Despite the alcohol we were up and about and ready for day one of sightseeing at a reasonable time. We'd decided to concentrate on the Old Town or Gamla Stan in Swedish, which is largely situated on an island called Stadsholmen. We caught the tram which conveniently terminates just outside the marina and does so at the other end near the central station. The weather, sadly, was still less than perfect, with a chill feel to the air and frequent showers. It therefore made sense for us to confine ourselves to indoor attractions so the palace was the obvious choice. However, before I briefly (very) cover our activities during the day, I thought I’d provide a few details on the geography. Basically, Stockholm is a city of several islands, most of which are connected by bridges of one sort or another. As such, it provides innumerable views in all directions, views filled with movement as boats ranging from tiny speedboats to extremely large cruise liners flit / move gracefully about. A special treat was also the fact that this coming weekend there is a major yacht race – Stockholm – around the island of Gotland – back to Stockholm, so we had some mega- racing yachts to look at, not many as it was early in the week but it was starting to build up.

Sweden was, for a period during the seventeenth and early eighteenth century, the dominant power in the Baltic, in fact the Baltic was effectively Sweden’s inland sea . During this period of acquisition due to the spoils of war, many of Stockholm’s buildings were built, including the palace. It is a very large building (608 rooms) and there is a lot to see, from the crown jewels through to the royal guests’ apartments and the royal apartments themselves. The tour of the palace, plus the changing of the guard plus a lunch which consisted of the world’s largest sandwiches, very successfully occupied the whole day.

Back to the boat, more chat, food and drink. A good day.