Friday to Stockholm

Greetings!

(I've had a cold today, and by popular demand, more from Pat's journal)

We mostly slept through the night in our comfy cabin. Neither of us were aware of the stop at the Aland Islands. We awoke at about 7:30am (6:30 Swedish time) to the Swedish archipelago -lovely low lying islands mostly rocky (granite) and trees. (Gregory - I've been surprised by the lack of birds around here, and was pleased to see some swans in the coves). As we got closer to Stockholm, we saw homes and sailboats. There was a light drizzle when we docked, but the disembarkment went like clockwork. There was a Silja line bus to take us to the central train station, and from there we easily walked to the hotel - the Best Western Wallin Hotel. Our room is quite nice, more spacious than Helsinki, and a real double bed on a quiet lane off a main street and promenade. Gregory came down with cold,and is a real good sport about it. After settling in, we walked back to the central train station and booked an express train to Copenhagen - a five hour ride.


We then walked to Old Town (Gamla Stan), where the Royal Palace and Royal Guard are all found. It's a tourist mecca, with lots of narrow streets, souvenir shops, and ice cream stands. We walked around, but got pretty weary. We stopped for a quick meal of Italian pasta at about 3pm, and to rest our feet. Then we took another road back across the canal that separates Old Town (Stockholm is made up of 14 islands) under an arch walkway that heralds the Parliament building, and on to the Wallin Street where our hotel is. It started raining, as we entered the promenade, so we were glad to reach our room.

We then got comfy and started web searching our travel plans for the rest of the trip. We secured a hotel reservation in Copenhagen, the researched ferries, trains,and plane flight options - settling on another ferry overnight to Oslo with an immediate connection to Fagernes. So we "save a hotel room on the 21st, while on the ferry and don't need to spend a night in Oslo to connect with our bus to the Valdres Valley. We booked the ferry, and don't seem to need a bus reservation. It meets the ferry at 9:40am. All that took about 2 1/2 hours to do online - but we are set until Fagernes.

(Gregory - beyond that, it's still an unknown how much time we'll spend in the valley of my ancestors. There plenty of fjords, and wild country up in the north of Norway for us to see).

Here is a link to the photos we took today: Stockholm Friday