Sunday dawned early, if not bright, and we started another day in Stockholm with a 3-hour walking tour.  The tour began at the Opera House, which is convienently located right across the street from Parliament and, of course, across the canal from the Royal Palace.  Our guide was a delightful, older Swedish man who had lots of lovely tales to tell about Sweden, Stockholm, royalty, history, and even Vikings as we wandered through Old Town (Stora Nygatan) to Knight’s island and finally back to the palace.  

Finally, we took a cruise around the Djurgården – the museum island where we had spent the day prior touring various museums and riding streetcars, remember? – and some of the canals and rivers that wind their way through the city and gardens.  If 30% of Stockholm is water then another 30% is garden and park.  No kidding! The city is filled with lush greenery the likes of which these Arizonan eyes have not seen in a very long time.  I will say that Stockholm buildings are a bit blocky and appear to have always been this way – as evidence from the Old Town photos. Not many of the buildings have parts that overhang the street, porticos, balconies, or other ornamentation on their facades to relieve some of the stark flatness of that side. They all appear somewhat more modern and simple than I had anticipated. I did not necessarily notice it at the time, but got that impression while looking at photos afterwards.

The river cruise dropped us off perfectly at the palace where we wandered up the hill and over another of many bridges to find ourselves the “perfect” spot where we could wait impatiently for the Royal Guard.  July 14 is the birthday of Crowned Princess and heir apparant to the Swedish throne, Victoria, and a very important day for the changing of the guard ceremony.  This is one of the few days on the calendar when the guard performs a “gun salute” (and yes, it does include firing very loud weapons – repeatedly!) in honor of HRH.  While we listened to the noise of the gun fire fading away and bird twitter restarting, we noticed another unusual sound tinkling in the air: the military marching band procession!  We watched in delight from our perch atop the Royal Castle entrance gate as the marching band in all their pomp and circumstance tooted, honked, banged, and stomped across Norrbro bridge and into the outer courtyard of the palace grounds.  We followed the band and discovered the guard assembled in the courtyard (with about a zillion other tourists also gawking gleefully) and watched the continuation of the changing process.  Much to the surprise and delight of the crowd (myself included) the military band played “Dancing Queen” by ABBA as part of their tribute and many of us danced and sang along in accompaniment. 

What would a trip to Sweden be without an adventure to the northern lands where Vikings once lived and Sweden’s oldest city, Sigtuna?  So on Monday, we piled into a van for a full day (literally 9am – 6pm) Viking adventure with our lovely driver and guide, Urban.  

We rode north from Stockholm towards Vallentuna and stopped along the way to visit numerous runestones (Jarlabanke) and tour a bit of the countryside (Arkils tingstad).  Basically, we toured Runriket – the 3-4km zone just north of Stockholm that holds more of the world’s runestones than any other place. After a couple hours, we stopped at a lovely local farm to enjoy a Swedish “fika”.  A fika is just another one of the many things that should have always been a part of my life. Basically it’s a little break (maybe 30 minutes) you take during the day to drink coffee or tea or juice, eat cakes or other light snacks, and simply relax with other people around you (like your school mates, your work team or staff, your family, etc). You don’t have to eat or drink – just spending the time together – socializing and not working – is the most important part. Fikas happen in the morning and afternoon, at work or home or even school! The Swedish consider it the perfect time to collaborate, exchange knowledge and information, problem-solve, and bond with others. I read somewhere that the average Swede takes enough fikas in one year to add up to about 10 days worth of time. Fikas are believed to improve mental health and well-being in addition to promoting commaraderie and improving group communication. Our “fika” was entirely home made from farm items either grown on this farm or traded with nearby farms at the market or just directly family-to-family as they have done for centuries.  This farm, like many others, not only raises goats for milk and cheese and cows for meat, but also farms fields of rapeseed for oil, barley for hops, and has a small apple and pear orchard.  Also, this farm was home to the largest runestone we saw on our trip through Runriket – way up high in a cow pasture behind the farmhouse and barn.  Can you even imagine having such an awesome piece of history just lying in the backyard? 

We stopped a few more places along the way to Sigtuna for more runestones and old settlements, and eventually arrived there in time for lunch on the main and oldest street in Sweden, Stora gatan.  We ate at a traditional Swedish restaurant – Allita had a burger (eyeroll) and I enjoyed Raggmunk with Lingonberries (possibly gathered from the nearby forest where we had just seen them growing, but most likely purchased from IKEA).  Then we toured the lovely village from the waterfront to the old church.  Sigtuna was founded in the 10th century by either King Eric the victorious or King Olof the Swede (Eric’s son). Nobody is absolutely certain as records from that time are a bit sparse (apparantely there is not a runestone that is inscribed “here lies Sigtuna raised by Olof in memory of his father, Eric”). In any regard, at one point in Swedish history, Sigtuna was the royal and commercial capital and is credited as the place where the first Swedish coins were minted. While there, we had a complete tour of Saint Olof’s church (Olofs kyrkoruin), which is remarkably well-preserved, and Saint Mary’s church (Mariakyrkan), the earliest known brick church in this area (both Gothic and Romanesque). My favorite fun fact about Saint Mary’s is that one of the church bells is Russian! It was taken as loot during the Ingrian War when Sweden and Poland team up to kick Russian booty.

Finally, our last place to visit was Uppsala – home to the more wealthy or noble of the ancient citizens.  The city is quite large (4th largest in Sweden) with the Old Uppsala (Gamla Uppsala) area quite a distance from the city proper.  Gamla Uppsala is home to the massive burrial mounds – three of which stand far above the others and appear to have been for significantly important figures in Viking history.  As is common, there was also a church there built around the same time as the construction of the burial grounds.  Gamla Uppsala is widely considered by medieval historians to be one of the oldest and most important locations in Scandinavia – possibly even home to Odin, Freya and Frey.

From there, we drove to Uppsala proper and had a driving tour of the old city streets, castle (built by King Gustav Vasa – same family who built the famous ship), university (the oldest center for higher education in all Scandinavia), and museums.  We stopped at the massive Uppsala Cathedral, the largest in Scandinavia, and had a lenghtly tour of the interior and exterior where even more runestones are located.  Urban told us many stories about the saints, kings and queens of early Sweden and how they were featured in the cathedral interior.  He also pointed out that Anders Celsius (inventor of centigrade temperature scale) and Carl Linnaeus (creator of taxomony) were educated here. We had the opportunity to stand on Celsius’ grave in the church in Gamla Uppsala. Interestingly, just like in Denmark, there was not a single church we toured in Sweden that did not also have a ship of some kind on display (typically a Viking ship but sometimes a design from the 12-15 centuries around the same age as the church itself).

The people of Sweden are just as friendly and helpful as the Danes were.  Additionally, they all speak fluent English, even those you would least expect to, and are gracious hosts to the many tourists they must receive every year.  After our tour, Urban took us to the hotel to collect the luggage we stored there all day and then on to the correct train station – because he’s that kind of awesome – and we rode the express train to the airport in Arlanda where we stayed the night as we had a very early flight to Manchester the next morning!  On our way to the U.K.!