Stockholm; Sunday, 29 July, 2007

I checked out of the hotel, deposited my luggage in a locker at the central station and headed out into the Swedish countryside, to Läggesta and then by bus onto the small lakeside town of Mariefred. The reason for this is the palace that is located here. Gripsholm is as close to a typical castle as you can get, drawbridges, turrets, moat the whol lot.

I spent some considerable time exploring the castle, though if you are into Swedish painting you could take even longer as most rooms were covered in art work, from ancinet kings and queens up to the current royal family (and members of ABBA!)

I had a brief wander around the grounds before heading back to the station, though this time by the steam railway which runs from underneath the viaduct the Stockholm railway line runs over to the grounds of the castle. The trains rattle slowly down the 4Km between the two, but are a more interesting way of getting back.

By the time I arrived back in Stockholm there was less than an hour left before I had to catch the train out to the airport, so I wandered over to the city hall to climb to the top of the tower for a final view over Stockholm. Unfortunatly, since I last visited a new limit of 35 people at a time has been implemented on the tower so I joined tha back of what I thought was quite a short queue to climb the tower. 15 minutes later just three people had been alowed in and it looked as though I could be there for a very long time, so, reluctantly, I left the queue and wandered back to the station, picked up my luggage and headed for the airport.