Stockholm

On 21/08/07, with a Ryanair flight from Alghero airport at 19.10, we set off for Stockholm; the flight lasts about 3 hours and arrives at Skavsta airport (NYO) at 22.20, 20 minutes early (all the better), the airport isn't very big and as soon as we disembark we take care of collecting the luggage; after that, having booked the tickets online, we avoid the queue at the ticket machine and go to take our seats on the Flybussarna bus. In less than 2 hours we're in Stockholm. The bus arrives at Cityterminalen (the central station); our hotel, Wallin Hotel at Wallingatan no. 15 (it's not very far, it takes us 10 minutes on foot and we've reached the hotel), a 4-star, is nice, modern and cosy, with a very convenient free internet point for guests, very very useful, which we will definitely use in the following days.

The room is nice but unfortunately not very big and the third bed isn't made up; given the late hour there are no staff and we're forced to make the bed ourselves….. oh well, we don't feel like making a fuss…. it's one o'clock and we go to sleep.

Stockholm

On 22/08/07 we wake up early and go down for breakfast, where we observe with great surprise that many basic hygiene rules that we follow in Italy are not observed here in the least; in fact, everyone can touch everything with their hands, including the bread and the cutlery, the tables have no tablecloth and very often are only cleared but not cleaned. We see that the locals don't pay any attention to it; they sit down calmly, laugh and joke… and everything is fine. (We Italians are very often amazed by the unquestionable efficiency in keeping to schedules and the precision of certain rules, but every people has its own flaws; let's not always judge ourselves too harshly.) After breakfast we go out to discover the city; it's not as cold as we expected, you only need a sweatshirt and long trousers.

The first thing to do is to exchange our euros into Swedish kronor (SEK) at one of the many FOREX counters present in the City and all over town; after that, crossing the characteristic Drottninggatan street (the street of the little flags, full of venues, shops and shopping centres), we reach Sergels Torg and head towards Gamla Stan, the old town, and immediately throw ourselves into visiting the Royal Palace (Kungliga Slottet), and at 12.00 we watch the changing of the guard, which we judge to be very beautiful but in the end too long and showy because the whole thing lasts more than an hour… after the spectacle, a few drops of rain force us to dive into the first little place at hand for lunch; the rain doesn't last long, so after lunch we go back to the hotel to rest a little.

After about an hour we go out and return to the centre to stroll a bit in the City; we discover that the shops close at 5, a bit early in our opinion, given that it's also summer!! We have dinner at the Hard Rock Café; since the venues close early in the evening there aren't many people around, so we go back to the hotel.

23/08/07 After breakfast we visit the City Hall (STADSHUSET), a very beautiful building, not too far from the harbour, from which we take the boat that at 11.00 sets sail for Drottningholm, the summer royal residence; the boat trip is pleasant and the view you enjoy from Lake Mälaren is enchanting, the weather is mild, we can notice that on the shores of the lake hordes of kids are bathing and diving off the boat docks. We arrive on the little island and visit the royal palace, its gardens, the Chinese Pavilion; inside the palace there's a small refreshment point that sells sandwiches (and recycles paper plates); here we take a lunch break and at 14 we take the boat to return to the city. In the evening we do another round in the centre for souvenir shops and shopping centres; we visit Stockholm's most famous shopping centre, NK (pronounced: EN KO')

24/08/07 Early wake-up and quick breakfast; at 9.30 the ferry departs for the much-praised Birka on the island of Björkö; we queue a bit for the tickets while waiting for the ticket office to open at 9.00, but to our surprise they tell us that tickets are bought on board, and you can even pay by credit card…. Another queue for boarding. After 105 minutes we arrive on the island, the first Viking settlement, but to our disappointment we notice that there's nothing to see on the island except a church and a stone cross from the Roman era…. nothing else interesting that seems significant to us…..and above all nothing Viking; we stop at the only refreshment place for lunch and have the typical Swedish dish Köttbullar (meatballs with blueberry jam), not very good but worth tasting.

The ferry leaves at 14.45 and is in port at 17.15; we go again to Gamla Stan to have a gelato with a wafer made by hand artisanally in the open air, again without observing those famous hygiene rules that we Italians like so much!!! After that we head to the characteristic, very pretty little square Stortorget, where the venue where the Nobel Prizes are awarded is also located; we take a few photos and look for a place for dinner.

25/08/07 By bus 47 we head to Djurgården, another island of Stockholm full of parks. We go there to visit the Vasamuseet (the museum of the warship that sank immediately after its launch) and Skansen, a large park in which Swedish life in the early 1900s is reproduced extremely well; there's a whole entire village built to perfection, complete with costumed reenactors impersonating the villagers themselves; there's also the baker who bakes and sells excellent pastries… how can you not be tempted????? We buy a few…. In the centre of the village there's a large square where there's a festival, the festival of nations; in turn, representatives of various nations in traditional costume dance on a stage; there are also many food stalls….

We taste reindeer meat with mashed potatoes, very spicy but good!!!! Inside this large park there's also a zoo, which we enjoy looking at, also because we find a multitude of typical Swedish animals there. Having left Skansen very satisfied, we don't feel like shutting ourselves up in a museum and skip the visit to the Nordiska museet; instead we try, though in vain, to rent bikes to take a little ride around the island, so disappointed we go to have something to drink in a nearby bar. All that's left is to take bus 47 again and return to the hotel for a freshen-up. We go out for dinner and stop at D 6 (Drottninggatan no. 6); we eat a pizza…… GOOD!!!!!!

26/08/07 It's Sunday, and like every Sunday in the square at Hötorget there's the flea market; we go to take a look, we don't find anything to buy but we enjoy browsing among the stalls that sell everything, nothing different from our flea markets. Here we meet a nice lady of Italian origin who has lived in Stockholm for about 40 years; she tells us that life in Sweden today is no longer as we imagine; there too, as with us, very many people struggle to make it to the end of the month and few can afford a car; she says that we Italians, all things considered, have little to complain about. To round off the morning, we cross the Gamla Stan district on foot and head towards the island of Södermalm, following a route marked in our guidebook; the route isn't bad and takes us to a very striking viewpoint, but honestly we expected more. We decide to return to the City and take the bus.

The buses are always terribly on time; the ticket costs 13 Swedish kronor but you need 2 for each ride (?!?) We go to have lunch in a place called "al forno"; we have fish but it's not that great. To fill the rest of the evening we take the usual strolls along the central streets; in our opinion Stockholm doesn't offer much in the way of entertainment for tourists in the evening; there's no one around, the shops close very early (around 17.00) and the venues and bars around 21.00, so after that hour there aren't many people around anymore and all we can do is go back to the hotel.

27/08/07 Having found the music museum closed, we opt for a visit to the army museum, which we find very interesting; let's say it's more a museum that retraces the most important stages of Swedish history; after that we visit the dance museum and head to the centre of the City to take another look at the shopping centres; we have lunch in a place called "STASH" in the GALERIAN shopping centre with a hot sandwich, very good but a little heavy to digest; in the afternoon we finish buying souvenirs; after dinner we go back to the hotel to start packing. One little thing to add about TV in Sweden that leaves us perplexed is that no programme is dubbed, but all the various films, TV series or whatever are broadcast in the original language with subtitles!!!

28/08/07 Wake up, breakfast and luggage……. calmly we head to the Flybussarna station that will take us to the airport; even though our flight leaves at 15.30 we decide to go early to catch the bus, since anyone who can't get on that one will have to wait for the next, risking arriving late. We wait for boarding in a freezing-cold little room at the airport and can't wait to be back in our warm Sardinia.

We judged this holiday a little disappointing; we expected much more from Stockholm. It wasn't the Venice of the North we were expecting. With its Nordic hours, in which all activities stop very early, visitors are left with a lot of free time from six in the evening onwards, but it's also true that "when in Rome, do as the Romans do" and that if you don't see something you can't judge it.