Stockholm is elegant, expensive, grand, clean and in the middle of a downpour.
Old Town.
The next destination of the Scandinavian leg of the trek is the so-called ‘capital’ of Scanidinavia, Stockholm. A beautiful city set amongst several islands on an archipelago. Grand old buildings are surrounded by clean, blue water. Boats cruise in between areas and the city is connected by bridges, so it’s not too hard to get around. unless of course it’s constantly raining for your whole visit. Like it was for mine.
Rainy days.
Yes, I know, ‘travel is what you make it’ and ‘you shouldn’t sweat the small stuff’, but a couple of issues really affected my time in Stockholm. Especially considering we had so short of a time there. The constant rain put a dampener (yes, pun intended) on most of the activities I had planned like boat rides, walking around parks and gardens and watching the changing of the guard. The rain was constant for my first day and was off-and-on for the second. The weekend of my visit was also time that the Stockholm marathon took place, so the streets were cut off for the event. This means that although I could see how great Stockholm is, I didn’t enjoy it nearly as much as it deserved. It is an elegant city with grand buildings and tonnes of style. The Royal palace and the parliament are two stunning structures that tower of the city.
Stockholm Cathedral.
That being said, we still moved around the city as quickly as possible. We toured the city hall, home of the crazy after-party for the Nobel Prizes. Seeing dining halls, gold mosaic rooms and enjoying the unexpected jokes of our robotic tour guide. We tried to see the changing of the guard at the city’s royal palace through a sea of umbrellas. Unsuccessfully. When the rain was light enough to walk around in I explored the old town, Gamla Stan. Here is the classic winding cobblestone streets of medieval Europe, with one street that is only 90cms wide. The area is dotted with brightly coloured houses in yellows, oranges and reds and with grand old churches with enormous spires. It looked amazing, especially from across the water.
Town Hall.
Obviously, indoors was the place to be on days like this, and although expensive, the museums were great. The first museum stop was to see the famed Vasa. The Vasa was a Swedish war ship built and launched in the 1620s. Unfortunately for the crew, it was too heavily decorated and sunk about a kilometre into its maiden voyage. The ship itself was salvaged from the ocean floor and 98% of its original form sits proudly in the middle of the museum. It was massive and stunning. gasps and noises of awe could be heard from all over the museum. You could still see amazing detail in some of the decorations that brought it undone. As interesting as the Vasa was, The real museum highlight was the ABBA museum at the Swedish music hall of fame. This place was more than a museum, it took you through the band’s history but also had interactive exhibitions like karaoke, quizzes, virtual costume try-ons, music clips and even the chance to get up on stage in front of your fellow ABBA lovers and belt out a tune with computer generated images of the band. I was in some sort of cheesy music heaven. I think the best bit was how much people just love ABBA. Adults, kids and everyone in between were walking around with big smiles on their faces and singing the songs.
The back of the Vasa.
All the legends about the expense in Scandinavia are true. We went out to a bar one evening and were spending $10AU on beers and $8AU to check our coats. Even my favourite Swedish food, tiny, tiny cinnamon buns cost about $3AU each from service stops. Luckily, many of our meals were made by the Top Deck chef, so not only were they delicious it meant our few days in Scandinavia didn’t eat a hole in the budget as much as it could of. Until I spent it all on beer of course. Speaking of Top Deck, the tour group and our tour leader continue to impress me. The group is so fun that even after a week, I miss the ones we left as they headed up to Oslo and us to Tallinn. Our tour leader works so hard and finds solutions. Despite my original whinge about feeling rushed, moving around quickly is becoming easier. I still feel like I could do so much more, but now I am cramming my days full to the brim. This is easy though, as the days are long and the sunshine lasts for the majority of the day. The sun is shining bright on my face in the morning at about 5am, it does not go down until 10 or 11pm. In fact, as I write this blog entry at 11pm at night it is still light outside. On our night out in the city, the sun was rising as we left. Not because I am some sort of unstoppable party animal, but just because the sun begins to rise at about 3am.
On the water.
A lot of the space in Stockholm is ‘green’. Which means the outskirts of the city are encircled with lush woods. We camped (in cabins) outside the city, which was nice. I have been city hopping and at this point of my trip my favourite thing I did in Stockholm was sit on the side of the lake near our campsite and enjoy the 10 minutes of sun we had before the heavens opened again.
The forest around Stockholm.
Stockholm had all the elegance and style to impress unfortunately, circumstances meant I didn’t enjoy it as much as I should have. Although I forgot the rain when I was doing ABBA karaoke.
Ali's adventure 