Stockholm!

I visited Stockholm (by myself) from Saturday March 6 to Sunday March 7, so I had a pretty short trip but I got a really good deal on the airfare. I ended up flying to Stockholm (1 hr 15 min flight) so this was the first time I flew out of the Copenhagen airport. It is really so much nicer to fly in Europe, and the Copenhagen airport was really pretty and neat and the whole thing was lined with teak wood floors! And they had some of the famous Arne Jacobsen Egg Chairs for people to sit in.

First, a list of what I did in Stockholm:

Saturday March 6th
My flight arrived in Stockholm at 12 on Saturday so I really only had half of Saturday to do stuff.
I took the Arlanda Express (nonstop train from the airport to Stockholm that was very convenient) and checked into my hostel on Gammla Stan, the old medieval part of Stockholm.
Went to Ostermalm Saulhall, a large food/market hall which was very cool with all of the different kinds of food
Went to the Modern Museum/Arkitekturmuseum (they are connected) which I left at 6 so everything else was closed
Walked around A LOT, I kind of ended up just wandering around so I could see a bit of Stockholm and I ended up walking for 3 straight hours with a break for a frankfurter dinner before I headed back to the hostel, planned Sunday and went to bed early.

Sunday March 7th
It gets even lighter earlier in Stockholm than in Copenhagen since it is farther north so I got up at 7 so I could use as much light as possible, packed my stuff, checked out of the hostel and dropped my stuff off at the central station. Then I walked around again, mostly exploring Gammla Stan, which was a very cute and quaint island that I had seen some of in the dark, but wanted to see it in daylight. I was basically waiting for cafes to open for breakfast (it was Sunday and most places didn’t even open up until 10) but I found a place that I had read about that opened at 9 so I got a hot chocolate and a cinnamon roll for breakfast! Both were very good and the hot chocolate came in an enormous bowl! One of the best things was the price…Sweden is much cheaper than Denmark because their Kroner is much weaker (10 SKK per $ instead of 6 DKK) and the nominal prices in Sweden were about the same as in Denmark! After breakfast, I walked over to the Stockholm City Hall, which is one of their most famous buildings and one I had really enjoyed learning about in class. I took a guided tour since that was the only way to see inside and really enjoyed it. The City Hall holds the Nobel Banquet and I think is where they announce the Nobel Prize winners every year. However, the main room is called the Gold Room, and is adeptly named because this enormous room is totally covered with gold mosaics! It is very cool but a little odd because it is done in a very byzantine style even though the room in Sweden. After the tour, I walked all the way up to another building I had learned about in class, the Stockholm Public Library by Gunnar Asplund. It was not really in the main part of Stockholm and it took about an hr to walk there from City Hall, but I got to see more of Copenhagen. The library was very cool; it is a very stark building, basically a cylinder on top of a cube and painted bright orange! From the library I took the metro down to the other end of the city to go look at a church I had read about that had good views of the city and I got lunch (another frankfurter) from the same place I had gotten dinner. Then I took the Metro to the Woodland Cemetery, which is about a 12 min train ride from the center of Stockholm. This Cemetery has a lot of famous people buried there and has some interesting chapels and landscaping, so I though I would check it out. Unfortunately, since it was still winter, there was snow and ice on the ground outside of Stockholm and so it was a little hard to walk around the cemetery. Also, the two buildings I went to see were closed so I couldn’t go in. But the cemetery was very beautiful and part of it was in a forest of very tall pine trees, which was neat to see. From the Woodland Cemetery I took the Metro back to Stockholm, made a quick trip to the National Museum where I really enjoyed the temporary exhibit on the Pre-Raphaelites since I’ve always heard references to them but have never really understood what they were all about. From there I walked back to the main shopping area (I wanted to stop in an H&M to try to find a purse I saw in Copenhagen but figured would be cheaper in Stockholm). I managed to find the purse and in looking for it I went into 3 H&Ms within 2 blocks and saw a couple more that I didn’t go into. On the main shopping street, there were literally 3 H&Ms less than 50 yds from each other, it seemed a bit much! By this time it was 5 so everything expect for restaurants was closed so I walked around a bit more since my flight didn’t leave until 9 pm. However, it started to rain, so I ran into a café and had some more hot chocolate and a pastry! I waited there for a while and then went to the Central Train station and took the Arlanda Express to the airport and came back to Copenhagen.

Some things I noticed while I was in Stockholm/comparisons to Copenhagen:

1. It was really nice to be somewhere that had hills again. Copenhagen and Denmark are very flat but Stockholm had a fair amount of hills and they really help to make the streetscape more interesting and give you cool views.
2. Stockholm was a lot more different from Copenhagen than I expected. The buildings were less colorful and on average were 1 to 2 stories taller (even the older buildings). Also, the buildings had a more serious look to them and some of the residential areas had very ornate, baroque buildings that reminded me a lot of Paris. In comparison, the buildings in Copenhagen are much simpler and there are very few that are really ornate.
3. There were hardly any bikers…of course this makes sense since Stockholm is hilly, and also, their Metro system is much more extensive than Copenhagen’s.
4. People crossed the street whenever…they didn’t wait for the light as they do in Copenhagen.
5. The main shopping area was in a very modern district that was rebuilt in the 60s so the buildings are nothing that special to look at but there are still lots of people out so that makes it nicer. Also, the medieval part of town (Gammla Stan) was pretty much given over to tourist shops, a few restaurants and some arts and crafts stores. This is very different from Copenhagen where the old part is where the main shopping area is which I prefer because they everyone, both tourists and locals get to interact with the old architecture.
6. Stockholm is located on a harbor and it made up of 14 different islands so this gives you lots of really pretty views of the water and of the different islands. It was a very beautiful and picturesque city.
7. As I mentioned earlier, Stockholm was CHEAP! My big cups of hot chocolate only cost the equivalent of $2.50, which even in America would be cheap!
8. The Metro was really confusing…not figuring out which trains to take but figuring out how to buy your ticket since apparently you can’t buy single tickets from a machine and am supposed to buy them from a convenience store located in the train stations and then to get into the trains, you have to go to a special line where you show a station agent your ticket and then he lets you through. Their Metro was also really expensive.
9. I saw a lot more emphasis and advertising “traditional” Swedish costumes. There was a picture of the royal family dressed up as “traditional” Swedish peasants, which was kind of funny.
10. Apparently Swedes don’t all use the enormous prams they use in Copenhagen but normal size strollers. I also don’t think I saw as many babies as I do in Copenhagen.

So all in all I really enjoyed Stockholm and didn’t really mind traveling by myself since it meant I could be more spontaneous and could just do what I wanted to do. I was able to see everything I really wanted to see in 1.5 days but there was a lot of other interesting looking museums and shops that I didn’t get to go to so hopefully I’ll go back someday and I highly recommend visiting Stockholm (although it would probably be better to go once it is a bit warmer).