Ja talar inte Svenska

Stockholm is amazing. Built on a number of islands, and with each island having it’s own “feel”, there was lots to explore, see, do and experience. It was a shame I only really had a day and a night! In a way it was good though, due to the near crippling prices of Sweden in general.

I was staying on the island of Södermalm, to the south of Gamla Stan (the Old Town), and it was very much a bohemian area of town. Hundreds of trendy young things, shopping, drinking, eating, and hanging around having fun. On my way to the hostel, I stumbled across the Changing of the Guards outside the Royal Palace in the old town, and after half an hour of trumpet based music from horses, and lots of Prussian style uniforms, I got a bit bored and wandered off to find my hostel. I’m sure that it was a very important ceremony, but as I don’t have a deep understanding of the Swedish Royal Family, to me it was a lot of people in blue on horses.

After checking into the hostel (great place it was too, right near the heart of the action in Södermalm), I went to explore. I always prefer to walk when I’m somewhere new, rather than taking public transport, as I think you see so much more that way. I walked down Götgatan, across to Gamla Stan and from there on to the main shopping area, around central station and Birgir Jarlsgatan, just soaking up the atmosphere before heading back for some food. After eating, I took out a small mortgage, and bought a couple of beers (£6 A PINT), before having an early night.
The next day, I got up, breakfasted (breakfast on the continent is always so good), checked out and headed out onto the streets again. I bought a postcard and posted it home, and then set off in search of the Vasa Museum. The Vasa was a warship built for King Gustavus Adolphus in the 17th century, and is a bit like the England’s Mary Rose. The king wanted a big ship, and what the king wanted, he got, even if it went against the advice of a naval architect. On the maiden voyage, after sailing a grand total of 1km, a gust of wind caught the sails of the unstable ship, which promptly sank to be lost for a few hundred years. It was re-discovered in the 1950s incredibly well preserved due to the brackish silt in the Stockholm archipelago, and a museum was built to share the ship and restore and maintain it. The ship is huge, incredibly impressive, and a perfect museum centre piece. I couldn’t see the other ships in the collection though as it was too early in the season and they weren’t open, but I still managed to waste about three hours.

After that, I meandered through the city looking in the shops on my way to catch my bus back to the airport and home. On my way, I had to call into the other Swedish export (after Ikea), an international clothing firm that is has the Church of Sweden as a major shareholder - H&M. It was just like every other H&M, so it’s good to know that multinationalism is alive and well.

Hej då

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