24,000 Islands

Sweden (pop 9 million) has 24,000 islands and like Bjorn, we want to buy one! The capital and largest city, Stockholm (pop 1.8 million) occupies 14 of these islands. The city is fabulous. It is clean, classic, classy and cold, even in summer! Sweden is 450,000 sq km (almost France) and was established as an independent kingdom by King Gustav in 1523. It joined the EU in 1995 but decided against the Euro. Stockholm was founded in the 13th century and is 15% immigrant (mainly Iraq, Turkey and Pakistan). The old city (Gamla Stan, top photo) is full of Swedish Rennaissance architecture and tourists! The 1923AD Stadthuset (Town Hall, second photo) is a main tourist site since it hosts the Nobel Prize Banquet every year. Other sites we visited: The 1754AD Kungliga Slottet or Royal Palace (largest in the world with 608 rooms!), 1306AD Storkyrkan Church (where Nobel winners give their speech), artsey Sodermalm, the Swedish history museum (that tells the tale through corpses found over time) and the famous Djurgarden, a wonderland Swedish "Centennial Park" complete with ammusement park, musuems and the huge "Skansen", an open air musuem (opened in 1891) of 151 replica Swedish dwellings over the ages. Finally there is the city´s crowning natural beauty - its Archipelago of many islands (bottom photos)! Paul and I spent a whole day travelling from Stockholm to Sandhamn and back via a few thousand other islands. Along the way we saw many villas of the rich and famous including the late Mr Ericsson! John swam in Sandhamn in what felt like 12 degrees and now understands why the Swedes live in Greece and the southern Balkans in summer! Distance travelled so far: 15,722km.