Swedish trains strike again. We made an extra stop on the Oslo-Stockholm train to pick up passengers from a broken down service in front of us…..So with the train packed to the rafters, people sitting on bags in the aisles, we went twos stops and broke down ourselves……..2 hours of sitting in the middle of nowhere waiting for a third (and fourth) train to come through and get us. Makes us wish for the reliability of the Vietnamese train system from earlier in the year. First time that's been said!!

The scenery across Sweden was just gorgeous. Exactly what you see on postcards and Christmas cards. Snow covered pine trees, frozen lakes and cute little cottages with smoke coming from the chimneys.

Arriving late into Stockholm left us only 2 hours to use our pre booked tickets for the ABBA museum and the special exhibit that closed that day……the "60 years of Eurovision" exhibition so it was straight into a cab and off to the land of sequins and over the top costumes. There were a lot of interactive displays as you might see from the photos. Good fun

We knew our apartment was in Gamla Stan, the old district of Stockholm which meant walking in along narrow cobblestones alleys. It made you forget the -4 degree temps. What we didn't know was that we were staying in 'the oldest house in Stockholm'. This is a summary of a sign on the wall of the apartment.

In 1320 - Staffan the Swordsmith built a new two story brick home. Because industries used fire could not be built inside the city walls, Staffan used the outside of the city wall and built 3 more to make his house. Hendrik the painter extended it in 1606. Multiple fires burn down the rest of the wooden city, significantly in 1625, the west wall (Stone wall) of the apartment was the limit of the great fire of 1625. Basically it helped stop the fire.

That's where we stayed. There is a pizza restaurant on the ground floor now, so we ate there for dinner on the first night. It was close and it was getting late so exploring wasn't an option.

On the second day we went out to the Skansen open air museum….yes an Open air museum in -4 degrees. The sun was shining as brightly as possible at this time of year, which is to say, it was above the horizon, just. The museum was a history of Sweden via the architecture of its buildings, all relocated to this place.

Afternoon was the Vasa Museum. Now I love a museum that celebrates failure. The Vasa was built as the Kings flagship when it was built in 1658, during Swedens war with Poland (yeah I didn't know much about that one either). It was the biggest warship in the region at the time and a source of great national pride. Like all good projects the original plan was changed multiple times, plenty of extra features were thrown on without a plan, like a second gun deck, so that when it sailed from its dock for the first time it sailed a grand total of 1300 metres before it took on water and sank!! There it stayed until it was raised in the 1950's and a museum was built around it. It's a massive warship, still 98% original.

Over the next couple of days we wandered around Stockholm, loving it more all the time. Its been the best place on the trip since Tromso. Have to come back here again when its warmer but one morning we woke to a light snowfall and -6 degrees. Stockholm is a beautiful city, but a layer of snow makes it stunning. I will try to put some photos in.

We visited the castle (which is being heavily restored), the crown jewels, the stables (which has the royal carriages). We got the train out to the Stockholm Olympic stadium, home of the 1912 games. There is a plaque there for all the world records broken at the track and Ron Clarke shows twice (3 mile and 5000m) but I'm guessing he just wanted to get back inside. A lot of the time we wandered around the old district. Visits to the sports museum, Viking 'experience' and the science museum were OK but not amazing

Bit this wouldn't be Sweden without covering the third icon. We had done Volvo, covered ABBA so it was time for IKEA. The free shuttle bus from town takes you out to 'The worlds biggest IKEA!!'. This thing is over 5 levels. If you thought you could get lost in St Peters, this thing is insane. We had to retreat outside at one point to find our bearings and go back inside, we were that lost. Dinner of course was meatballs and lingonberry jam. Turns out Ikea is the cheapest place to eat out in Scandinavia….its cheaper (and far better) than Macca's.

....but the highlight of the trip so far had to be on the last day before we headed out to the airport. We went ice skating in the central square of Stockholm. They build a free ice rink around a statue of one of the King Gustave's, #8 I think, and you can hire skates for a few Krona (right now a 'few Krona' is anything under about 1000 Krona). It wasn't pretty at first, but after an hour everyone was up and skating. There were far more smiles than bruises, so it must have been a success.

The last night, before our Helsinki flight, we stayed out at the airport at JumboStay. It's an old 747 that was stored at Stockholm when the airline it was flying for went broke. After many years, and after being deemed not fit to fly, its been converted to a hotel. There are single rooms in each engine, the cockpit is a suite for two and the front section is a bar and café. Wacky but fun. Ironically I have actually slept better in economy class on a 747 in flight but it was fun for one night.