Stockholm

We needed to use up some Eurobonus points that were about to expire and decided to spent a long weekend in Stockholm. A nice way to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary. We enjoyed some sightseeing in the old town, visited a Dali exhibition in the modern art museum, had a look around the butterfly house and walked around the open air museum Skansen. And, of course, we enjoyed some good food. The selection of restaurants is somewhat bigger and better in Stockholm than in Tromsø. And then there were the Christmas markets with a good selection of foreign and local Swedish food, and we were very happy to find some excellent Dutch cheese and liquorice, Italian sausages, Scottish fudge and local sausage. Alltogether a very pleasant weekend.

Changing of the guards

Beautiful narrow streets in Gamlestan, the old town

Modern art outside the modern art museum

Palace

Butterfly garden

Open air museum Skansen

Great grey owl, Swedish wildlife in the open air museum

The aquarium inside Skansen has quite a few reptiles too

Skating on Prestvannet

It had been cold for some time now, but no snow, so ideal conditions for skating. The day these photos were taken, Sunday 29 November, we did just have a few cm of snow, but cold dry snow on cold ice is not a problem for skating, the snow doesn't freeze on the ice. Prestvannet is right in Tromsø, on the top of the island Tromsøya, and a popular spot for families. So we skated around families and kids playing ice hockey, it was fun! Most people use ice hockey skates here, but there were a few others on 'proper' long distance skates.

Tromsdalstinden in the background.

Kjølen

One of the last weekends before ´mørketid´ (the period without sun), in the middle of November, we went for a hike up Kjølen. There was very little snow for the time of the year, but lots of ice, which made hiking tricky in places. It was nice, though, lots of reindeer, and no other people.