God dag til er alla - Barry here. Our first full day in Stockholm began at a leisurely pace as we didn’t need to be down for breakfast until 9:30am. This hotel has an interesting system where you prebook your time slot for breakfast via their app, which I suppose keeps things organised for them and ensures no-one is tempted by a longer than intended snooze! There was perhaps an even wider choice of options than our previous hotel (the fruit bread being the real standout today) but the scrambled eggs weren’t quite up to Gothenburg’s standard. Only 6 eggs out of 10 on the Egg-Ometer. Who will win the Golden Egg for best eggs of the holiday? Only time will tell.
A quick turnaround and we were out of the door and on the way to our first stop of the day. The weather was beautiful with blue skies and temperatures in the low twenties, perfect for exploring. Our destination was the neighbouring island of Kungsholmen which we reached despite an initial Apple Maps wobble doing its best to send us into the depths of a car park. Navigation back on track we wandered along a tree-lined path with the water to our left and eventually found ourselves at Stockholm City Hall. This was a really impressive red building with green towers, various astrological symbols in gold on the roof and in the brickwork, and most oddly a waterfall statue featuring a man being pummelled by a torrent of water cascading from a cave above him.
We strolled through the courtyard out out to the terrace at the back which gave us a great view of the main parts of the city across the water. We stopped for a while and enjoyed the view before making our way back round the side of the building and across one of Stockholm’s many bridges and past the Swedish parliament. Much like the Royal Palace yesterday it was notable how little security there was around, I counted exactly one member of staff watching me as I strolled around the Prime Minister’s gardens. This was despite quite a contentious election last year where the current PM was only able to form a government after forming a partnership with the Swedish equivalent of the Brexit Party (coalitions being inevitable in this part of the world as they have lots of parties, many of which get an even split of the vote).
Sadly, Prime Minister Ulf was not around for me to offer some sage words of wisdom so it was onwards to our next destination, the picturesque heart of Stockholm, Gamla Stan. This central island has many narrow streets with tall and distinctive old buildings in colours of red, orange and yellow. While busy and the first time we had felt surrounded by tourists it still had a calm atmosphere and we rested for a while in the main square.
Our path then took us to the furthest point of our journey, the island of Sodermalm. Here we were now facing the City Hall across the other side of the water, albeit from a much higher vantage point. We took some time here to take in the impressive view of the city before making our way back to the hotel at a steady pace, stopping off for a light lunch of cinnamon buns at a cafe (plus a slice of blueberry cake for later).
We spent a little while back at the hotel before heading out for our evening excursion. We downloaded the Stockholm Metro app and purchased a 24 hour ticket before walking to the T-Centralen station. This is the one station in Stockholm where all of the various metro lines run through and is about as busy and confusing as you can imagine! Using our ingenuity and my very rudimentary Swedish we managed to locate the line and platform we needed and headed the short distance to Radhuset. The reason for heading here was not a nearby attraction but the station itself as it is dug out of an underground cave with distinctive red rock walls. This is most noticeable looking up the escalators from the platform - you might recognise this image as one of the default lock screens if you have Microsoft on your home or work PC!
We took a trip up and down the escalators just to say we had (the look of disdain we got from the guy at the ticket office at the top was worth it in itself) before riding back on the Metro and hopping out at our chosen dinner spot for a Swedish twist on some tasty burgers - we both agreed that cream cheese was a surprisingly excellent addition to both of the burgers we picked.
Ellie’s legs were feeling the strain of the last couple of days at this point so I dropped her off at the hotel and agreed to get her some pictures of the sunset from Evert Taubes Terrass. On my way over in the evening sun I thought about how much I love this part of the world. The cities are beautiful, the countryside is spectacular and the air is fresh and clean. I feel very at home here - I know I might feel differently if I saw these places in the depth of winter but it’s the one part of the world I could honestly see myself living if I ever upped sticks and left the UK. Prices may be high but so is the quality of life and there must be a reason people here (and in neighbouring Norway and Denmark) are rated the happiest in the world. Plus Ellie looks very Swedish so I’m sure she’d be welcomed with open arms.
Photos achieved it was back to the hotel to rest up for another busy day tomorrow, with more island hopping on the agenda and then a flight to a brand new country!
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