Travel day. We take the overnight ferry to Helsinki for our post-trip extension. We slept in and packed before breakfast at the hotel. Ross loves his European breakfasts. Lots of fruit, cereal, meat, cheese, and bread choices. I eat my usual crusty bread with a slice of cheese, watermelon, and sliced tomatoes. We almost always had the option of scrambled eggs and bacon and the big difference we noticed in Scandinavia was that the bacon was actually crisp, not fatty as we have seen in other parts of Europe.

After lunch we headed outside to say good-by to our guides Bodhi and Phillip.

A shuttle transported us to the ferry at 2:45.

We had to wait a bit to board along with our 2,000 or so fellow travelers.

Our room was plenty big enough for us and our suitcases but the key activity was to be on deck as the ferry traveled through the archipelago of Stockholm.

We say goodby to Stockholm.

Ross checked and there are 24,000 islands in the archipelago, some good-sized and some tiny.

Two other ships followed along behind us for awhile before breaking away.

We also were visited on deck by some people dressed to celebrate Midsummer’s Eve.

We had a bright, sunshiny day but it was chilly on deck. Our temperatures on this trip were never higher than in the 70s and this was summer.

At another smorgasbord in the “Grand Buffet,” we laughed over videos of the Midsummer’s Eve ski race.

After dinner, we wandered through the shopping area then went to our cabin and watched a World Cup soccer game.

At bedtime the sun was dropping lower in the sky but it never did get totally dark that night. Tomorrow morning we will be in Finland.