Stockholm, Sweden

After another nice train day, we visited the capital of Sweden, Stockholm. We slept in a red boat hotel for two nights, giving us one full day to visit. It is a boat parked on the side of the river with a bar and restaurant upstairs and rooms downstairs. The old part of the city is really nice. We also visited a history museum, Historiska Museet, which was really interesting with part of the viking history.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bergen to Stockholm, Norway to Sweden

The train ride from Bergen to Oslo is a really scenic route 1222 meters above sea level and goes through 182 tunnels. There was 15000 men working on this railroad track for 34 years from 1875 until its completion. It was a really impressive route. The nicest part for us being the highest one, since we like mountains.

And this is the only moose we saw in Sweden...

Cruising like a Norwegian

We flew in New Orleans a few days in advance to visit this interresting city. It's a very popular destination for young adults that play jazz music. It is dotted with bars that have live music playing from 7 PM to late at night. We really enjoyed the feeling of having a snack of homemade chips accompanied with a nice beer while watching an unknown band playing at the "Maison", a small local bar on the famous Frenchmen street.

New Orleans also offer really nice architechture with French and Spanish inspiration. The French Quarter is a must see. You can walk and get lost for hours just for fun enjoying the architecture.

There is also the Bourbon street. A party street in the French quarter that offers tons of bars and beer "take away" kiosk. That street is filling up really quick at night.

French Quarter

Norwegian Star

This is the boat that took us for our transatlantic journey. It was our first time on a cruiseship and it was great. We decided to travel by boat to Europe as we have all the time in the world and we were thinking it would be the best way to relax and cut ourself from our old work life and it really worked. We didn't think much about anything but the present and the fact we are leaving for a round the world trip. This is really hard to realise. We have to remind us often what we are doing. We also didn't have internet access during our cruise so this really helped cutting ourself from the outside world.

Room 10538

Room 10538

Our Private Balcony

Miami

Miami

Ponta Delgada

Ponta Delgada

Portas da Citade

Sunset

The "freestyle" idea for cruising is great. You just put a Do Not Disturb sign on the door and sleep until you wake up, eat when you're hungry and enjoy the balcony as you wish. We had a nice balcony room which had a good view on all the stops we did. We were lucky enough to be on the good side for all the stops so we could have a view of the cities. We also had 9 days at see so we enjoyed the view of the ocean a lot.

Dover

Dover Castle

Dover Castle

Dover was really interesting. We did a tour of the old tunnels. They were built right in the rock, underground. They were used a lot during World War II to plan the evacuation of the troops from France to England. There was also another level used as an underground hospital. The tour helped us learn more about some history we didn't know. We also visited the castle. A nice example of a medieval castle with a great view from the top.

View of Ponta Delgada

Ponta Delgada is a small town on an Island in the middle of the Atlantic. It belongs to Portugual and Portuguese is the language they speak. This was the first time we had a problem with an unknown language. People we talk to didn't speak English or French. We know it's not the first time this happens but it made us realize how it's going to be. We took a few hours to walk around and then went back to the boat. It would have been nice to explore the rest of this island, not only the city, but we had just the one day. 

Helsingborg

Kärnan, the medieval tower of Helsingborg

Seb's Bank

Since most people are calling me Seb, I thought this was an interesting bank :).