@thejucheidea - Sweden

*Barbie*

I want to hear more about Sweden - what do you like to do? what's good to see? are you staying in Stockholm or another city? have you ever been to Malmo? have you ever driven in Sweden, or do you take public transport/cabs/trains/walk? if you've driven, how much of an adjustment would it be for 2 americans who don't speak a bit of Swedish?

We've pretty much decided to do the scandinavian/russian cruise next year, and we're staying in the departure port for a few days pre-cruise. The 2 departure ports are Copenhagen and Stockholm. I read that Malmo is pretty easy to access from Copenhagen through a bridge/tunnel across a channel, so i was thinking if we stay in Copenhagen, we could maybe take a day trip to Malmo. I'm trying to get a feel for things to do/see in and near each city so we can make a decision. 

thejucheidea

We went to Stockholm in February. This time, we're going to Gävle, Boden, Kiruna and Stockholm. Stockholm is a motherfucking dream world -- I want to live there so badly.

I've never been to Malmö -- it's pretty far south, but we'll probably go there on a future trip because we want to go to Denmark at some point for Legoland. 

I've driven in Iceland, but not in Sweden. I was going to drive this time around, but we decided to stay in Kiruna proper instead of going all the way out to Abisko on our trip -- my husband doesn't know how to drive stick and won't learn, nor does he know how to drive in snow, and I didn't want to be six months pregnant and trying to drive stick in 30"+ of snow without backup. That said, driving in Iceland was easy peasy, and I don't think that driving in Sweden would be any different.

You don't have to know any Swedish at all to get around Sweden. I'm learning Swedish, but the VAST majority of people speak English. My only recommendation is to have a Swedish dictionary if you're planning on eating out somewhere or something because we had helpful moments like my husband: 'what is salat?' guy at the pizza place: 'salat'. Oh okay.

In Stockholm, we went to ALL THE MUSEUMS and we're doing the same next month, but also going to a bunch of Christmas markets. We're going to see the Gävle Goat in Gävle if it hasn't been burned down yet, just kinda hang around Boden for a few hours between trains and see the Northern Lights and go dogsledding in Kiruna.

Everyone is awesome in Sweden, it's clean, it's beautiful, it's... it's just the best. I recommend Sweden to EVERYONE.

*Barbie*

Thanks! We decided to go for the Copenhagen stay instead of Stockholm, but I have a feeling we'll go back at some point. (Winter would be awesome for the northern lights and dogsledding - since we ended up deciding to hold off on Iceland this year.) We'll still have one day in Stockholm, at minimum, so any recs are welcome.