Sweden part 6 - Algo

 Our last stop was a house on one of the islands in the archepelego outside of Stockholm.  We arrived at 11 pm and this was the view. 

And this was the view the next day.

Here's the house and the grounds around it. 

Julia's niece is currently living in southern Sweden, so she joined us for a couple of days.  She actually went all the way in the water, and then it took literally hours and a hot shower for her to warm back up. 

Some views around the island, and more lilacs.

Sweden part 5 - Simtuna and more

 I had a random thought to see if I could find the area where my great grandmother came from. 

So all we could really find was a church with a cemetery in the area. There did not seem to be much else there.  But there were more lilacs. 

On the road, we also saw rapeseed fields everywhere and I took a million pictures.

Sweden part 4 - Dalarna

 Dalarna county, where we were visiting, is known for folk art.  Here's the history of Dala horse, which is probably the most well-known of the handicrafts HERE.  On the drive back down towards Stockholm, we stopped at the Nils Olsson Dala horse factory  

We each bought more Dala horses than it makes sense for two people to buy, but I loved it.  

Here's the outside of the factory/store

Here you can kind of see how the horses are made.  look closely at the wood - the horses are drawn on the wood. 

This is a picture of the room with artists painting the horses, but I didn't want to take a picture of the actual artists (there were 2 or 3 there).  Here is the variety of horses. 

This display was a bunch of Dala horses through the ages.

Sweden part 3 - Alvdalen

 We decided to go to a part of the country that we had never been to, so we rented this little house in kind of the center of the country.  We had a nice view of a lake. 

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Here's some more views around the area.  

I have no idea what this little place is in the hillside.

We went to a little church nearby and sat through a sermon that I didn't understand at all but recognized some of the hymns. 

Sweden part 2 - Stockholm

 Next was about five days in Stockholm. My friend Julia is a theater professor and she was able to make it a business trip by going to a play and meeting with a local director, so our housing was partially paid for the university.  

Here are some pictures around the old town. 

We took a boat cruise through the archipelago 

There is an ABBA museum on one of the islands. They have a bunch of their costumes and instruments.  They also had some hologram images of the band from the 70's. 

and here are some pictures of a food hall in town

and some random street art...