts, a few rebuilt shacks and an "angry dog". "Angry Dog" was a sweet old yellow lab sleeping under a tree with a warning sign. He was maybe the best thing on that place. Unless you have a liking for men who think its appropriate to not use deodorant or ladies who enjoy pushing their way in front of you so they can get a better view of the reconstructed cabin. SO thats basically how the island was. It took an hour for the tour, and about 20 seconds to look at the other stuff.
You then get to wait 4 hours for the boat to return. You have options though. You can get regular Swedish food for about 30 dollars per plate or ice creams for like 3 bucks each. Or you can do as we did and play on the big rocks overlooking the sea.
I was planning to add pictures of the island, but for some reason they wont work. I will edit later and add them, I promise!!
