Euro Day 31 - Hello Stockholm!

Wednesday, 24 July 2019

Today has been a long day. We had a 5:45am start so we could make it to our 12:15 flight from Munich to Stockholm.  The distance was only 180kms so it should have been easy but not long after we started google advised us to reroute due to car accidents on the highways ahead of us. Even as we did, the time google predicted we were going to arrive was rapidly getting later and later, until we were really starting to worry - especially as we weren't sure how long it would take to drop off the car.  Luckily google found more sneaky routes around the worst bits and we arrived with a little bit of time to spare  - but it was getting stressful for a while there.  We found our drop-off place and left the trusty Citroen parked with all its red number plated French lease-car friends under some trees next to a cornfield near the airport.

The lease-car guy told us that at this time of year a car transport truck will arrive every day to take the cars back to Paris, where ours and the others will be sold to French people wanting to get a new car without paying the new car tax. This way they get an almost new car and avoid the tax, and we got a brand new car to drive around.

The flight north was uneventful and we're now in Stockholm. It's been a while since I was here (1996 for the Ultimate Frisbee World Champs). To be honest (and it could just be that I now have lots of other cities to compare it with now), but I'm not sure it's at its best at the moment - heaps of grand buildings are covered in scaffolding or blocked by other building works. Perhaps I've just got city fatigue and it will grow on me again.  In fact I'm sure it will once we get out to the beautiful green suburbs with lakes for swimming in.  

As we only have a brief afternoon and morning here, I wanted to put us in the heart of things, so we're staying in a room in a hotel in Gamlestan - the old town.  We couldn't afford a bathroom as well as a bed room, so we have a shared one down the hall, but it's a really nice place. The building was built in 1525, and the slope on the floor is quite remarkable.  After checking in we went for a walk to a slightly-more-upmarket-than-McDonalds burger place for dinner then we had a short look around town.

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I hope you have been enjoying the pictures - it's not always easy to get people to pose for photos correctly..

Tomorrow we will have another big day as we have brunch at a friends place, then we pick up our motorhome and drive to O-Ringen.