We are going to collect Isaac from Uppsala in Sweden. Our plan is to spend a couple of weeks seeing Norway before picking up Isaac and then to return via Finland and the Baltic countries.
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The capital of Latvia. It was a fair walk from our campsite to the town centre, but we started early as usual and went to explore.
Our explorations included a visit to the city market.
After a cheap lunch we then went and joined a walking tour to learn more about the city.
The feet in the pavement in the image below are in memory of the Baltic chain. A peaceful demonstration that took place in 1989 where 2,000,000 people joined hands to form a human chain spanning 675km across Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.
So we left Estonia and headed towards Riga, the capital of Latvia. On the way we stopped to explore Sigulda castle and Turaida castle, both in Latvia.
Sigulda castle:
Turaida castle:
Between the castles there was also a big cave to explore.
In the evening we arrived in Riga and paid to camp in a camp site near the city. It had all the facilities we needed but we felt a bit like battery chickens! We could walk from there into the city; but more about that tomorrow!
We left the ferry really early in the morning and found a carpark where we could leave the car and caravan. We then walked into the old town.
We found the town far to touristy for comfort.
The lower town was full of bars clearly set up for stag nights, and the higher town, Toompea, was full of coach loads of tourists. We did our best to see what we could, but left much earlier than planned.
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So we carried on south, camping by the sea just after Pärnu.
We saw storks nesting in the trees and on the telegraph press by the side of the road.
Not one of our more exciting days!
We got up early and took the bus into the town to start exploring. We spent a couple of hours walking around enjoying the buildings and parks before taking a guided walking tour around the town.
We lunched on vendace in the market before going to visit briefly the rock church. We then took the ferry to explore Suomenlinna island. Then we got the ferry back to the town, packed the caravan and went to catch our overnight ferry to Tallinn.
We arrived at Nantaali bright and early and quickly made our way to Turku, the former capital of Finland. After a quick look round we then headed northeast towards the southernmost part of the “Lakelands” where we spent the rest of the day walking and enjoying the scenery. We then drove to Helsinki in the evening, camping up near the zoo.
We got up early in the morning and made our way to Kappellskär to catch our first ferry to Lagnas in the Åland isles.
These islands belong to Finland but are mostly independent, have their own internet suffix (.ax) and mostly speak Swedish! They are very beautiful.
We arrived at about midday and had until 2am to explore the islands before then leaving on a second ferry to the Finnish mainland. We were able to use all the time available since the sun didn’t set until just before 2am!
Bye bye Stockholm. We enjoyed our stay in Stockholm but it is now time to leave.
We started by visiting Sigtuna, which claims to be the oldest town in Sweden.
Then we went to Uppsala to collect Isaac who has just finished his Erasmus year at the university there.
After picking up Isaac we then made our way towards Kappellskär, camping for the night about half an hour short of the port.
Today (6 June) is the National holiday in Sweden. We began the day outside the royal palace waiting for the King to officially open the palace (it’s the only day of the year when entrance to the palace is free). We were lucky enough to be on the front row with all the TV crews and reporters (Sue lent her jacket to one Swedish TV reporter who was freezing).
After the official opening we then spent an hour or so exploring the highly decorated palace rooms.
We then made our way to Skansen, which is an open air folk museum / park / zoo. Plenty to do to keep you occupied for the day.
But the big draw today was that the King and his family traditionally attend a concert in the park at 6pm. This is also broadcast on national TV. We actually managed to get some seats earlier in the day to see the rehearsal – so we saw the whole concert, but without the King (and without the crowds).
We did however wait for the King’s arrival later, but after he’d arrived and the cheering had died down we then beat a hasty retreat (we had, after all, already seen the concert so there was no need to stay!)
We began the day with a trip to the Vasa museum. The Vasa was a great warship built by the Swedish king in 1628 to show off his naval might. Unfortunately it sank on its maiden voyage after just 20 minutes!
The good news is that the ship was recovered almost intact and is an amazing thing to visit.
We then went to see the changing of the guard at the palace (Christopher Robin was not there, neither was Alice).
Then we went on another walking tour, this time of the modern city; many stories were shared about famous Swedish people such as Greta Garbo, Alfred Nobel, ABBA …
We then went on the “under the bridges” cruise to see a bit more of the town from the water. A very pleasant way to end the day.
So we arrived in Stockholm in time for lunch and found somewhere to park up. We bought tickets for the metro and went to explore the city for the afternoon. We did two “free walking tours”; one of the old town (Gamla Stan) and one of another part of the town which was the poorest part but now is very “hipster”.
Our parking place for the night wasn’t the best, we were woken up at 1am by what seemed like hundreds of people on bikes. The local school (next to which we were parked) had organised a bike ride into the city starting at 2am!
I do remember reading somewhere that the Swedes were likely to do the oddest things at the oddest hours; that seems to have been confirmed!
Scandinavia Tour 2018 