We wrapped up our vacation with our snowiest and coldest day of the whole trip. The high in Stockholm was going to be 25 degrees, and with the windchill it was going to feel like 13. 

We had prepared for a winter trip, but this was definitely the day I put on every single layer I had packed. Every trip to the bathroom took an excessively long amount of time dealing with all those layers.

But despite the cold and freezing, the snow actually made everything look kind of magical, and this was one of my favorite days.

Our morning started out with a boat tour of some of the islands that make up the Stockholm archipelago. Given the weather, by the time we arrived, all the inside seats were taken. So we hunkered down on the upper deck. 

During the early part of the tour, being outside actually wasn't so bad. The boat was decently protected from the wind, and we had pretty good views of the various islands.

But about half way through once we hit the turn around point and started heading in the other direction, we got the full brunt of the wind and sleet pelting us in the face. 

We had planned to hop on the tram to take us from the port to our next destination --Skansen, an open air museum that is supposed to capture moments from historical Sweden all in one place. 

My hope was that we'd warm up a bit on the tram before plunging back into the cold. 

But joke was on us because there was a delay on the tram, and we ended up waiting outside in the bad weather for a while for the next tram to come. 

We were about zero percent warmer by the time we got to Skansen. 

So we started out exploring some of the inside exhibits -- like the Baltic Sea center, where we could see some of the animals that call the Baltic Sea home. 

After grabbing a warm and hearty lunch of soup, we finished exploring the museum.

We got to watch a glassblowing demonstration and see some of the old historic buildings that had been scattered throughout Sweden over history and were collected into this museum. 

But hands down my favorite part was the Nordic animals section. 

I had so much fun walking around and seeing all these cool animals that I'd never really see at home (ok except for the bears, we have bears here). 

But we saw reindeer and wolverines and a Nordic fox. 

And we got to watch a seal feeding display. (Ok fine we have seals here too). 

The animals section definitely made being outside on such a freezing cold day totally worth it. 

But after so much time outdoors, we decided it was time to let ourselves thaw out at an indoor museum. 

The Vasa Museum had come highly recommended by so many people and blogs and websites, and I'll be honest, I could not figure out why everyone thought this museum dedicated to an old boat that sank 30 minutes after leaving port was so worthwhile. 

Like what is so special about a sunken boat and a museum to complete failure in shipbuilding?

But this museum actually ended up being one of the coolest things from the trip, and now I think it is really undersold. 

Yes, you can see the entire ship that has been salvaged off the bottom of the Baltic Sea and beautifully preserved and restored. And that in and of itself is really cool.

But you can also see everything else that sank with the ship that is also still incredibly well preserved. Explorers were able to pull up bowls and plates and jewelry from the boat that were still in near perfect condition because of the make up of the seabed and the waters of the Baltic. 

Perhaps a bit more morbid, you can also see the still pretty well in tact skeletons of the people who died aboard the ship and the clothes they were wearing. Again, all in still remarkably amazing shape for sitting at the bottom of the sea for something like 300+ years. 

That was actually the most interesting part of the whole museum to me -- all these artifacts that were hundreds of years old that were still in pristine condition despite being part of a shipwreck. 

We stayed until closing time, and then began the snowy walk back to our hotel. We strolled along the water and through some of the fancy shopping districts in Stockholm soaking in the last bits of the city before we got ready to pack our bags to head home. 

All in all this was a great trip. We loved getting a taste of some of the Nordic/Scandinavian/Baltic countries. They are definitely different than other parts of Europe we've been to, and even though it was pretty cold while we were there, it was great visiting in the offseason when there were far fewer tourists. We never had to wait at a restaurant and were easily able to get into all the sights we wanted to see pretty much when we wanted to see them.  

Would definitely recommend adding this part of Europe to your list if you've never been.

Our first day in Stockholm was cold and windy and grey, but we tried to make the best of the newly freezing temperatures and still enjoy a good chunk of the city.

When we woke up in the morning, our boat was cruising through the outer parts of the Stockholm archipelago. The temperatures had dropped big time over night and the islands were covered in snow.

We docked and made our way to our hotel to drop our bags before setting out for a day in Gamla Stan, the historic part of the city. 

Gamla Stan is home to the Royal Palace and is known for its beautiful architecture. 

We spent most of our morning just wandering up and down the narrow streets before making our way back to the Palace to watch the changing of the guard in the early afternoon. 

We warmed up with a hearty lunch in Gamla Stan before heading over to our city hall tour. 

The city hall building itself was really interesting. The outside is kind of dark and a bit depressing looking, but inside each room has pretty different design aesthetics. 

Our tour started in the hall where the Nobel winners get to celebrate their accomplishments before moving on to the part of the building where Stockholm's politicians do their work. 

We passed through rooms with gorgeous artwork, including these lovely tapestries.

And then we ended up in this wild room full of gold mosaic. I have to say this room was not what I was expecting at all to see in city hall, but the mosaics were stunning. 

This room is used for lots of things, but it's also where the post-dinner dancing for the Nobel winners takes place. 

We finished out our first day in Stockholm on the hunt for some traditional Swedish food for dinner. I, of course, got the Swedish meatballs. They were good, but I found that I liked the food in Finland better.

Our last half day in Helsinki, we woke up to sleet and rain that we hoped would clear out by the time we finished breakfast since we only had a few hours remaining before we were heading to Stockholm.

Luckily it did, and we were able to enjoy our last few hours walking around to the last few sites we hoped to check off our list. Helsinki isn't a huge city, so we felt we got to see a lot even though we weren't there for super long.

It stayed cold and grey as we strolled past some of the major museums, around the library and up to Toolo Bay, which was still largely frozen. 

I had been interested in checking out two churches that came highly recommended in Helsinki. The first was the Kampii Chapel of Silence. It's supposed to be a place anyone can go for a moment of respite in the city, but unfortunately it was temporarily closed while we were in town. 

The other church I've seen referred to as the rock church in English because it's this big church that is built into a rock that was blasted out. 

The architecture in the church was pretty cool, and I certainly enjoyed the chance to get out of the cold weather for a bit. 

We wrapped up our remaining time in Helsinki riding some of the city's trams. Rick Steves had an interesting tram loop he recommended for a chance to catch a glimpse of some of the further out sites in the city, and since we had some time to kill before we needed to head to Stockholm, we did that. 

The tram tour took us past the old Olympic stadium, through some neighbors, past the botanic gardens and then back into the heart of the city before passing through Helsinki's version of embassy row.

After collecting our luggage at our hotel, we walked about 15 minutes over to the port where we could catch our boat to Stockholm. 

We had initially been planning to fly to Stockholm, but after our horrendous travel experience getting to Helsinki, we weren't eager to deal with an airport again so soon. So we switched things around and booked an overnight boat trip instead. 

We found good seats to watch as we departed Helsinki before the sun set. 

My pictures through the front windows are less than ideal, but it was too cold to stand outside on the upper decks.