Sigtuna, the first town of Sweden.

Yes, it's raining and it's cool and we love it! Sigtuna is Sweden's first town, established in 970 by King Erik Segersäll. The main street remains pretty much the same as it was 1000 years ago. Lots of old wooden houses. Not a lot of tourists in this little town and the locals are almost surprised to see us there. Maybe it gets busier when the weather gets better, looks like they are having a cool summer this year.

We decided to take a boat to Skokloster Slott, a beautiful castle from the 1600s on the shores of lake Mälaren.

This unfinished room was going to be a large banquet hall but has remained a building site since the 1600s. It's unusual to be able to witness this stage of construction in an old castle.

Here's an old map of the Americas. North America was still mainly undiscovered at that time, Washington state is not even on this map!

Intricate metallic wall covering in one of the rooms. Amazing textures and fabric and wallpaper everywhere, more on that later.

The tree lined alley leading to the castle.

And every castle had their own church, of course!