Sarah in Sweden and Norway

For the last week or so, Sarah and her brother Ian have been travelling through Sweden and Norway.  Sarah was on a work trip, while Ian was having a Scandinavian holiday.  We hired a Volvo XC60 to travel around in and after brief stops in Orebro and Linkoping for work meetings, we made it to Stockholm on the Saturday for a Millennium book series walking tour and a trip to the Vasa Museum.

 The Volvo XC60, our trusty vehicle that we managed to do 1000 miles in.

Sarah at the entrance to Lisbeth Salander's 'secret'  luxury apartment in Stockholm (which Lisbeth buys at the end of book one).

The Vasa ship, which sank on her maiden voyage in Stockholm port in 1628.  It was recovered 333 years later in 1961 and restored to be put on display in this museum.

It was then a mad dash over to Gothenburg on the west coast of Sweden, before making our way up the coast towards Norway.  In Gothenburg, we took a short boat ride to familiarise ourselves with the city.  Ian particularly enjoyed the animated commentary and facial expressions of the tour guide and the low level bridges called the 'cheese slicer' and 'hair dresser', which we had to duck to avoid.

The highlights of the west coast of Sweden and south east coast of Norway were:

• The fish stew that Ian ordered at a restaurant in Skarhamn (I wish I had ordered it too).
• Visiting Northern Europe's largest Bronze Age carving
• Walking around Fredrikstad's fortressed old town area.

 Ian enjoying his fish stew at a gem of a restaurant that we found in Skarhamn, Sweden.

Sarah standing next to Northern Europe's largest bronze age rock carving.  Pretty impressive at more than 4m long.

The canons along the defence walls of Fredrikstad's old town, Norway.