Three Countries 30 hours

We enjoyed a lovely sleep and a peaceful morning in our marina parking spot on Lidingö Island. Waking up by the water felt like a pretty wonderful way to say goodbye to Stockholm.

Before leaving, we headed back into the city to take care of a few errands and general life-admin tasks, including what felt like a mandatory pilgrimage to IKEA in Sweden. It would have seemed rude not to.

With our chores complete, we made our way to the ferry bound for Helsinki.

The crossing turned out to be great fun. Our cabin was small but spotless, complete with our own bathroom, which felt surprisingly luxurious after road-trip living. We spent the evening catching up on online tasks, enjoyed a solid night's sleep, and even had the luxury of a morning shower before arriving in Finland.

As a result, we stepped off the ferry feeling unusually clean, refreshed, and ready to explore.

We spent the day wandering around Helsinki, enjoying the city's many design and vintage shops. Along the way, we had a fun conversation with an Italian jeweller at the market and found ourselves discussing Finnish design, and craftsmanship.

Naturally, I also found far too many things I liked in a small design shop. Fortunately, liking something and buying something are not always the same thing, except for this time ;) haha

One of my missions for the day was to find an interesting Finnish grocery store. Unfortunately, my research led me astray and I ended up in a rather odd shop that was not at all what I had expected. Thankfully Lidl came through in the end and restored my faith in grocery-shopping adventures.

The biggest challenge of the day, however, was the weather.

We both agreed that adventuring in the rain is considerably less fun than adventuring in the sunshine. After spending much of the day grateful for our new umbrella, but dodging showers and watching increasingly gloomy weather forecasts, we made what may have been a slightly rash but entirely appealing decision.

Why stay in the rain when we could catch another ferry?

So that's exactly what we did.

A few hours later we found ourselves boarding a ferry to Tallinn, Estonia. At only two hours long, the crossing felt more like a pleasant commute than an international journey. The ferry itself was comfortable, modern, and remarkably efficient.

In fact, we both agreed that BC Ferries could probably take a few notes.

And just like that, another country was added to the adventure.

Here is our view passing through the Swedish archipelago. With its forested islands, rocky shorelines, and scattered cottages, it felt remarkably similar to the Gulf Islands back home.