Stockholm finale

We walked lots but didn't find a really local restaurant. In fact, finding vegetarian food for Cathryn was a failure and we ended up, not by first choice, in a TGI Friday on the last night, after walking for over an hour and finding no other vegetarian menu on offer! A Chinese restaurant was very obliging on the second night and made a vegetable soup for Cathryn. Alcohol is seriously expensive and the place is generally on the expensive side, but I believe salaries are commensurate. We found a pub selling Spitfire beer (Shepherd Neame from Kent) a few strides, or staggers, from our hotel. It was a good night! The night life is evolving although we wondered if there was more in the suburbs where people live, rather than the city centre where we were staying. We came across a Gay Pride parade on the last afternoon, my first, watching that is! It was a bit of a wait in the sun, which was quite strong by then, and there were some rather colourful people in the parade, some mid 'change' I would say! They were a happy lot and were cheered by the large and liberal crowd of spectators. Our final morning was spent wandering around the old town, on the same island as the Royal Palace, a place of narrow streets and one to sit and enjoy a coffee and people watch.

It was fabulous weekend with my two, the first since we went skiing together many years ago to Val Thorens, and I enjoyed it immensely being with just them. I liked Stockholm and had never been there, so they hit the bulls eye on that 60th surprise for me! It also fitted nicely between Michael's 30th on 28 July and Cathryn's upcoming 32nd on 14 August. Happy & grateful Dad.

Stockholm, the city

The buildings are grand, some quite colourful, but the furniture tastes in Stockholm seem anchored in IKEA! Furniture is modern and rather square and uninteresting, just like the stuff in the stores.

The Royal Palace was somewhat more grand inside in terms of ornate and gilted furniture, but even it has a Silver Jubilee Room, commissioned for the current King, which looks as though it could have come from IKEA.
I hadn't realised the extent to which Stockholm is built on islands. The main city is on the mainland, but many suburbs and the Royal Palace, at the top, are on islands. There are many bridges and we took a 2 hour trip around several of them, entering the large fresh water lake that forms part of the archipelago. It is fed with glacial melt water and separated from the Baltic by locks. There are apparently 24,000 islands in the archipelago.

Stockholm with Cathryn & Michael

This was a birthday present for my 60th. I was given the coordinates and had to figure out where I was going from Google Earth! It was a long weekend with just Cathryn & Michael and it was great. It's a very clean and grand city, well spread out with wide streets and smart buildings. We were able to walk around the city centre and access most things on foot, but we did take a hop on/off bus tour of the city which enabled us to visit the Vasa & Nordic Museums, the Royal Palace, and enjoy the scenery from the top of an open air bus. The first day was a bit gloomy and we had some drizzle, but after that it warmed and cleared. We came across a stunning exhibition of photographs of wild life photographer Steve Bloom. The blown up detail of his stuff is quite stunning, an example shown here. The Vasa wooden hull ship was built and launched in 1628 and promptly capsized due to calculation errors on her maiden voyage. She was discovered in the late 60s but it was not until 1971 that she was raised - must have been immensely heavy with waterlogged wood. She has been restored and there is an amazing amount of the original structure, although it has been coated with a polycarbonate resin for preservation, which gives it a gloss. She was an ornate tribute to King Vasa and is very impressive. The Nordic Museum is a very grand building but I found its contents, while relevant, to be less interesting than the building. It is the one on the left across the water, with Vasa on the right.