Girls with BOUNDLESS energy that need to run free + a hurt leg (aka Mr. F) = quality but not quantity when it came to planning activities in Stockhom.  We easily decided on Junibacken and the Skansen!

Junibacken – Junibacken is a Pippi Longstocking’s house (based upon the Pippi Longstocking books by Astrid Lindgren).   It has many areas to play, including a nice size house,  a train ride and performances hourly.

The train ride is a bit scary at the end for the little ones but our girls were very brave and only covered their eyes for a minute.  The performances were very entertaining even for Miss H who only understands ‘pappa’ and ‘tak’ (thank you) in Swedish.   The cafeteria had all kinds of good things to eat in the cafeteria including all the treats Pippi would have in her own house.   I had a typical Swedish open-face shrimp salad sandwich on dark bread which was super fresh and good.  The kids had — Swedish style pancakes, of course!

Skansen – The skansen is an open-air museum of rural cultural life before industrial times and has real preserved houses and farms with furnishings and tools.  There are people demonstrating work of the time (i.e. baking, shoemaking, knitting and spinning wool, etc).

We knew we would like the skansen in Stockholm.  It was the first, opened in 1891. The skansen in Budapest was a regular outing for us when we were there.  We also visited the one in Tallinn, Estonia pre-Miss H.   Miss H and I even went to a mini skansen called the Yesteryear Village at the corn festival in South Florida when we were there over Spring Break.

Anyway, the girls had a lot of fun.   There was a lot of space to run and explore.  They were focused on the small zoo that had animals local to the area and a few small rides and climbing structures.   We looked at the old houses too, but MOST importantly there was a train ride and of course ice cream at the end!

You can read about the first part of our Stockholm visit here.

Next up:  the Midsommar celebration in the countryside north of Stockholm!