It was a relatively short flight to Helsinki, where we spent four nights in a little apartment Airbnb in the downtown core. We were surrounded by vintage shops, niche cafes and lots of oddly dressed hipsters. We spent our days exploring the surrounding area by foot or taking short trips on the streetcar to the metropolitan part of the city.

Lined with big department stores and designer shops, Rach and I enjoyed people watching and window shopping more than anything else. There were plenty of great street performers that lent some light to the grey days we found ourselves in. There was some snow and some rain but over all the temperature was pretty mild.

The weekend market was interesting to walk through and almost felt like an antique/artisan show. Food halls seemed to be common as we found ourselves in several of them as we made our way around Helsinki and then Turku.

The local foods were just fantastic, always warm and hearty soups, great big meat dishes with potatoes and of course lingonberries are a part of almost every dish in one way or another.

We stayed in Turku for a couple days before catching the ferry to Sweden. It was quite a beautiful journey on the boat as we wound our way through narrow channels we always had a nice view out the window. The ride was calm and the boat was full of things to keep you occupied as the hours passed by.

We arrived in Stockholm in the evening and took a cab to our hostel, The Generator, which was a great stay and was in a great area! We didn’t even need to buy a bus pass as everything was within walking distance. The beautiful streets lined with shops, hairdressers, cafes and restaurants seemed to go on forever as we got lost in the city of endlessly beautiful people.

All Rach and I could think as we were walking around was how beautiful the people were, the way they dressed,  their bone structure and overall demeanour was just amazing. We loved everything about the city, even when it was raining it was beautiful, the architecture and layout of the city was easy on the eyes and easy to navigate.

We spent entire days walking through the city, brisk air on our faces but a warm cup of mulled wine around every corner. We were sad to have to leave so soon but also looking forward to visiting Gothenburg to the South.

A couple hours on a nice quiet train, the sun shining through the windows and beautiful lakes and grassy knolls passed us by as we made our way to a new city.

We were not disappointed when we arrived to find this quaint city bustling with life on one half and the other was an enormous park that had an outdoor “zoo”, workout zones, lakes and activities for the kids.

The park was so huge that we spent two days roaming around it! There were reindeer and moose and cafes to relax in, there was a slide that must have been 20 meters long!! (and of course we enjoyed ourselves on it) We scrambled across the rock climbing wall jumped on the in ground trampolines, had pull up competitions and played on the swings. We absolutely adored Gothenburg and urge anyone in Sweden to take a trip to this beautiful city.