After the busy day of sight-seeing, we enjoyed a leisurely dinner and evening in Stockholm. The sunset over the water was beautiful!
We sampled the local beer...
Sunday morning we took a boat tour of the archipelago.
There are about a million (I'm estimating, I have no idea how many really) small islands in the archipelago.
Many Swedes live out on the islands or at least have summer vacation homes there. The water was clear and clean and the houses were wooden and often brightly painted.
We loved the 2 hour boat trip and had a great tour guide on this as well, who gave commentary over the ferry speakers in both English and Swedish.
Unfortunately, this is where the weekend took a bad turn. In the form of a thunderstorm! During the last 15 minutes of the tour, the sky became very dark and ominous. There was lightning behind us and we hoped to get off the boat and into a restaurant before the rain came. We were too late. It started pouring just as our boat docked. Everyone stayed on board for a bit hoping to ride it out. But the boat staff kicked everyone off after 10 minutes because they had another tour beginning soon and needed to get the next group loaded.
As we exited the boat, I started to put up my umbrella and our lovely tour guide - an older Swedish woman - told me "no no, don't bother with that, just run." She was right, my umbrella wouldn't have mattered one bit in this torrential rain. Behind me, the guide told my friend Jessice the catch-phrase for the weekend "remember Sweden with love" - just before pushing her out in to the rain!
There was so much rain that the streets were in a bit of a flash flood and to cross them we walked through water that varied from ankle to knee depth. And we were soaked within moments of leaving the boat.
Here I am, after the rain has let up a bit, showing my lovely condition and the flooding in the streets. Remember Sweden with love.
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