Valkommen till Sverige

Mora, Sweden.  Dalarna & Swedish Lakes

The scenery was spectacular.  Lets live here....  Wait, it snows

St George
made an appearance too!

Mora is a definite outdoorsy town, set by the edge of some beautiful lakes.  On our orientation walk, we learned of Mora’s participation, in 1520 and at the urging of Gustav Vasa, in the fight to free Sweden from Danish occupation.  Sweden’s history changed.  (Remember that name, Vasa!)  

Otherwise, Mora is best known for its metal working, sharp knives and the Vasaloppet, a 90km cross-country skiing event.  Our hotel room was an Ikea experience, making GS feel really at home.  Welcome to Sweden!

Sweden appears not to be short on fabulous scenery - pine dressed hillsides, picturesque waterways and energetic people.  I’m not quite sure what we had envisioned for our time in Mora, but our leader had many plans.  Mainly a bicycle tour of the lake!  

We could do the short trip (22km), the medium trip (36km) or the long trip - a quick round of the lake at 48km.  Our hire bikes were sturdy mountain bikes (built for beefed-up Swedes) with the most uncomfortable seats imaginable.  Perfect!

Off we set with a promise of lunch in the village of Orsa (which was really nice - a table set on a balcony overlooking the lake and a salad buffet to keep the calorie intake down..). 

From there the group split with the Cap’n leading the charge on the 48km trail.  I might add we were still recovering from the previous day’s orientation walk (3kms), a picnic lunch by the river followed by (for some) a 7km hike.  Are you getting the Action Jackson drift here?  Anyway, we managed to survive it all…  But only just!

Oh gosh, darn, there's still 19km to go...

Stockholm

 

From Mora, we caught a coach into Stockholm where our hotel was thoughtfully, centrally located.  Aside from a little window shopping, we only had a short time to explore this delightful city set on many green islands (green in summer) and extensive waterways.  They say Stockholm is built over 14 islands and is connected by 57 bridges.  I think we crossed all of them on our Big Red Bus tour of this city with a style (chic, cool, funky, tattoo-ridden) all of its own.

The Vasa Museum was our first priority, and what a stunning display of the world’s best preserved timber warship from 1628.  Launched on the 10^th August, the Vasa, in all its spectacular, splendiferous-ness, sank in minutes - only 1.3km from the Royal Palace.  Their sad loss was history’s gain. 





The Vasa was apparently very colourful
& the King obsessed with all things Roman

This is without doubt one of the most interesting museums we’ve visited.  Included was a retrospective of other events occurring during the Renaissance era but from a world-perspective, such as the Mughal Empire in India (Shah Jahan from his palace in Agra) and the artist, Rembrandt, who died penniless in 1969. 

This was about the best photo we could get of this massive ship

 

Another Marching Band

Our walking led us to Gamla Stan, the old town section with narrow cobbled streets, souvenir sellers galore and reserved historic palaces all fighting for attention.  We could have stayed longer, we could have dined at Jamie Oliver’s restaurant and we could have done the Millennium* Walking Tour (only it wasn’t Saturday either)…oh well!  There was so much we had missed but at least, from our short time, we’d gained a decent overview of this interesting city and touched a little of what it did have to offer.  Perhaps we’d better go back some day…  (Oh dear, the Cap’n has just fainted!)

 

*Steig Larsson’s very successful novel trilogy.  Starting with “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” these three slick & pacey books dig deep into the darker side of Stockholm.  GS is currently obsessed with them!

The harbour was full of interesting sights