Stockholm Day 6

I feel like I have barely scratched the surface of Stockholm, and I’m already heading to Norway tomorrow. Just a good reason to come back I guess. I’ve been so fortunate with the weather and today was really nice also. I walked 7.5 miles so definitely covered some ground. Here are some fun facts. Stockholm is made up of 14 islands, and you can walk between many of them easily. There is a lot of rock and that is because of the ice age. It compressed the ground and formed rock. Consequently most homes and buildings don’t have basements. Too expensive to have to blast through all that rock to build, and much of the city is built on pilings similar to Amsterdam. The pilings are driven into the rock bed to secure the buildings. The city is surrounded by the Baltic Sea and a fresh water lake. Swedes love music and 10% of the population sings with some kind of choir. Some choirs have as many as 1000 members - which would be perfect for me so my voice could meld with 999 people that can actually hopefully carry a tune.

I spent time walking around the old town called Gamla Stan which was all of Stockholm prior to the 1600’s. It has very narrow roads so there is hardly any cars allowed because they just wouldn’t fit. The Royal Palace and Parliament are on Gamla Stan also. Top left - a rune stone dating back to the Viking-age held in place by a cannon barrel. Top right - one of the very narrow cobblestone streets. Bottom left -a town well dating back prior to 1520 and the site of the Stockholm Bloodbath where 80 of Stockholm’s top officials were killed during a Danish takeover. Bottom right - statue of King Gustav III considered to have turned Stockholm from a dowdy port into a sophisticated European capital.

Here’s a picture of Parliament.

This was the first bank in Stockholm dating back to 1680. It’s on a very cool square with restaurants that looked good.

Next I visited the Nobel Museum which opened in 2001 in the old stock exchange building. Alfred Nobel was born and lived in Stockholm and was a great inventor. He had over 300 patents the most successful being dynamite. He intended it for good purposes to help with construction and blast into the modern age, and was unhappy when it was used for destruction and war. He wanted his legacy to celebrate and support people with great ideas and that’s why he started the Nobel prizes. It was interesting and has lots of interactive exhibits, films and kiosks to find and read about every prize winner. One of my favorite exhibits was one where many of the winners donated something of great importance to themselves to the exhibit. Malala Yousafzai received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 and the top right photo shows the shawl she donated that was the shawl she wore when she made a great speech at the United Nations in 2013. I was fortunate to hear her speak in person in Kansas City and she was so impressive. And this all happened when she was just about 16 years old! So inspirational.

They do a big changing of the guard every day at the Royal Palace at 12:15. It takes about 45 minutes and was fun to see. The palace is the largest in Europe - even larger than Buckingham Palace in London. The Royal family has no power to govern but they seem to be much loved by the majority of Swedes.

I went to the Vasa Museum in the afternoon which is actually one of Europe’s great sight seeing attractions but sadly my pictures didn’t turn out at all. Definitely operator error. It’s fairly dark inside to protect the ship I think so maybe that had something to do with it. Anyway it’s a huge ship that was built in 1628 as a warship and was supposed to be the greatest one of the time, but it only sailed for 40 minutes before it blew over and sank to the muddy bottom of the Baltic Sea. It stayed there for over 300 years until they finally got it out of the mud in 1959. There is a movie that showed how they got the boat out and to me that was a bigger accomplishment than building the boat!

I headed to another part of the city called Östermalm that I had read was a wonderful residential area with cool restaurants and shops. This is a picture as I’m crossing the bridge to get from one island to the other. So many beautiful boats and cute little cafes that are all over the banks of the water.

I happened across a wonderful old-time market called Saluhall that dates back to 1888, but now has wonderful restaurants around the inside perimeter with the whole inside all specialty food stalls. It all looked so amazing - fresh and beautiful.

I was pretty hungry as it was late afternoon and I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. I had been considering trying the national dish of Sweden - meatballs, mashed potatoes, pickled cucumbers and lingonberries and when I saw a restaurant inside the market that looked really good decided to go for it. Happy to report it was delicious! I couldn’t quite finish the large portion they gave me but I came close.

There is still so much to do and see here in Stockholm - but I feel fortunate I got at least a sample of what a beautiful city it is. On to Norway! 🇳🇴