Euro Odyssey: It’s not all bad on Friday the 13th!

Day 50 - July 13^th

We awoke to a fairly damp Eskiltuna after the storm the night before, but decided to take a quick run up the river and back. After breakfast, we made a quick call to Luke’s brother for his birthday and then hit the road to Stockholm.

Stockholm was only about 80km away, so we arrived into the capital just before lunch and surprise, surprise it was raining again. Actually it was absolutely pissing down!

We have honestly never been in a country that has such dramatically changing weather, and for two people that grew up in Melbourne I think this is quite the statement.

In a Swedish summer you can be basking in the sun for a good couple of hours while watching some seriously black clouds roll in far off in the distance and then 30 minutes later there is a crack of thunder and a deluge of rain.

Wait another hour, the roads and pavements are dry and you’re thinking did it rain here or was that just my imagination?

We had looked up a couple of wild camping spots online, as Stockholm is renowned for quite high parking prices and also more stringent parking inspectors - well compared to Denmark, which did not charge for any parking and therefore didn’t have any inspectors.

Our first target was a parking area in the royal garden area about 5km from the old town and by the sound of it online it was quiet and had access to public toilets so ticked all the boxes.

What the online recommendation didn’t mention was the big height-restricting bar they appeared to have installed after the post went up, because it was only high enough to let a sports car in.

Our next target was at one of the waterfront marinas and it sounded very good, being close to the old town and free on Saturday’s and Sunday’s. We crawled our way around in another torrential downpour and finally located the marina pulling in just behind another camper.

We were extraordinarily lucky with our timing, as just as the camper in front of us moved ahead a car that had been parked pulled out for us to whack on the indicator and claim our spot. It was a tight squeeze, but given the parking lot was rammed we didn’t bother risking losing it to find something more suitable.

This turned out to be a great decision as we saw the same German camper circle the car park and much of Stockholm for the next 4 hours trying to find a place to settle down!

After getting our amazing parking spot, we relaxed in the van for a while and waited out yet another storm in Sweden – this time with some massive cracks of thunder that shook the van windows.

After the storm finally passed, we got the bikes out and started a quick reconnaissance of town.

Stockholm as we arrived.

Stockholm 30 minutes later.

As the Swedish are another bunch of fence sitting cowards (I’m a little bit annoyed by that), Stockholm was free from any attack by the Germans leaving the cities buildings and infrastructure in top condition.

We made our way into the renowned food market (Ostermalms Saluhall) to gasp at the amazing food and their corresponding prices (£15 for a slice of bread with some shrimp on it) and then carried on towards the Stockholm Fotografiska Museum.

Seafood Shazlik on Steroids!

Claire getting a bit hungry with the
sight of all the amazing food.

When food is arranged like this you
know it is going to cost you!

A couple of wagon wheels of cheese.

With the Olympics about to kick off in London, much of the museum was dedicated to past Olympic moments from athletes across the world and also Sweden.

I think the most memorable picture and accompanying story is about a female Polish athlete who won gold in athletics during one of the meets in the 1930’s. Three decades later, she was caught as a bystander in an armed robbery and killed. An autopsy later revealed that she was actually a he!

Some bloke taking a chooch at the Fotografiska museum. It is really quite tiring looking at photos.

After the museum we had a mad rush back to the van in a fit of hunger, capping off the evening with a walk through the Royal Palace, Old Town and then watching a crazy street performer show us what she had for breakfast.