Hej! Welcome to Part Two of my Sweden blog. This is a collection of thoughts and comments from my visit to Stockholm in June 2009.
The Vasamuseet
Our first day in Stockholm began with a visit to the Vasamuseet, which is a museum containing the salvaged wreckage of a 17th century warship called Vasa.
When she was built, Vasa was meant to be the best and most powerful warship ever. This fearsome vessel set sail from Stockholm harbour in 1628 but sank after 5 minutes. The ship sank partly because it had too many cannons, which made it top-heavy, and also because the captain set sail with the lower gun ports open. A bit of a schoolboy error there.
Disco Beats and Narrow Streets
We had left the museum and were walking across town when something very surreal happened. We started to hear dance music, distant at first, but steadily getting louder and louder. Moments later we were astonished to see several trucks appear filled with drunk, screaming young Swedes going absolutely crazy.
It turned out that these were high school graduation celebrations. Alcohol is heavily taxed in Sweden and Swedes are generally very modest drinkers - except when they graduate!
We spent the afternoon wandering through the beautiful narrow streets of the Old Town, which is called Gamla Stan. As you can see, we had to go out armed with umbrellas as the weather was a bit drizzly.
We found the narrowest street in Stockholm, Mårten Trotzigs Gränd, which is only 90 cm across at its narrowest point.
We then staged a reconstruction of the cover picture on the Lonely Planet guide to Stockholm. We were quite pleased with it!
Marching Tunes and Fancy Rooms
The next day we visited the Royal Palace. Before we went in we noticed a large crowd outside, and went over to see what was going on. It turned out to be some sort of show by the Royal Guards, involving a lot of shouting, marching, drum-banging and stick-twirling.
This guy was our favourite. He was playing the flute in the back row of the marching band, and we think that it was his first show. He was so nervous his feather plume was really shaking and you could see his shoulders slowing rising up and down as he tried to take deep calming breaths. But he did really well and made it to the end of the show without making a mistake. Phew!
Once the traditional ceremony was over the marching band suddenly broke into 'Dancing Queen' by Abba, which went down a storm with the crowd!
We then took a tour of the Royal Apartments. These were very ornate and spacious, but I couldn't live there - they were too formal for me, and I would always be worried about spilling something on the carpet.
Island Hopping
Stockholm is built on fourteen separate islands. In the afternoon we crossed to Södermalm island for a walk along its northern shoreline. From here there were good views of the Old Town from across the water.
A Fond Farewell
That is pretty much it for Part Two of my Sweden blog.
So what did I think of Sweden? Well, Sweden is nice, clean, tidy, friendly, dependable, safe. It is not stunningly beautiful or overwhelmingly exciting but consistantly pleasant. I think my impression of Stockholm was tainted somewhat by the fact that it was overcast and rainy while I was there - I expect it would look much better in the sunshine. Sweden is also very expensive and this limits what you can do on a student budget.
Overall I really enjoyed the trip. I think this was mainly due to the people I was with, so I would like to thank Scott, KJ, Giorgos and Gaurav for making the trip so fun.
Thank you for reading my Sweden blog and I hope you have enjoyed it. This is the first blog I have ever written, so any comments or feedback you have would be very welcome. Tack!
The Vasamuseet
Our first day in Stockholm began with a visit to the Vasamuseet, which is a museum containing the salvaged wreckage of a 17th century warship called Vasa.
When she was built, Vasa was meant to be the best and most powerful warship ever. This fearsome vessel set sail from Stockholm harbour in 1628 but sank after 5 minutes. The ship sank partly because it had too many cannons, which made it top-heavy, and also because the captain set sail with the lower gun ports open. A bit of a schoolboy error there.Disco Beats and Narrow Streets
We had left the museum and were walking across town when something very surreal happened. We started to hear dance music, distant at first, but steadily getting louder and louder. Moments later we were astonished to see several trucks appear filled with drunk, screaming young Swedes going absolutely crazy.
It turned out that these were high school graduation celebrations. Alcohol is heavily taxed in Sweden and Swedes are generally very modest drinkers - except when they graduate!We spent the afternoon wandering through the beautiful narrow streets of the Old Town, which is called Gamla Stan. As you can see, we had to go out armed with umbrellas as the weather was a bit drizzly.
We found the narrowest street in Stockholm, Mårten Trotzigs Gränd, which is only 90 cm across at its narrowest point.
We then staged a reconstruction of the cover picture on the Lonely Planet guide to Stockholm. We were quite pleased with it!
Marching Tunes and Fancy Rooms
The next day we visited the Royal Palace. Before we went in we noticed a large crowd outside, and went over to see what was going on. It turned out to be some sort of show by the Royal Guards, involving a lot of shouting, marching, drum-banging and stick-twirling.
This guy was our favourite. He was playing the flute in the back row of the marching band, and we think that it was his first show. He was so nervous his feather plume was really shaking and you could see his shoulders slowing rising up and down as he tried to take deep calming breaths. But he did really well and made it to the end of the show without making a mistake. Phew!
Once the traditional ceremony was over the marching band suddenly broke into 'Dancing Queen' by Abba, which went down a storm with the crowd!We then took a tour of the Royal Apartments. These were very ornate and spacious, but I couldn't live there - they were too formal for me, and I would always be worried about spilling something on the carpet.
Island Hopping
Stockholm is built on fourteen separate islands. In the afternoon we crossed to Södermalm island for a walk along its northern shoreline. From here there were good views of the Old Town from across the water.
A Fond Farewell
That is pretty much it for Part Two of my Sweden blog.
So what did I think of Sweden? Well, Sweden is nice, clean, tidy, friendly, dependable, safe. It is not stunningly beautiful or overwhelmingly exciting but consistantly pleasant. I think my impression of Stockholm was tainted somewhat by the fact that it was overcast and rainy while I was there - I expect it would look much better in the sunshine. Sweden is also very expensive and this limits what you can do on a student budget.
Overall I really enjoyed the trip. I think this was mainly due to the people I was with, so I would like to thank Scott, KJ, Giorgos and Gaurav for making the trip so fun.
Thank you for reading my Sweden blog and I hope you have enjoyed it. This is the first blog I have ever written, so any comments or feedback you have would be very welcome. Tack! 