Stockholm - The Venice of the North

Stockholm is often called The Venice of the North due to the centrality of water to the town - though I did enjoy reading this student blog arguing that Stockholm and Venice are very different, the argument that "You can swim without risk of waterborne disease in Stockholm…" is well made. The fact that the city is made up of 14 islands and lots of bridges means you are never far from the water. 

But before we continue to explore this lovely city, time to look at the beginning of the day.

Morning  

I woke on Monday morning at 3.30am and after the limits (no photo upload or access) on the overnight ferry the previous night, I have a lot of photos to upload.

By breakfast time I had completed uploading all the photos to Flickr from Friday evening, Saturday daytime, Saturday evening and all-day Sunday - i.e. a lot.

Drew wakes at 6am, and we have two cups of coffee each. This may be a small burrow like room (Watership Down comes to mind) but the kettle is a full size, full speed kettle. Not like the small travel kettles we have had in a number of previous hotels.  

We do our ablutions and at 7.45am we go up for breakfast - note up not down, given that the rooms in the hotel are all below floor level, though as it is on a hill there is a window overlooking a back street in our room. 

Breakfast

We have two Sami in, what a few years ago, we would have called full Eskimo dress, with us at breakfast along with people from all over the world. We were sat next to a young Chinese couple from New York. 

The breakfast was an excellent selection

as well as things we have seen elsewhere, this is the first time that I have ever had broccoli for breakfast!

Catching the Tram

We leave the room at 9am and head towards the tram stop outside the central station (as I mentioned yesterday, everything is very close to the hotel). We catch the no 7 tram to the museum stop - five stops.

The Vasa

For about four or five days Drew has been mentioning "We'll have to see the boat in Stockholm" [Co-pilot's note: Captain Jack, dear readers, always chortles when he tells the tale of woe about this ship, he, he, he 😁😂🤣] but I'd not really caught on to what he had meant until yesterday, when it turns out 'The Boat' is in fact a warship called that Vasa, launched in 1628. 

In fact, the Vasa is so famous it has a whole museum dedicated to it on the island of Djurgården in Stockholm.

We arrive at the museum at 9.30am, as with some of the other museums we have visited this holiday there is an excellent audio guide, access to it can be found here and the full text version here.

The story of the Vasa is a very simple one, the New York Times tells it thus:

On the afternoon of Aug. 10, 1628, the Vasa, built by the Swedish to be one of the most powerful warships in the Baltic, set off from the palace docks in Stockholm.

The Vasa did not even make it one mile. 

A strong gust of wind caused the 226-foot-long ship to keel over as water poured in through its open gun ports, which were on display for its maiden voyage.

So, to be clear, we are here in a museum celebrating a ship which sank within the first mile of its first journey!

Yet it is so fascinating, not only is the outside well preserved, as shown in these images:

but the museum has researched the range of materials used at the time to recapture the colours in the replicas of the various decorations on the Vasa, though not as real as the ship itself, they make a great impact as I hope you can see below:

Viking Museum and ride

The second museum of the day is a lighter, less serious, but equally informative experience. The Viking Museum makes good use of its references to TV programmes like The Last Kingdom and The Vikings to tell the story of this seafaring people from Scandinavia who from the late 8th to the late 11th centuries were the dominant power in most of Europe and who voyaged as far as the Mediterranean, North Africa, the Middle East, and North America. Indeed, one of their major trading routes was with the capital of the Roman Empire - Constantinople or Miklagard, the great city, as they called it. 

Again, there is an excellent set of resources to explain the museum, you can access them here. 

Drew really enjoyed the interactive elements

and we were pleased to reach the end of the exhibits and go on a ride called 'Ragnfrid’s Saga' which you can read about here. 

Here are some of our photos of the exhibits and the saga:

Water Bus 80

As mentioned yesterday our three day ticket covers all public transport in the city, having already used Tunnelbana, bus and tram after our visit to the Viking Museum it was time to travel on the Water Bus. This takes you down the central river in Stockholm from the Museums to Nybroplan, back in the heart of the City.

Cafe Albert

By this time it is 1pm and time to stop for a coffee. We discover the quaint cafe called Café Albert. Drew again manages to exercise his Swedish and to ensure he gets the famous fika cake - Kanelbullar (Cinnamon Bun).

You'll note that again my coffee is half the size of Drew's, so he orders me another one as it has been a warm day. 

Sergels Torg

After our coffee break we walked through the shopping centre of Stockholm coming to Sergels Torg, the central square of the shopping district, this 1960s modernist square is one of the symbols of Stockholm that is used in its promotion worldwide.

Afternoon

The afternoon saw us visiting St Clara's Church, a fascinating Lutheran Church build on an ancient convent of the Poor Clares which you can see on Flickr here. 

We again crossed the river to the Riddarhuset, the House of Nobility, which is the equivalent on the House of Lords, but which no longer has any political influence in the Swedish governmental system. 

We then crossed the Riddarholmsbron from the island of Stadsholmen to the smaller neighbouring island of  Riddarholmen, in medieval times this was known as the Monks' Bridge as it lead from Stadsholmen to the monastic community at what is now known as Riddarholmen.  

and come to the Riddarholmen Church, this amazing church is the burial place of many of the Swedish Royals. Three chapels include the major families with generations of kings, their consorts and children. 

The church also honours those who have received the various orders of Swedish knighthood. These are mainly overseas dignitaries and include Queen Elizabeth II, Prince Philip, Nelson Mandela and, an old freind of Drew's, King Alphonso XIII of Spain, whose statue Drew is often photographed beside on the Balcon in Nerja.

Back to the Hotel

We catch the T19 back to the hotel. Though as part of finding our way around the station for tomorrow's journey we walk out through the main entrance, but as it turns out this was a mistake. Again, we had level problems, while we were able to find our way past the back of our hotel, we could even see our room, we had to walk past the hotel and back on ourselves to find stairs and get back to the hotel. Returning at 4.30pm.

Dinner

We headed out at 6.45pm to go to dinner. We had decided to walk in the tradition of Lisbeth Salander of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo fame. The traditional bar and restaurant Kvarnen (The Mill) appears a number of times in the books, fans will remember her meeting there on Tuesday nights with her friends of the rock band Evil Fingers to discuss feminism, music, men and politics. It turns out that Kvernen is a real place and has been serving Swedish food and drink since 1908. [Co-pilot's note: The location, dear readers, did nothing to stop this from ear-wigging me, an issue since we arrived in the city. Slightly different to Mr B’s ABBA thing. ]

We catch the T18 to Medborgarplatsen and walk the short distance to the restaurant. 

The food selection is just to our taste. I opt for what they call the SSOS – 4 kinds of pickled herring with Västerbotten cheese, spiced cheese and boiled potatoes, each flavour was distinctive and sharp, perfect for me.

Drew opted for Råbiff, the classical Swedish steak tartare with Dijon mustard, egg yolk, beetroot and capers - he loves raw beef and thought this was a great example of the genre.

For mains I had Kronhjort, Red Deer, which is served with Truffle creamed Jerusalem artichokes, cranberries, fried black cabbage (cavolo nero) and celeriac purée, tangy and tasty accompaniments to a lovely rare piece of venison (with apologies to my vegetarian friends) it was juicy and delicious.  

Drew opted for Lammytterfilé, Lamb Sirloin, with rosemary mayonnaise, baked point cabbage, roasted root vegetables and spinach. He loved every bit of it.

For Dessert Drew had Rabarbersmulpaj, Rhubarb Crumble with Vanilla sauce, it was sweet and the creme was one of the most vanillay things he has tasted.

I opted for Gårdsost Från Påverås Gårdsmejeri, Farm Cheese from Paveras Dairy and biscuits. This was an organic cow's cheese with all the flavour of the grass having come through the cows gullett and into its milk providing a perfect, fresh tasty cheese with plain light rye biscuits.

We caught the T18 metro back after the lovely meal and got to bed at 10.30pm bed. Clearly Ms Salander had good taste in her eating places! We had walked 9.6 miles during the day, so it was no surprise that we went straight to sleep!