stockholm, 2007

Our month-long 2007 trip through Europe started in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, home of the famous chef and many Vikings.

We actually visited Sweden earlier this same year as a pleasant side trip from our weekend in Copenhagen. Many people told us that Stockholm is a nicer city than Copenhagen. It is a very lovely city, though it's a lot like Copenhagen. Also, it's extremely expensive. We thought the food was pricey even compared with London.

To get to Stockholm, pack up your entire life in London and ship it in boxes to Boston. Then take whatever is left and throw it in a couple suitcases that are, upon second examination, far too heavy to be practical.

The first morning we shipped a box of excess items to the US. And we still had excess items. Note to self: don't pack and move at the same time.

We stayed in a hotel in central Stockholm, very close to Central Station. Central Station is the main overground and underground train station, so we started out by getting on a subway train and were impressed with the design of the platform.

It's made to look like a cave, and the walls are painted with a UN theme.

Other parts of the station are more colorful.

As Bostonians we were amused by the T logo on Stockholm's underground stations. It is remarkably similar to the subway symbol used in Beantown.

Our hotel was in the city proper, but much of Stockholm is a series of islands. Going from island to island requires waiting for ferries or crossing bridges like this one.

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We had to go to some of the islands to visit two museums. This is us reflecting on art in Moderna Museet, Stockholm's modern art museum.

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For me the biggest draw of the city is Vasamuseet, a museum dedicated to the seventeenth century ship the Vasa. The building was constructed over a drydock, and from the outside looks a bit like a ship would look in a cubist painting.

Inside is the Vasa itself, which sank in 1628, probably because of a top-heavy design. The sinking occurred a few minutes into its maiden voyage, and was a huge loss to Sweden. Though the wreck was in the harbor, its location was forgotten until it was discovered in the 1950s. It was well preserved because the waters of the Baltic Sea contain few wood-boring organisms. I used to have a copy of National Geographic that detailed the recovery effort, so I was rather excited to see the it.

The process of raising it involved digging tunnels under the wreck. The salvagers gradually raised it using cables suspended from anchored ships, and patched weak spots on the hull before completely draining the water from it. Vasa was so well preserved that it could float on its own, even after 300 years on the bottom of the harbor, so they simply towed it into the drydock.

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The museum features many exhibits, including artifacts recovered from the wreck like clothing, cookware and even (creepily) some of the crew. This scale model shows what happened to ship when it sank (spoiler alert!): it tipped over.

All that looking at old skeletons and recovered artifacts made us hungry, so we walked up to Östermalmshallen, a nineteenth century indoor market.

Wonderful place.

We didn't visit Musikmuseet, but I liked the old building that housed it.

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The heart of Stockholm is the old medieval city, Gamla Stan. While we stayed just north of Gamla Stan in the impressive city proper, Gamla Stan is where the charm is.

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The most crowded street is the hopping Västerlånggatan, lined with restaurants and science fiction bookshops (well, maybe there was only one of those). At any rate, the shops that weren't science fiction bookshops were so quaint and cute that I rarely saw Andrea, so I went into a science fiction bookshop and occasionally took photos.

Prästgatan is one of the most atmospheric streets in Gamla Stan.

It's narrow, winding and nicely painted.

The spires of churches like Tyska Kyrkan rise impressively over the dense streets.

The cathedral is called Storkyrkan.

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This is a model ship hanging in the church.

The church has a wood sculpture of George and the Dragon made in 1489.

We were lucky enough to encounter a marching band outside the cathedral, in front of the Royal Palace.

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I can't think of anything funny to write about this.

I found Gamla Stan particularly interesting at night.

This is the the narrowest street on the island.

Andrea in Gamla Stan.

The main square is called Stortorget, and it's filled with the sort of buildings you expect to see in Stockholm.

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We walked over a bridge from Gamla Stan to Riddarholmen, an island with a view of the town hall, called Stadshuset. It was built in the early twentieth century, but in a traditional Scandinavian style (with just a hint of Renaissance Venetian as well).

Riddarholmen is also home to Riddarholmskyrkan, a church with a rather interesting skeletal spire.

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We hopped on a harbor cruise to get our bearings and see more of the islands.

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A lock. There were a couple of these, dividing the east and west sides of the archipelago.

Vikings! I knew they were around here somewhere.

After the cruise we took an elevator to a viewpoint and caught this view of Stadshuset and Riddarholmskyrkan.

Andrea in an old Stockholm Rikstelefon booth on the island of Södermalm. I'd give up mobile phones for these.