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.