As we were in Sweden over the Christmas and new year period, we intended to make a visit to some Viking age site or other.

Seeing as we would be spending the majority of our time in Stockholm we decided that because we were short on both time and funds to make a day trip to Uppsala, seat of the kings of Sweden and site of a legendary Viking temple.

However, the weather made a turn for the worst, with communications disrupted and power shortages across the country.

Not deterred, we decided to see what we could see in the Stockholm area. After a bit of research we decided to make a trip to the island of Lovö, on the outskirts of Stockholm. We were staying in the Bromma suburb, so it would only be a 12 minute bus ride to Lovö.

Our destination was the church on Lovö, famous for amongst other things the 5 standing rune stones in the church-yard. It's wonderful to board a bus in a busy, bustling commercial district, with trains passing by overhead, and lorries and cars hurtling past, and then a few minutes later to be in a rural setting on an island in the beautiful Stockholm archipelago. The bus dropped us off right outside the church itself. Just outside the church garden, next to the perimeter wall was a detailed map of Lovö, showing all the places of interest on the island, including several other Viking age sites that our research hadn't found.

Unfortunately time wasn't on our side. We had set out just after noon, and had already planned to visit another rune stone later that day, but as it does tend to get dark rather early so far North in early January we had to pass on the other treasures Lovö had to offer. Hopefully we'll get to see them in the Summer.

By the East gate of the church garden was another information point, detailing some of the history of the famous runes we had come to see. The stones are numbered from the East gate. All the stones now stand outside the church in the approximate positions they were found.