Hej Sweden!

When everyone else here in Luxembourg goes to France, Portugal or Italy, where should we go? Not willing to suffer the heat of Spanish summer, we decided to visit a country of true tough men and woman, proud viking people. A country where covid does not exist!

No covid?

Well not exactly, covid-19 is present but people/tourist do not care. Once you land at the airport, customs officer do not wear masks, nobody does in Gamla Stan nor in Vasa museum. With children touching everything, it is completely impossible to not have caught that virus. Sweden had a herd immunity strategy and therefore was the place to visit this summer. NO MASKS!

Ragnar!

Why else? We have been watching the TV show Vikings since the beginning and found it entertaining. So even if Ragnar lived in Norway, Sweden has its Viking history. You guess the tour main topic.

To learn a lot about viking culture, buy books writen by historians. You will not have enough time in museums to read it. Try to make the difference between stories and history. We found "The age of Vikings" by Anders Winroth very interesting.

Into the wild

We cannot stay in museums for days, the girls cannot survive more that two hours in museums so we had to find some powerful activity to anchor the tour. Horseriding, outdoor activities, full board, nothing to think of. We found a multiactivity farm in Lappland...quite pricey but looks like anything else.

The tour

Our tour is pretty simple:

• Fly to Stockholm, stay there a few days in the beautiful Gamla Stan, do a boat tour, visit Skansen and Junibacken
• Rent a car and drive to High Coast area, take a full day to trek there
• Lappland
• Rest a few days in Dalecarlia
• Take the last night/day before return to visit Uppsala and Sigtuna

General tips

Travelling by car

We rented a car at Greenrentals.com. Do not use their website. You get beeter fares everywhere. There are located close to the airport, there were not a lot of cutomers in August 2021. Our car was clean and full of scratches and it was good because they can not see the ones you will add :D And it comes with a built-in free GPS.

We did not drive in Stockholm because the airport being north of the city and in our tour direction it was easier to take a taxi to the car renter.

Roads in Sweden are pretty safe but speed is very limited. We averaged at 60 km/h. You do not want to speed up because of the many controls.

Parking is easy even though we mostly parked in hotels parkings. In some cities, we could easily park for groceries. You can park for free in Sigtuna, we have not tried elsewhere.

Eating

Bad news, restaurants are just the same as everywhere else: fries, burgers, pizzas.

Very bad news: alcohol is expensive: 60 to 100 SEK for a beer.

Good news: we drink water and tap water is free...everywhere! We most of the time ordered 2 adult main courses and 2 kids menu. Expect a bill of 600 SEK.

Sleeping

Hotels are expensive, we choose big rooms or managed to get everyone in a tiny room. Its costs approx 1500 SEK per night. We will share our best deals.

Other considerations

We never felt insecured and the country may be the cleanest country we may have seen so far. You basically will not find public trashes and yet, no garbage lies on the ground. Toilets are both for women and men. Always clean.

Afterthoughts

If Grumpy had to do it again, he would:

• Only do the Lappland activity flying to Umea
• Visit Stockholm and Birka in a city trip

If you really want to spend a second week in Sweden, some friends had a great moment on an island close to High Coast region.