6/17
We departed Malmö just before noon via the Snabbtåget (express train) to Stockholm. The ride took us about 4 hours across the VERY green Swedish countryside from Southern Sweden to Stockholm which is located kind of in the middle of the country and on the Eastern shore. The thing about Sweden is that everyone always pictures it as this beautiful countryside with little red houses in it, and that is precisely what it looks like between cities, at least here in the South.
Once we got to Stockholm's Centralstation, we had to take the subway, or as they call it Tunnelbana (tunneltrain), one stop to the neighborhood of Östermalm where our hotel was. "Weather" was ready to move in so we packed our umbrella and went on a first exploration of the neighborhood or district as we did in every city upon arrival.
We walked by nice tree lined avenues and eventually reached an area that features the stadium for the 1912 Olympics.
After walking around for about 1.5 hours, it started to pour down so we squeezed under the one umbrella we had and headed back to the hotel. Luckily, Yelp said there was a great restaurant just across from our hotel, and Yelp was right. We had one of the best dinners of the entire trip there. It definitely wasn't the cheapest but they made up for it by serving beer in wine glasses ;-)
6/18
This was our only day in Stockholm where everything was open. Friday (6/19) would be midsommarafton (midsummer evening) and Saturday (6/20) midsommardagen (midsummer day) and most shops, restaurants, bars, museums etc would be closed or at least only partially open. Therefore we tried to squeeze as much stuff that would be affected into our day as possible.
We started out by walking down to the shore and alongside the water to the island called Djurgården, which roughly translates as wild game garden. It used to the be the royal hunting grounds and was eventually transformed into an island with a giant park, an outdoor museum, an amusement park as well as several indoor museums.
Our plan was to start at the Vasamuseet, the museum featuring the giant 18th century shipwreck, but when we got to the entrance, a bus had just unloaded a giant tourist group that formed a huge line. We immediately didn't feel like waiting in that line, especially since it was starting to rain again a little, so we decided to walk back and explore Gamla Stan (old town) instead.
Stockholm is basically the Venice of the North, built on dozens of little islands and with an archipelago of more than 1,000 islands and islets between there and the open sea of the North.
So we walked back along the waterfront, crossing a few bridges here and there, passing the Swedish Parliament before we reached Gamla Stan and the Stockholm Palace at its center.
As the rain was getting heavier and we both didn't feel like paying to see the inside of the palace, we opted for the nearby Nobel Museum instead.
We walked around Gamla Stan some more and then across the next bridge into Södermalm where we eventually grabbed a tunnelbana back towards Centralstationen, and the plan was to grab a tram from there back to Djurgården so we could give the Vasamuseet another try. Once we exited the central station and had followed all the signs for the tram station but just couldn't located it. Luckily, we stumbled upon a food truck gathering and filled our stomachs with interesting Polish food.
We eventually found that tram stop and made our way to the museum. I think we both had zero expectations for the museum but since it was on all the highlight lists we figured we should do it. It turned out to be a really cool experience that we can only highly recommend to anyone visiting Stockholm.
The Vasa is the oldest intact shipwreck in the world. It sank during its maiden voyage in 1629 less than a mile from where it left the harbor and was then mostly forgotten for more than 333 years. In the 1950s then it was located again and eventually salvaged in the 1960s. The wreck was then and restored for more than 17 years and finally put in the museum built for it in the 1980s.
Here's more info for anyone interested.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_(ship)
6/19
Midsummer's eve was off to a good weather start that only deteriorated from there on, unfortunately. All the highlight lists for Midsommar say you should go to Skansen, the outdoor museum in Djurgården, so we did. Everything else was closed anyway so we had little choice and just put on ponchos, packed the umbrella and braced the Swedish "summer" that was 50s and rain.
Skansen was still a great experience even though our version of children dancing around the midsummer maypole was more like a bunch of umbrellas dancing in the mud.
Skansen features historic farmsteads from all over Sweden that were brought here so people can learn how their ancestors lived and how people in other parts of the country (e.g. the Sami people in the North) lived.
It rained a LOT. But to make up for it Skansen also featured a few zoo enclosures with Scandinavian animals, such as wolves, wolverines, brown bears, moose, otters, seals and what I call the leopard pigs.
We had originally wanted to stay at Skansen longer but after about 4 hours there we were soaked and tired, so we only made one last stop before heading back to the hotel - the city hall, or Stadshuset as they call it.
6/20
After the ultra rainy Friday we were delighted to see that Saturday was supposed to be slightly better. We procrastinated after breakfast, essentially waiting for it to stop raining so we could walk down to the waterfront and rent bicycles for the day.
The rain stopped around 11:30am, the sun came out , we ditched the umbrella and ponchos and walked to the bike rental.
As soon as we sat on our bikes, it started to rain again. At first we thought we could just ride it out but both of our not waterproof jackets were soon soaked so we turned around and went back to the hotel to grab the ponchos.
Of course, 15min into our ride, it stopped raining altogether and we never needed them again for the rest of the day.....
We started our bike tour with the rest of Djurgården that we hadn't seen yet.
When we reached the entrance bridge again and had come full circle we decided to embark on a rote I had cooked up.....riding all the way out to Drottningholm Slott (the Royal Palace), the private residence of the King and Queen of Sweden. It was a 15km (just under 10 miles) ride out and despite the fact that we were pretty sore afterwards because we both hadn't ridden a bike in so long it was a great tour.
After a delicious lunch at the resident cafe we embarked on our journey back. 15km one way would prove to get both of us pretty sore and not riding more bikes any time soon.
We were so exhausted upon our return back to the hotel that we didn't have the energy to find a restaurant open on this bank holiday so we just ate at the hotel and fell into bed.
We departed Malmö just before noon via the Snabbtåget (express train) to Stockholm. The ride took us about 4 hours across the VERY green Swedish countryside from Southern Sweden to Stockholm which is located kind of in the middle of the country and on the Eastern shore. The thing about Sweden is that everyone always pictures it as this beautiful countryside with little red houses in it, and that is precisely what it looks like between cities, at least here in the South.
Once we got to Stockholm's Centralstation, we had to take the subway, or as they call it Tunnelbana (tunneltrain), one stop to the neighborhood of Östermalm where our hotel was. "Weather" was ready to move in so we packed our umbrella and went on a first exploration of the neighborhood or district as we did in every city upon arrival.
We walked by nice tree lined avenues and eventually reached an area that features the stadium for the 1912 Olympics.
After walking around for about 1.5 hours, it started to pour down so we squeezed under the one umbrella we had and headed back to the hotel. Luckily, Yelp said there was a great restaurant just across from our hotel, and Yelp was right. We had one of the best dinners of the entire trip there. It definitely wasn't the cheapest but they made up for it by serving beer in wine glasses ;-)
6/18
This was our only day in Stockholm where everything was open. Friday (6/19) would be midsommarafton (midsummer evening) and Saturday (6/20) midsommardagen (midsummer day) and most shops, restaurants, bars, museums etc would be closed or at least only partially open. Therefore we tried to squeeze as much stuff that would be affected into our day as possible.
We started out by walking down to the shore and alongside the water to the island called Djurgården, which roughly translates as wild game garden. It used to the be the royal hunting grounds and was eventually transformed into an island with a giant park, an outdoor museum, an amusement park as well as several indoor museums.
Our plan was to start at the Vasamuseet, the museum featuring the giant 18th century shipwreck, but when we got to the entrance, a bus had just unloaded a giant tourist group that formed a huge line. We immediately didn't feel like waiting in that line, especially since it was starting to rain again a little, so we decided to walk back and explore Gamla Stan (old town) instead.
Stockholm is basically the Venice of the North, built on dozens of little islands and with an archipelago of more than 1,000 islands and islets between there and the open sea of the North.
So we walked back along the waterfront, crossing a few bridges here and there, passing the Swedish Parliament before we reached Gamla Stan and the Stockholm Palace at its center.
The Vasa is the oldest intact shipwreck in the world. It sank during its maiden voyage in 1629 less than a mile from where it left the harbor and was then mostly forgotten for more than 333 years. In the 1950s then it was located again and eventually salvaged in the 1960s. The wreck was then and restored for more than 17 years and finally put in the museum built for it in the 1980s.
Here's more info for anyone interested.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vasa_(ship)
6/19
Midsummer's eve was off to a good weather start that only deteriorated from there on, unfortunately. All the highlight lists for Midsommar say you should go to Skansen, the outdoor museum in Djurgården, so we did. Everything else was closed anyway so we had little choice and just put on ponchos, packed the umbrella and braced the Swedish "summer" that was 50s and rain.
Skansen was still a great experience even though our version of children dancing around the midsummer maypole was more like a bunch of umbrellas dancing in the mud.
We had originally wanted to stay at Skansen longer but after about 4 hours there we were soaked and tired, so we only made one last stop before heading back to the hotel - the city hall, or Stadshuset as they call it.
After the ultra rainy Friday we were delighted to see that Saturday was supposed to be slightly better. We procrastinated after breakfast, essentially waiting for it to stop raining so we could walk down to the waterfront and rent bicycles for the day.
The rain stopped around 11:30am, the sun came out , we ditched the umbrella and ponchos and walked to the bike rental.
Of course, 15min into our ride, it stopped raining altogether and we never needed them again for the rest of the day.....
We started our bike tour with the rest of Djurgården that we hadn't seen yet.
When we reached the entrance bridge again and had come full circle we decided to embark on a rote I had cooked up.....riding all the way out to Drottningholm Slott (the Royal Palace), the private residence of the King and Queen of Sweden. It was a 15km (just under 10 miles) ride out and despite the fact that we were pretty sore afterwards because we both hadn't ridden a bike in so long it was a great tour.
We were so exhausted upon our return back to the hotel that we didn't have the energy to find a restaurant open on this bank holiday so we just ate at the hotel and fell into bed.
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