Leaving Stockholm (59° Lat N.)

About a week ago I embarked on a trip, a northern quest that started in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden which is on the Baltic Sea. Stockholm is at 59° of latitude north (Compare Juneau, Alaska at 58° N). It is an absolutely beautiful city with impeccable Nordic infrastructure i.e. it's spotless and everything works all the time! When we say it is on the Baltic Sea, we mean that pretty literally. It is a bit of a “water world” as it is built on 14 islands, it’s almost to the point where each neighborhood is an island. The reason for that is that about 22,000 years ago, at the height of the last glaciation also known as the Last Glacial Maximum or LGM, where Stockholm is now was an ice sheet 12,800 feet thick, that’s over two miles of ice… 

When it all melted between 22,000 and about 8,000 years ago it waterlogged the whole area actually the whole of Scandinavia and, once freed from the weight, the land rebounded and literally came out of the sea. It is still rebounding till this day at a rate of something like a centimeter each century. At the current rate of post-glacial rebound, in a bit over 2,000 years, the Gulf of Bothnia is predicted to close up making the Baltic Sea a lake again (it has happened a few times since the LGM).

This explains why Stockholm, is 1) on the water and, 2) so beautiful. In any case, that’s where I left from to really go north.

Here are a couple of pictures showing Stockholm aka the “Venice of the North”:

"Gamla Stan" in Stockholm which translates to Old Town. 

                                  View of the City Hall in Stockholm.