Sweden & Denmark - Scandinavia Part 3 (June 27 - July 2, 2023)

Tuesday & Wednesday ------June 27 & 28, 2023  

We boarded an overnight Viking Cruise in Turku, Finland on Tuesday evening June 27th.

This was the first time the girls had been overnight on a ship.  We dropped our bags off in our family cabin which was two cabins adjoined with two bathrooms.

There were so many things to do on the ship. We had dinner as the ship was pulling out of the harbor,

went shopping at the duty free store, took pictures on the deck,

went to the lounge to listen to music and to the back of the boat for "sunset" (it never really set).

Wednesday, June 28, 2023.   We got into bed around midnight

and tried to sleep but about an hour later, the ship pulled into a harbor and it was so loud that it woke up Elin.  (I had not gone to sleep). Then, we got back to sleep around 2 ish and at 5:30 they announced on the loud speaker that we would be in Stockholm Sweden in one hour so we had to get up soon and get out of our cabin.  

The view was beautiful pulling into Stockholm

We took a taxi to our next hotel, The Downtown Camper by Scandic, where we put out bags in the luggage room (we couldn't check in until 1 pm)

then we wandered around Stockholm waiting for our room to be ready. We were all VERY tired.

We found a little farmers market and got Swedish strawberries which were also good, but not as good as Finnish.

We found the big shopping street and managed to pass the time.  When we checked into our hotel we rested for a little while.  This hotel had a "camping" theme...and EVERYTHING was camping stuff. Our room even smelled very faintly of campfire....which was not my favorite.  It was very centrally located though and we were close to transit and the city center.

For dinner we went across the street to the Ikea that was in Mall.  We had Swedish meatballs and a Swedish pancake

and we were able to FINALLY find something with Elin's name on it...since it is a Swedish name.

Thursday, June 29, 2023.  We had breakfast at the hotel and it was the very best breakfast we had in all the Scandic hotels we stayed in. It was very deluxe - we especially loved the pancakes (more like crepes).  

After breakfast we took a few photos in the photo booth to celebrate the half way mark of our trip. 2 weeks down, 2 to go 

before taking the tram to our first stop

which was the Vasa Museum.

Vasa is a ship that sank in the harbor in Stockholm on its maiden voyage in 1628. The ship sunk because it was too heavy and they had not built it wide enough. The ship was extracted from the harbor between 1961 and 1983. They were able to find 95% of the original ship to reconstruct.  It is 5 stories high and was amazing!  We all loved it.

We had lunch near the museum

then back on the tram to our next stop. 

After ice-cream-o-clock we toured the ABBA museum.  Equally as interesting and we had a lot of fun.

We also went to visit the Fjallraven home store (all three of us had Fjallraven backpacks for this trip)

We also had delicious Thai food and took the metro to the rainbow metro station just to see it.  The metro stops in Stockholm are more like art exhibits.

We hung around the city center for a little while before heading in to bed.

Friday, June 30, 2023.  We enjoyed breakfast at the Camper again, checked out of the hotel (bags in luggage room again) and walked to Old Town Stockholm for lunch and shopping.

We picked up our bags and went to the train station where we boarded an afternoon train from Stockholm to Copenhagen Denmark.  The girls loved the train experience.  In fact, I would just give them my credit card and they would go to the cafe car on their own. They thought it was fun. I've always loved the trains in Europe.

My thoughts on Stockholm:  it was a lovely city, beautiful architecture and easy to get around. I would come back anytime.  The interesting thing was that Stockholm was completely cashless.  I got out $40 in cash when we got there and I had a really hard time using it.  Everyone pays with their phone and vendors having nothing more than an Ipad for payment.   I had to actually go to the grocery store to use the little cash I had.  I like to collect coins from the local currency and I didn't have Swedish kroner, which is why I took out cash.

We arrived in Copenhagen around 11 pm and walked the few blocks to our hotel,  Scandic Webbers.  Although it was a hotel, we had a 2 room "suite" and it was very spacious with a nice balcony.   Very Scandinavian looking.  I preferred it over the Camper in Stockholm.  

Note: These pictures of the hotel are a bit out of order

Saturday, July 1, 2023.   This was our only full day in Copenhagen so we made the most of the day there and headed out as early as we could.   We stopped by the Lego Store on our way to the train station.

Then took the metro and walked to the Little Mermaid statue.

Quite honestly....it was kind of a skip...if I had to do it again.  We walked along the water, looked in another church, had a snack, 

then we took the metro to the center of town.  This is the map of the Copenhagen metro. I loved how the rainbow colors all came out from the center red circle.  The red circle goes one way, and on this particular day we ended up basically riding it almost all the way around.  The girls thought it was fun.  I was happy for a little break for my feet.

We had lunch in the main area of town and shopped at Flying Tiger, one the girls favorite stores on our trip.

The only other thing on my list was a church called the Church of Our Lady.  It has a Christ statue that the LDS church modeled their Christ statue after.  As we were walking up to the church a lady put out a sign that said it was closed for a private event (turns out is was a wedding). 

We walked around her sign but there was another person guarding the door and this was the only picture I could get.

So, we continued our walk in the neighborhood to the metro stop

We had a little break in the hotel and the rest of our evening was spent at a laundromat. Another first for my girls.

We packed for this trip into one carry on bag each, which meant frequent laundry.  In most places we had access to a washing machine and the clothes would hang on a laundry rack to dry.  Because of our string of hotels since leaving the lake house, we were really short on clothes.  So we loaded up my suitcase and rolled it down the street to a laundromat where we spent 2 hours doing laundry.  

We were initially excited to have a dryer...but it really only half worked and I ended up hanging lots of half wet clothes in our hotel room anyway.   Walking back we stopped at the grocery store for a few snacks to make a picnic dinner in the hotel room then popped down to the the corner store for "ice-cream-o-clock" and the girls first Magnum bar. Which they LOVED!

Sunday, July 2, 2023.  Another check out...bags into storage, breakfast at the hotel.  This morning I booked us on a canal cruise around Copenhagen so we made our way to the canal by metro.

We had a great time on the canal tour. Our guide was knowledgeable and funny.  It did get a little rocky at  one point and we got wet...but it was still fun.

Back to the hotel to pick up our bags, taxi to the DFDS terminal for our next overnight cruise from Copenhagen to Oslo.

My thoughts on Copenhagen:  we were not there long enough to really do much and I would like to go back for a longer time and stay in another area of town.  One of the funny things there, after 2 weeks in the north we were all excited to see a little darkness and street lights in Copenhagen.

The DFDS ship had more to do than the Viking ship we took from Turku. But the Viking ship was nicer quality.  This was our little room on the DFDS ship. Tight quarters this time but we didn't spend much time there.

We explored the ship a little then went to do a kids adventure scavenger hunt (in Danish). By this point in our trip the girls had figured out that even if they don't speak English you can usually figure it out.  I was so proud of them. They would go ask for things without needing my help. It was fun to see their confidence grow.

The passage was nice and smooth as we sailed up the coast along the Swedish shoreline. But around dinner time, the sea got REALLY rough. We had a hard time walking. We had dinner at the front of the ship.  After dinner we went to the pool and the ship was rolling so much the water was coming almost completely out of the pool.  The kids thought it was fun...but they closed the pool soon after we got there.

We got changed and went to the duty free shop again. The waves were so bad that stuff was crashing off the shelves.  "Very unusual this time of year"  a shop keeper told us.

We ended up in a lounge listening to music and having a drink. They also played a horse racing game (in Danish) that we watched.  

The girls thought the rough seas were pretty fun....until we tried to go to bed. Then, no one slept much. We ended up all sitting on one bunk for a few hours.  Around 2 am the seas calmed and we were finally able to sleep a little as we were coming into Oslo, Norway.

James flew into Oslo on July 2nd and was already at the next hotel in Oslo waiting for us.  We were all excited to see him.

And PS:  someone asked me in Copenhagen if the girls were twins.  No, they just like to dress alike.  No, I do not make them… that would be weird at their age.