Sorry about all the London blogs I just posted, I've only just had the chance to finish them off and get photos for them.

Two days ago we arrived in Stockholm. We spent our first afternoon wandering around and planning our next two days.

Yesterday we started our morning in Östermalm, eating breakfast by the water, waiting for a hop-on hop-off ferry that takes you around Stockholm's islands. We got off at the Vasa Museum and were very impressed: the Vasa is a war ship from the 1620s that sank on it's maiden voyage in 1628. It lay at the bottom of the bay near Stockholm for over 300 years until it was brought up in 1961. 14,000 bits that had fallen off were also dug out of the mud 30 meters down and after 19 years of preservation, were put back together like a puzzle over 11 years. The ship itself is massive and very ornate, covered in carvings and sculptures with a wealth of royal symbolism (the ship was built on the King's orders). You cannot go in it unfortunately, but you can walk on platforms and different floors of the huge building it's in to see it from all angles. The guided tour was great.

Next we continued around Stockholm by ferry and made our way to the Royal Palace in Gamla Stan (the Old Town). We made it in time for the changing of the guards which was a bit of fun but it went for a long time and there were a lot of unruly tourists around, pushing and shoving. We were disappointed to learn later on that the military band sometimes plays Abba during these ceremonies, such as Dancing Queen. We were disappointed because we didn't get Abba, only serious military music!

We had a great tour of the Royal Apartments, a mixture of history and it's present day uses. At the disco after the Swedish royal wedding of the Crown Princess, they had a disco in a room called The White Sea and they played Lady Gaga - quite a different use from that of 200 years ago! It was fun comparing it to the British palaces and castles we've seen. The chapel was beautiful, with a magnificent gilded reading platform snaking out of the wall itself.

Getting into the Treasury to see the Swedish Crown Jewels was a much easier affair than in England. We just walked right in, no line, only one security guard, and you could get right up close to the glass cases! These Crown Jewels were quite different to the English ones: they were more intricate and delicate, with beautiful flowery metal work. The English ones by comparison are more bold, with simple metal work and jam-packed full of diamonds and jewels. Both were very nice of course, but, like with the palace rooms, it's fun to compare them. We wonder if the European royal families do this same when they visit each other.

We walked a little through Gamla Stan and then got ready to go to Henrik and Donya's to see Joe. The strangest thing happened to us when we went to buy a bottle of wine to take on our way: outside the bottle shop was a prep girl called Lucy from Elsternwick Primary with her mum! It was a very strange coincidence and we had a nice chat comparing travel stories as we've both been traveling for a month.

We had a lovely night at Joe's party, meeting some lovely people and we had lunch with Henrik and Donya's son Niklas today as we got along well last night.

In the afternoon we met Joe and he showed us around Gamla Stan, the Parliament and Ostermalm. It's such a lovely place even though it's busy. With 9 months of bad weather, the Swedish really know how to make the most of their summer. It was a lot of walking but it was quite leisurely and very fun being shown around by a past local.