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Published: March 31st 2011
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I started my Stochkholm adventures by meeting my friend Jeremy who I haven't seen for at least eleven years! We headed off into Gamla Stan (Old Town) and looked for a place to have lunch. Up until this stage of my Swedish travels, I had held off on eating Swedish meatballs so we ate at a restaurant where I had Elk Swedish meatballs with potatoes and lingonberries. Although I was a little unsure about eating Elk, they were surprisingly good and satisfied my cravings which meant that I didn't have to find the local Ikea store. Whilst at lunch I said that we needed to find Mårten Trotzigs Gränd, at approximately one metre wide, it is the narrowest street in Gamla Stan. We decided we would look for it after lunch, however whilst eating I noticed a number of people pass the window in the alleyway beside me, only to look out and see the street sign indicating that we were currently eating lunch right beside Mårten Trotzigs Gränd!! At least we didn't have to wander around looking for it.
After lunch, and our walk along Mårten Trotzigs Gränd, we thought we would wander the streets and found in our
Street of Gamla Stan
Gamla Stan is made up of beautiful streets, with houses painted different colours. travels the statue of St George and the Dragon and the Royal Palace. Inside the Royal Palace we entered The Treasury to view valuables of the Royal Family, let me just say, they really outdid themselves when it came to making keys - the keys were huge and quite intricate. We headed out for dinner and a few drinks at Pelikan brewery which was quite close to where we were staying. I thought I would be adventurous and try the pork knuckle for my dinner. Basically, it was a massive chunk of pork on the bone, which I think had been heavily pickled, and then boiled in salty water. Nice to try, but I certainly didn't get through it all as it was way too salty for my tastes.
The following morning, where we lost an hour as day light savings had finished (which we didn't know about until we realised that my mobile phone was now an hour earlier than our watches), we headed off to Skansen which I had really talked up to Jeremy as being a great miniature model village - I had read my travel guide and took the words literally when it said that
it was meant to be a miniature of Sweden. How wrong I was to be! Instead, we found that it was a historical village, where a number of buildings that were significant to Sweden's history, had been transported into one location - it was really like a Sovereign Hill/Flagstaff Hill type attraction and certainly not the type of miniature model village I had conjured up in my mind. Once I got over my initial shock at Skansen being completely different from what I had expected it to be, it was quite interesting with a number of traders operating out of the buildings. A lot of the traders in the park were closed due to it being winter, however I did get to watch a glass blower in action and wander around the park where they had a lot of native animals for people to see. That afternoon we joined a guided tour of the Royal Palace state rooms which was really interesting and the one great fact that I took from here was that they had Roxette play at the Royal Wedding last year!
Rising early the following morning, we first headed to Ostermalms Saluhall, a large fresh food
market where Jeremy went in search of another of Sweden's delicacies - pickled herring. With his stash of pickled herring, we then made our way to the waterfront to board a cruise ship for a quick trip out to the the archipelago. That afternoon, we visited the Vasa museum, which is home to the ship Vasa which sank in 1628, only 20mins into her maiden voyage! I love this story!!! This ship was built to be fearsome warship and to protect Sweden, and so there was a lot of fanfare made about the maiden voyage. The banks were lined with people watching as she left the dock, only to watch her start to sink 20mins later, and then within a few hours only to see the top of her masts as she slowly went below the water. Talk about a bit of an embarrassing moment! Anyway, the ship lay on the bottom of the harbour for 300+ years before her salvage, which took several years following her discovery in 1956. It's amazing the work they had to put in to preserve the ship, however they did it and the ship is now on display. You walk into the museum and
it is a wow moment - I almost felt like a member of the Goonies walking in and seeing this massive, beautiful old ship!
Overall, Stockholm had a lot of things to do. I still think that they are trying to be "The City with the most number of Museums per capita" as it seems that they have a museum on everything. The last thought I will leave you with is this - if you plan on catching up with a friend, after not seeing them for eleven years, do not do it in one of the most expensive cities in Europe to drink alcohol!!!
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