Stockholm: the Venice of the North.
Door: Eline Bouwman
Blijf op de hoogte en volg Eline
06 Oktober 2014 | Zweden, Stockholm
Tjena alla!
About two weeks ago in a country far away from the Netherlands I was walking in the Venice of the North, also called Stockholm. Oh wait… Before I continue I first have to say this. I was planning to write this blog much earlier, but there was always something in between. That’s why it took me a little longer to upload it. I apologise for that to you, my dear and loyal readers. I’m apparently not a loyal writer.
Okay, back to the story. I want to tell you guys something about my weekend of adventures in Stockholm. I fell in love with this beautiful city, so I have to warn you that I maybe am a little full of praise about everything. Just a little…
On the 19th of September three of my lovely roommates and me went on our way to the capital city of Sweden, or as we call it in Swedish: ‘Sveriges huvudstad’. We went with Rachelle her car and it was nice outward journey. I didn’t have to drive, so the only thing what me and Jane basically did in the back was listening to music and enjoying the views on the highway, which were not that special but that’s a side-effect. Around 5 o’clock in the afternoon we reached the city. We first wanted to buy the Stockholm Card. That’s a card which you can use in the public transport and it also gives you free entrance for a lot of museums. Ah well, it’s not actually free because we already paid 600 SEK for it, but the feeling that you can go into the museum without paying cash or by card as everyone else (who has no Stockholm Card) is still great. After we got our Stockholm Cards we went to a smaller city north from Stockholm called Märsta. That was the place where our host Moshin lives. He is actually a friend of our former roommate Danish and we only had contact via Facebook with him before. For me it felt a little bit strange, because we were going to spend three days at his place and we didn’t even knew him in person. In the Netherlands it’s weird when you host strangers, but that’s a difference in culture I guess. Dutch people are not that hospitable in my opinion :-)
On our first night in the east of Sweden we went to the city centre of Stockholm. It took us about one hour to get there. We had to go by bus and after that by train. It was not a regional train, but more like a special train. It only went from Märstra Centrum to Stockholm Central Station. It was awesome. In the train we started to plan our trip. With the Stockholm Card we also got a lot of folders and at the end of the night we had a plan! The program we made was pretty full, but that doesn’t matter. We were here just for two-and-a-half day. Stockholm by night is by the way beautiful. I really liked the lights and the parks over there. We haven’t seen a lot on our first evening because we were kind of lost all the time, but the first impression was good.
Saturday, the 20th of September, we woke up early. I haven’t slept that well, because of all the noises and the light. I, how stupid am I, forgot my earplugs and my sleeping mask. It was also very difficult to sleep on another mattress than my own. On our first real day in the city centre of this beautiful city we did a lot of stuff. We first went to the Vasamuseet (Vasa Museum). This museum is about a the biggest Swedish war ship what sank in the 17th century and for the ones who want to know: it actually sank in 1628. It was really impressive, because the ship was really huge and intact. It lasted for 20 minutes on the water before it sank, so maybe the engineers in that time were not that good. The museum was by the way not that special. We had a full program, so we didn’t want to spend a lot of time there.
After the Vasemuseet we went to the old town of Stockholm. Oh my gosh, that is so amazing! All the small streets, the cosy shops and the beautiful old buildings were beautiful. I love that place! In the future I’ll definitely buy a house there if I can afford it. Okay, that’s not going to happen but I can dream about it. We visited an old catholic church called Storkyrkan because I want to visit a church in every country or city where I am. It makes my citytrip complete. There is just so much to see and a church like this has a lot of history. Everytime when I’m in a church like this I have the feeling that I don’t want to miss any of the details in the paintings or statues. It’s too bad that I just have one pair of eyes.
After this museum we went to the meeting point for the canal tour. We had to wait for one hour, because the boat we wanted to take was already full. That was not that bad. The weather was lovely. It was about 20 degrees and there was no wind. We sat on the quay in the sun, had our lunch, and after that our boat adventure began. It was really nice to see Stockholm from the water. The sun made the city even more beautiful than it is itself. Oh, I’m so in love with it! You will also fall in love with it after you see the pictures I made ;-)
In the afternoon we went to the kind of suburb ‘Slussen’ to walk around the area with a free guided tour we found on the internet. Slussen is also known as ‘the hipster area’ from Stockholm. It was really nice to see the views from the hills and our guide was also a really cool guide. Everytime we stopped somewhere, she told us a story about the building, the view or the area. For example when we were standing on a square between the houses she told us that the area Slussen is known for being a ‘witch-area’. As the legend says there was once a boy and everyone said that his mother was a witch. He took advantage of that and he used this against other people. He said that he knew exactly how a witch looked like and everytime when a women tried to say something bad about him, he said that she was also a witch. Everyone believed him, because he had experiences and the ‘witches’ had to burn. At some point the boy decided to make money from it. Everytime he could say that a women was a witch, he said to her that he wouldn’t tell anyone as the women in particular gave him money. Time passed by and other children didn’t believe in the stories of the boy anymore. They saw that he just did it for the money, so they decided to be kind of business partners with the boy because they also wanted to earn money. Well, in the end everyone thought it was really suspicious and no one believed the little boy and his followers anymore and that’s basically the end of the story. Probably I don’t tell it the way our guide told us, but now you have a little bit of an idea that the guide was also entertaining us!
On our guided tour we passed a lot of nice buildings with a lot of history and we saw Stockholm from above a few hills. That was really nice, but not the nicest part of the tour. The nicest part of the tour was that we went to Bellmansgatan 1. This is not just an address or just a house, but it’s the house of Mikael Blomkvist in the Millennium trilogy of Stieg Larsson! The people who know me a little bit also know that I’m known as a huge fan of the Scandinavian detective fiction. For the people who don’t know the term ‘detective-fiction’: Google it. It’s a shame if you don’t know it! It was really awesome to see the house. It kind of felt I was on set of the movie haha. It was awesome to see it with my own eyes!
After the guided a lot of museums were closed. They close between 16.00 and 17.00 which is pretty bad. We walked a little bit around in the city, saw the nice buildings from the outside, enjoyed the weather and took a lot of pictures. Ah well, Jane was taking the most pictures because she had her nice Nikon with her. We just had our iPhones and you cannot make nice jumping-pictures with an iPhone. It’s just not working. After the jumping-pictures we searched for a nice restaurant to eat. We found a cheesy looking pizzeria after one hour and decided to have our dinner there. I have to say that you cannot judge by the way a restaurant looks like. My pizza tonno, how can it be different, was delicious! Compliments to the chef!
The next day, what was also our last day in Stockholm we also woke up early. Our host Moshin joined us today! That was pretty funny. He had lived nearby Stockholm for 9 months and he hasn’t been sightseeing in that time. We decided to teach him how to sightsee! At first we went to the Skyview. It’s more or less a similar to The London Eye, but it’s not a Ferris wheel. It’s like a cabin what is going to the top of the Ericsson Globe, where artists give concerts. The view was nice, but for some reason I expected more from it. After the Skyview we went to the Nobelmuseet (Nobel Museum). I’m not that interested in the Nobel prize and before I went into the museum I didn’t even know why Alfred Nobel is so famous. Now I know that he is the inventor of the dynamite, so I learned something new that day! After the Nobelmuseet we went to the Royal Palace to see the changing of the guards. Every day at 12 the guards are changing and that’s kind of a touristic attraction. The changing of the guards happens with a lot of music, screaming and marches. It’s funny to see it. I’ve never got the chance to see the changing of the guards when I was in London, so I don’t have anything to compare it with. But I can say that the guards here in Sweden are not that boring and stiff as the guards in London. Halfway the changing, when the most spectacular things were already over, I decided to see the Royal Palace from the inside. I mean, I had the Stockholm Card… Why wouldn’t I take the advantage of the fact that I have it :-) The Royal Palace was awesome! I had the same feeling as when I was in the Storkyrkan on the previous day. Too bad that it was forbidden to take pictures, what I as a stupid tourist sometimes forgot. It was amazing to see how luxurious the king and queen lived in the past. But the carpets on the wall… That’s not really stylish. I cannot understand why it was stylish back then.
After the changing of the guards and seeing the Royal Palace we decided to visit one more museum before we were getting home or I can better say: back to our car and back to Jönköping. The last museum was the Historiskamuseet (History Museum). The Swedish history is really interesting, but I decided to educate myself in a different way so I got stuck at the children’s books department. It was relaxed to hear a person telling me a story about the Swedish history through the eyes of a kid. For me it was the perfect end of a nice weekend!
Our way back we had a lot of rain. It was terrible. Thank god I was again not driving haha. I’m sorry Rachelle and Merle if you read this :-P When we were at a gas station on our street, the famous Ebba Ramsays Väg, we accidently got a flat tire… That was too bad. We were blessed that there was Sergej, our big German roommate who knows how to change tires, to help us in the middle of the night. And so we went home safely with a lot of stuff to dream about.
God natt mina vänner! Tills nästa gång!
About two weeks ago in a country far away from the Netherlands I was walking in the Venice of the North, also called Stockholm. Oh wait… Before I continue I first have to say this. I was planning to write this blog much earlier, but there was always something in between. That’s why it took me a little longer to upload it. I apologise for that to you, my dear and loyal readers. I’m apparently not a loyal writer.
Okay, back to the story. I want to tell you guys something about my weekend of adventures in Stockholm. I fell in love with this beautiful city, so I have to warn you that I maybe am a little full of praise about everything. Just a little…
On the 19th of September three of my lovely roommates and me went on our way to the capital city of Sweden, or as we call it in Swedish: ‘Sveriges huvudstad’. We went with Rachelle her car and it was nice outward journey. I didn’t have to drive, so the only thing what me and Jane basically did in the back was listening to music and enjoying the views on the highway, which were not that special but that’s a side-effect. Around 5 o’clock in the afternoon we reached the city. We first wanted to buy the Stockholm Card. That’s a card which you can use in the public transport and it also gives you free entrance for a lot of museums. Ah well, it’s not actually free because we already paid 600 SEK for it, but the feeling that you can go into the museum without paying cash or by card as everyone else (who has no Stockholm Card) is still great. After we got our Stockholm Cards we went to a smaller city north from Stockholm called Märsta. That was the place where our host Moshin lives. He is actually a friend of our former roommate Danish and we only had contact via Facebook with him before. For me it felt a little bit strange, because we were going to spend three days at his place and we didn’t even knew him in person. In the Netherlands it’s weird when you host strangers, but that’s a difference in culture I guess. Dutch people are not that hospitable in my opinion :-)
On our first night in the east of Sweden we went to the city centre of Stockholm. It took us about one hour to get there. We had to go by bus and after that by train. It was not a regional train, but more like a special train. It only went from Märstra Centrum to Stockholm Central Station. It was awesome. In the train we started to plan our trip. With the Stockholm Card we also got a lot of folders and at the end of the night we had a plan! The program we made was pretty full, but that doesn’t matter. We were here just for two-and-a-half day. Stockholm by night is by the way beautiful. I really liked the lights and the parks over there. We haven’t seen a lot on our first evening because we were kind of lost all the time, but the first impression was good.
Saturday, the 20th of September, we woke up early. I haven’t slept that well, because of all the noises and the light. I, how stupid am I, forgot my earplugs and my sleeping mask. It was also very difficult to sleep on another mattress than my own. On our first real day in the city centre of this beautiful city we did a lot of stuff. We first went to the Vasamuseet (Vasa Museum). This museum is about a the biggest Swedish war ship what sank in the 17th century and for the ones who want to know: it actually sank in 1628. It was really impressive, because the ship was really huge and intact. It lasted for 20 minutes on the water before it sank, so maybe the engineers in that time were not that good. The museum was by the way not that special. We had a full program, so we didn’t want to spend a lot of time there.
After the Vasemuseet we went to the old town of Stockholm. Oh my gosh, that is so amazing! All the small streets, the cosy shops and the beautiful old buildings were beautiful. I love that place! In the future I’ll definitely buy a house there if I can afford it. Okay, that’s not going to happen but I can dream about it. We visited an old catholic church called Storkyrkan because I want to visit a church in every country or city where I am. It makes my citytrip complete. There is just so much to see and a church like this has a lot of history. Everytime when I’m in a church like this I have the feeling that I don’t want to miss any of the details in the paintings or statues. It’s too bad that I just have one pair of eyes.
After this museum we went to the meeting point for the canal tour. We had to wait for one hour, because the boat we wanted to take was already full. That was not that bad. The weather was lovely. It was about 20 degrees and there was no wind. We sat on the quay in the sun, had our lunch, and after that our boat adventure began. It was really nice to see Stockholm from the water. The sun made the city even more beautiful than it is itself. Oh, I’m so in love with it! You will also fall in love with it after you see the pictures I made ;-)
In the afternoon we went to the kind of suburb ‘Slussen’ to walk around the area with a free guided tour we found on the internet. Slussen is also known as ‘the hipster area’ from Stockholm. It was really nice to see the views from the hills and our guide was also a really cool guide. Everytime we stopped somewhere, she told us a story about the building, the view or the area. For example when we were standing on a square between the houses she told us that the area Slussen is known for being a ‘witch-area’. As the legend says there was once a boy and everyone said that his mother was a witch. He took advantage of that and he used this against other people. He said that he knew exactly how a witch looked like and everytime when a women tried to say something bad about him, he said that she was also a witch. Everyone believed him, because he had experiences and the ‘witches’ had to burn. At some point the boy decided to make money from it. Everytime he could say that a women was a witch, he said to her that he wouldn’t tell anyone as the women in particular gave him money. Time passed by and other children didn’t believe in the stories of the boy anymore. They saw that he just did it for the money, so they decided to be kind of business partners with the boy because they also wanted to earn money. Well, in the end everyone thought it was really suspicious and no one believed the little boy and his followers anymore and that’s basically the end of the story. Probably I don’t tell it the way our guide told us, but now you have a little bit of an idea that the guide was also entertaining us!
On our guided tour we passed a lot of nice buildings with a lot of history and we saw Stockholm from above a few hills. That was really nice, but not the nicest part of the tour. The nicest part of the tour was that we went to Bellmansgatan 1. This is not just an address or just a house, but it’s the house of Mikael Blomkvist in the Millennium trilogy of Stieg Larsson! The people who know me a little bit also know that I’m known as a huge fan of the Scandinavian detective fiction. For the people who don’t know the term ‘detective-fiction’: Google it. It’s a shame if you don’t know it! It was really awesome to see the house. It kind of felt I was on set of the movie haha. It was awesome to see it with my own eyes!
After the guided a lot of museums were closed. They close between 16.00 and 17.00 which is pretty bad. We walked a little bit around in the city, saw the nice buildings from the outside, enjoyed the weather and took a lot of pictures. Ah well, Jane was taking the most pictures because she had her nice Nikon with her. We just had our iPhones and you cannot make nice jumping-pictures with an iPhone. It’s just not working. After the jumping-pictures we searched for a nice restaurant to eat. We found a cheesy looking pizzeria after one hour and decided to have our dinner there. I have to say that you cannot judge by the way a restaurant looks like. My pizza tonno, how can it be different, was delicious! Compliments to the chef!
The next day, what was also our last day in Stockholm we also woke up early. Our host Moshin joined us today! That was pretty funny. He had lived nearby Stockholm for 9 months and he hasn’t been sightseeing in that time. We decided to teach him how to sightsee! At first we went to the Skyview. It’s more or less a similar to The London Eye, but it’s not a Ferris wheel. It’s like a cabin what is going to the top of the Ericsson Globe, where artists give concerts. The view was nice, but for some reason I expected more from it. After the Skyview we went to the Nobelmuseet (Nobel Museum). I’m not that interested in the Nobel prize and before I went into the museum I didn’t even know why Alfred Nobel is so famous. Now I know that he is the inventor of the dynamite, so I learned something new that day! After the Nobelmuseet we went to the Royal Palace to see the changing of the guards. Every day at 12 the guards are changing and that’s kind of a touristic attraction. The changing of the guards happens with a lot of music, screaming and marches. It’s funny to see it. I’ve never got the chance to see the changing of the guards when I was in London, so I don’t have anything to compare it with. But I can say that the guards here in Sweden are not that boring and stiff as the guards in London. Halfway the changing, when the most spectacular things were already over, I decided to see the Royal Palace from the inside. I mean, I had the Stockholm Card… Why wouldn’t I take the advantage of the fact that I have it :-) The Royal Palace was awesome! I had the same feeling as when I was in the Storkyrkan on the previous day. Too bad that it was forbidden to take pictures, what I as a stupid tourist sometimes forgot. It was amazing to see how luxurious the king and queen lived in the past. But the carpets on the wall… That’s not really stylish. I cannot understand why it was stylish back then.
After the changing of the guards and seeing the Royal Palace we decided to visit one more museum before we were getting home or I can better say: back to our car and back to Jönköping. The last museum was the Historiskamuseet (History Museum). The Swedish history is really interesting, but I decided to educate myself in a different way so I got stuck at the children’s books department. It was relaxed to hear a person telling me a story about the Swedish history through the eyes of a kid. For me it was the perfect end of a nice weekend!
Our way back we had a lot of rain. It was terrible. Thank god I was again not driving haha. I’m sorry Rachelle and Merle if you read this :-P When we were at a gas station on our street, the famous Ebba Ramsays Väg, we accidently got a flat tire… That was too bad. We were blessed that there was Sergej, our big German roommate who knows how to change tires, to help us in the middle of the night. And so we went home safely with a lot of stuff to dream about.
God natt mina vänner! Tills nästa gång!
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