Sweden...A Lot More than Ikea!

When my friends and I started talking about where to take our next trip, we quickly narrowed it down to Spain or Scandinavia.  After comparing calendars, we finally found a week where we could all take off and explore!  That week happened to be in mid-July.  Thinking about the outrageously hot weather in Louisiana, Saudi Arabia, and Spain in mid-July made the choice to go to Scandinavia actually very easy.  We settled on visiting the cities of Stockholm, Sweden and Copenhagen, Denmark.

With only 3 days between the end of the Romania trip and the beginning of our Scandinavia trip, it didn't make sense to fly all the way back to Saudi Arabia.  I decided to just head up to Sweden and hang out in a small town until my friends arrived.  Luckily, Sweden is dotted with tons of tiny, adorable towns to choose from.  I decided upon Uppsala, a small university town about an hour north of Stockholm.  What really drew me to this town was how bike-friendly it was and how adorable the requisite European church and castle in the town center were.

The Uppsala Cathedral, a Lutheran church on the university campus, on the most beautiful and clear day of the summer.  The blue sky was incredible!  

This is the largest church in all of Scandinavia!

The high altar in the church was quite beautiful!

You can definitely tell that this used to be a Roman Catholic church!

Inside the church is the tomb of King Gustav Vasa and some of his wives.  He was a pretty important guy in Sweden in the 15th century.

The Uppsala Castle... not the most beautiful castle in the world, but it had a really interesting history and a pretty good tour.

These cannons outside the castle were positioned towards the church.  This was not an accident.  The king wanted to make sure everyone knew who was in charge!

Wandering around town, I came across this street sign which made me smile.

On the second day in Uppsala, I rented a bicycle from my hotel and took a ride to Gamla Uppsala (Old Uppsala), a really important archaeological area about 3 miles from town.  This was first a sacrificial area for pagans as early as the Iron and Viking Ages, then a burial area for kings and other royalty.

There used to be between 2000-3000 mounds, but only a few remain today:  three large ones, called the "Royal Mounds," and a few smaller ones. 

Some traditional old homes surrounding the archaeological area.

The view from on top of one of the big mounds.

Then it was time to head back to Stockholm to wait for Leah and Megan to arrive.  Unfortunately, their luggage didn't make it with them, but we made the best of it until it arrived!  After finding our ridiculously tiny AirBnB apartment in central Stockholm, we headed out to a bar to have a drink and plan out the next few days in the city.  

Leah's so fancy and wrote in a travel journal every day.  

SkyView was a cool experience!  We went up in a small pod on the side of the Ericsson Globe and got great views of the city!

Excited to go to the top!

One view of Stockholm from our pod.

We went to a few museums where Megan enjoyed the kid area where you got to dress up.

Okay, okay, we all liked dressing up.  This was at the Postal Museum!

The Nobel Prize is also given out from Stockholm and had a really interesting museum.

All of the past winners have their picture and accomplishments on these cards that circulate around ceiling of the museum.  There are almost 900 of them!  They are in no particular order, so you just have to be lucky to see someone really famous like Einstein or Malala.

On a walk to dinner one night, we were treated to a lovely view with a hot air balloon!

On the Under the Bridges of Stockholm tour and on hold with the airline luggage people.  The tour and the phone call were approximately the same length--about two hours.    But their luggage eventually showed up!

Lovely Stockholm!

One of the days we took a really great food tour!  This was our guide, Erik.  We had a great time and even learned a Swedish drinking song!  

The first stop was the reason we chose this tour.  Reindeer mousse, bear, and elk sausage!

At another stop we had fish soup.

This super good stop had beef tartare!  We returned to this place another night for drinks on their rooftop bar.

On another day, we were walking to a museum and came across this guy.  So weird but hilarious!  

OBVIOUSLY his wrapper is an American flag!!!

My favorite museum in Stockholm was the Vasa Museum.  The Vasa was a warship that sank on its maiden voyage, after just 20 minutes at sea!

Over 95% of the ship is original!  The boat is so big, the museum was built around it.

We took a ride to one of the other islands for dinner and dipped our toes in the Baltic Sea.

After visiting the Spirit Museum we had to try some spirits!  Infused gin and tonic.

An amusement park right on the water!  

After four days in Stockholm, we begrudgingly left beautiful Sweden and boarded a train headed for Denmark for the second half of our Scandinavian adventure.