Stockholm–Wow what a city!

We sailed through the archipelago, very carefully,  to arrive around 7.a.m. It was cloudy and overcast and we were moored out in the sea as the port is not deep enough to take the ship . Lifeboats were soon lowered to tender us onto the land and they are huge. Take 150 passengers each I think .

A very neat & clean two decker bus took us in to Stockholm via the motorway – it took roughly an hour. Not a lot to see to be honest, trees, trees and more trees. The occasional field, horses and some small towns.

The clouds cleared, the sun came out and by 10a.m. it was about 72/73F. Very pleasant and no need for the jackets we had brought or the long jeans.

We were taken straight to the harbour side and it is stunning; the whole place is stunning. As the city is built on 14 islands there is water, water everywhere and actually it could be drunk. Certainly clean enough to swim in we were told. It is Regatta time and the biggest traffic jams we saw were all on the water. Boats of every size and description narrowly avoided each other and they were full of happy laughing people – enjoying their day on the water.

Because there is so little pollution the air was crystal clear and the contrast  between the green trees and the blue sky and silver, sparkling water looked almost unreal.

We were ushered on to a tour boat – again it  held many people and we set sail around the harbourside and beyond.

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Magnificent architecture everywhere, beautiful private houses right on the water’s edge and the locals walking , and jogging and just revelling a beautiful summers day. If there is one place we both want to come back to it is  Stockholm.

No litter, no graffiti, no obvious poverty although there probably is, it is a little piece of heaven..

We were only there 2 hours so I don’t have much information to pass on except it is a magical place, especially on a hot summer’s day in July.