LH Franz By now, our sleep cycles had normalized and we got up in time for breakfast, then stood on the sidewalk outside the hotel to be picked up for our half day Viking History Small Group Tour From Stockholm.
A very chipper guy named Felix met us promptly at 9:30 in front of the hotel and we headed off. We two were the only ones on this tour. Very small group indeed.
This seemed to be more informal than the Evening Safari. We were driving in what looked to me like his personal car, with little hands cutout from construction paper, decorated with glitter, hanging from the rear view mirror. Some school-kids’ artwork, no doubt. Very sweet.
After picking up his co-worker, Jonathan, we were off to see rune stones.
I have to say that for me, this tour wasn’t as informative as it was for DD. Felix and Jonathan know quite a lot about Viking history, but, having done some reading on my own, I knew some of it already.
We saw lots of rune stones. Jonathan read them aloud and translated them. This was impressive. Rune stones were scattered all over the area, some erected to commemorate specific people, some to commemorate grand occasions like battle victories. 
As we toured around, he explained something about the social situation of the time, who commissioned the stones and why. He talked about the status of women in Viking society, about how Vikings traded far and wide and brought back stuff from very far away, including from the Islam world. He talked about how the local parliaments worked, how the changeover to Christianity proceeded and was reflected in some of the symbolism in the rune stones.
I had already read about much of this stuff, but somehow seeing these things in the flesh made it more real.
After we finished that part of our tour, we dropped Jonathan off and Felix brought us to a recreation of a Viking era village, maintained by a community of enthusiasts. I was reminded of Plymouth Plantation in Massachusetts, a recreation of the village built by English settlers from the Mayflower. The floor plan, which I assume represents a typical Viking era home, had two main areas for sleeping and working. The working area contained cooking implements and tools to perform household duties like preparing food, spinning yarn, and drying herbs. 
Inhabitants slept around the central hearth, presumably with little or no privacy. This, for me, was a really interesting part of this tour. It’s the kind of thing you can read about in history books but, because it deals with day-to-day life, really has to be seen up close to be appreciated.
We then drove to Sigatuna, a very nice and historically interesting place, but which, sadly, found me dog-tired and all “Viking-ed out.” The main street was lined with cute restaurants and souvenir shops. The three of us (DD, Felix, and me) picked someplace to have lunch. I told the young woman taking orders that I did not eat meat. She quickly suggested a Croque Monsieur without the meat, which sounded odd to me (is it really a Croque Monsieur if there is no ham?), but acceptable. When served, I found it was also sprinkled with a sharp-tasting grated cheese of some sort, so it didn’t taste like a Croque Monsieur either. But it definitely looked like one, and it was extremely delicious.
Felix brought us to the Sigatuna Museum which looked like someplace I could easily spend 1.5 hours exploring (see my post Reykjavik (May 31 2022) Museum of Iceland, Settlement Exhibit about how I visit museums.) By this time, however, we had ingested a ton of historical and visual information, and I honestly wanted to have some time to process it all. Besides, we had already had a very full half day of touring, and our schedule was to return to Stockholm.
So we left Sigatuna behind. It is now on my list of things to visit if I ever return to Sweden.
Back at the hotel, we relaxed, then went out for dinner, Burger King this time just to see how it compared to MacDonalds. We agreed we did not like it as much. However, it was familiar and filling, which was all we required.
Our day ended with a trip to the COOP supermarket to replenish room supplies.
