Stock-Home

Well Stockholm's not quite finished, I'm still here for tonight. But I had some spare time, so thought I'd update now. It's a lovely city, with an amazing history and lovely people. But I think I still preferred Reykavik (although I did have a much better hostel there).


So, on my first day, after 'sleeping' next to the smelly man and arriving at my hostel with 8 hours to spare, I went out and made the most of the day. It's a pretty easy city again to navigate, and more walkable than CPH, so I set out wandering down towards the old town (Gamla Stan) from my island of Södermalm, planning to stop at the Stadsmuseet (City Museum), which sounded very interesting in my Lonely Planet guide. But it's shut for renovation for the next two years! So I headed right in to Gamla Stan and walked about the little back streets for a while, then went in search of Kingliga Slottet (Royal Palace). Which isn't hard to find, as it dominates a whole corner of the Gamla Stan island.


I was expecting something very similar to the Christianborg and Roseborg palaces in CPH, and not particularly excited, but it was far nicer inside; the highlight of it is probably the small but grand Royal Chapel. The palace though is also very nicely built/decorated and again has interesting remains of another castle underneath, the Tre Kroner Castle from around the 14th century (I think... it's a while ago anyway!) After all that, I headed back to my hostel in order to finally check in and have the obligitory nap before going out in search of food. Which I found, on my island, around "SoFo", the trendy area of this Södermalm (which I'm reasonably sure translates as "Southern Countryside" - I have picked up the odd bit of Swedish/Scandinavian). It took me a while to find a suitable place serving traditional meatballs, which was then quite expensive, but extremely tasty.'


My hostel, being very boring and more of a family hotel with dorm rooms, there's no real social life here, so I was home early to read my book and chat to an Aussie lass in my room. Then, on Tuesday, I wandered back down to Gamla Stan for a walking tour around that central island, followed by a ferry across to Djurstadsgarden (or something like that!) for a couple of museums. So, after quickly going through Skansen, the traditional town with a little zoo area for Scandinavian animals, I wandered down to the Vasamuseet. Which was great. I'm usually not so into my ships, but this place contains the actual wreck of a 16th century warship (the Vasa, named after the king Gustaf Vasa), which lasted 1500m (less than a mile) into its maiden voyage! Full of interesting bits about how the people would have lived, who the specific remains may have belonged to etc.


Unfortunately, after leaving the Vasamuseet and getting to the Nordiskämuseet (Nordic Museum) although it didn't look as inspiring as I'd hoped anyway. Then the Biologiskämuseet (yep, the natural history museum, this Scandinavian lark is actually pretty easy!), was already closed. So I went into the amusement park closeby for a high drop ride, purely for the view obviously, and one of the shortest but best rollercoasters I've ever been on. Which I won't go into detail on; I know when to spot a lost cause. After that, it was back home for another rather boring night.


Today, I managed to get out earlyish (about 9am) thanks to the lack of a hangover, and headed straight for the main shopping street, on the northern island (the name of which I can't remember!!) to replace my lost socks and sunglasses. Then to the Stadshus (City Hall, as Stads means city and 'hus' is obvious) for a 45-minute tour of the place itself, before going up the (130m?) tall tower for incredible views across the city. Dipping back across the upper island, I arrived at the Historiskämuseet (National History) on its eastern end. Which was fascinating - almost to the point of the Reykjavik one - and took far longer than I expected. I headed back over to the Biologiskämuseet on foot, as they're not far, but that was just closing as I got there. So, with a (largely pointless, but fun) ferry back across, I wandered back through Gamla Stan to look around the (originally) 13th century cathedral (Storkyrken, or great church) and see the wooden statue of St. George killing the dragon.


Then, for my last museum of the city, I went to the medieval museum (with a long and unpronounceable name) - another of these underground archaeology sites. Which was again very interesting, and gave more great insight into the people and workings of Sweden through the years. And I'm right now about to go back out again to check out the culture festival (Kulturfestival, surprisingly enough!), as I think they have live bands on. Which could be a fun end to my Stockholm stay. Or I might entirely forget to even mention it in my next post...