Stockholm - Strollers and Quaint Buildings

  Stockholm, Sweden
Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Stockholm is a glamourous and eye catching city, but also one with small touches we just don't see at home. Not glamorous like Miami Beach or Hollywood is glamorous, though the residents are quite striking. The beauty is really in the buildings.

Pretty in Pink

It has all the charm and architectual quaitness of Karlstad, but on a much larger scale. The streets are lacking the litter seen in most major cities and a huge percentage of people and coasting along the streets on bicycles. Orderly lanes for walkers, bikers and cars keep traffic unsnarled.

Another phenomenon we noticed was the lavish strollers that held every child in the city. No cheap fold-up model or mothers limping along with car seats banging against their knees. Not even the jogger models that some mothers splurge on in the states. Some resembles prams but were lined for much warmer weather. Some were decked out with mosquito nets and all had thick tires with heavy traction. They all seemed very age specific, as if they buy a new stroller every few months. My favorite was an elaborate piece with a toddler sitting up on the left and a full on bassinet on the right with an infant inside. Brilliant. Our friend in Helsinki(where this stroller phenomenon was repeated) said the strollers need to be functional and sturdy because of the cold winters and snowy streets. This does make sense, as does the fact that most people in the cities are walking and taking public transport. I admit that I had stroller envy and I am still childless! I am still trying to get a good picture of one without looking like a stalker.

We had to work fast in our two days to see as many sites as we could. We mostly toured on our own with a map of the city, a few walking tours and a list of sites worth seeing from the internet. We were up and out of the hostel by 7:30 am, our roomates, sleeping when we arrived, were still sleeping. Although we were sleeping a little better, our jet lag wouldn't really subside until we reached Helsinki.

When we got out on the streets people were heading to work, but the old parts of town with all the tourist sites were still quiet.

Lovely views in Stockholm Harbor

Not much opened until 11am, something we found in Helsinki as well. We stopped by a coffee shop for a latte - they are delicious. No need even for sugar. We walked all over Old Town then went to the Nobel Museum which was very informative - exhibits on not only the peace prize winners but also the economic, physics, chemistry, medicine winners. Many familiar people but a lot who we learned about there.
More museums and walking around followed until we finally had to eat some dinner. I (Sara) am following Julius' eating habits on the trip. That is, eating twice a day (you all wonder how he stays so trim?). It seems to be working so far, with a hearty breakfast and a large dinner. It does save money. Our dinner that night was Pizza and Kebab. It is a dinner familiar with budget travelers all over Europe, the cheapest thing to eat in whatever city you visit.

We found new roommates when we returned to the hostel, an older couple from Switzerland. They were very friendly - teaching us many things about Switzerland and giving us a delicious bar of Lindt dark chocolate. He showed us the biggest Swiss army knife we had ever seen. We hope to get more roommates like them as we travel through the continent.
Before heading by ship to Helsinki we did a few more tourist activities in Stockholm. Vassa museum held the most beautiful and elaborate war ship built by Sweden in the 1600's.

Amazing Vassa Ship

Unfortunately it was a little too elaborately built and ended up tipping over and sinking before leaving the harbor. It was pulled up in the 1950's and restored. This museum was the most popular tourist sight we had been to so far. I can't imagine what this place must be like in July or August. We looked at exhibits with a chinese tour group, Japanese tour group and a group of local preschoolers. After taking a harbor tour we headed to the Silja Line ship to sail overnight to Helsinki. To save money we wanted to buy food before boarding the ship. We kept wondering where the grocery stores were but when we entered the subway stations we found that they were there. How effecient is that?

Cruising to Helsinki

The Silja Serenade was a cross between a cruise ship (what it wanted to be) and a fancy ferry boat (what it was). The highlight of the trip was cruising through the Sweden Archepelago on our way to the open sea. Thousands of tiny islands held one or two little Swedish summer houses on each. It reminded us a little of the San Juans but with smaller islands in a much bigger area. Once the sun set we did our best to entertain ourselves with minimal expense. We bought a soda from the duty free shop and sat outside the shop to watch the shoppers going in and out. While most duty free shops in airports and border towns are mildly popular at best, this duty free shop was packed and customers were pushing out whole shopping carts full of booze and cigarettes to take back to their rooms. When we asked our friends in Finland about this they said that Finland taxes alcohol and cigarettes at 100% so buying them at a duty free shop basically means they are half price. Obviously people were stocking up. After this entertainment we managed to find an "Irish Pub", the one place on board with a big screen TV. Julius charmed the waitress into changing the channel to the English Premeire League game so we bought him a beer and myself Framboise Lambic, a Belgian Rasberry beer I plan to overindulge in when we reach Brussels next week. A night watching English Premiere League is a good night indeed, so we can call it a succesful trip.

We slept in 4 bed berths with surprisingly comfortable beds. Sara had three roommates - a Japanese girl and Venzualen girl both touring around Europe and an elderly Finnish woman. Julius just had one roommate, a Korean guy named Jin who was doing a whirlwind tour of Europe. Everyone was very nice and no one snored - at least not enough to wake us up.

Visit our Smugmug website with all our Stockholm photos! Click here to see them along with captions