I didn’t spend a whole lot of time in Stockholm. My friend Leah and I were there for three days in 2010 as a stop on a two week long spring break trip while we were studying in Northern Ireland. Sweden was a totally random pick when we were planning our itinerary, and it was my first visit to Scandinavia.
A few things that remain consistent across the Scandinavian countries are that they’re 1) super clean, and 2) super expensive.
The first one is a great thing. The streets are spotless and the houses are cute, well-kept, and colorful (there are laws on what colors you can paint your home in Stockholm to keep the city looking nice).
The prices are not so great. I am pretty sure I went to the ATM to withdraw around £100 for expenses each day (that's after the hostel was already paid for, and we mostly traveled on a tight budget). Converting the Swedish krona wasn’t too difficult since I was living in the UK at the time. I just remembered that 100 SEK equaled roughly 10 pounds (it's closer to 9 actually)… but most things cost well over 100 SEK. I wandered into a shop at one point to look at some cute winter hats before I realized they were all at least a hundred bucks. Then they weren't so cute anymore.
One of the coolest things about Stockholm is that the city is composed of different islands connected by bridges over the water. You can take the metro or pay a ferry a few kronor to transport you from one to another as well.
We stayed in Gamla Stan, the Old Town, my favorite island of them all. It’s the medieval center of the city with cobblestone streets, the Royal Palace, restaurants, and shops selling Viking merchandise like wooden boats and hammers of Thor.
Our hostel was an adorable little place (look at the tiny door!) called 2Kronor. Inside were spiral stairs linking the reception at the top to rooms and a free to use computer at the bottom. Leah and I shared a private twin room and it was cute.
We made friends with a couple English guys the first night and drank at a table in the lobby before hitting the town. Stockholm is a great city for nightlife. The clubs are open until about 5 AM on average. From what I understand, Stureplan is the island to visit if you want elite, dressy, fancy sorts of clubs, while Sodermalm is more bohemian and affordable. We ended up in Sodermalm at a club called Marie Laveau. It was 100 SEK entry, and I only had one drink once inside since it was 90 SEK and all I could afford. That drink was a very strong, tall whiskey sour though and was easily one of the best whiskey sours I’ve ever had. There was a dark dance club in the basement area and a few well-lit rooms and a bar upstairs. It was fun, but we didn’t get back until after 3 AM.
As a result, we were running just too late to make it to anything we tried the following day. It was Easter Sunday, and since we weren’t out and about until after 11, I couldn’t find anywhere to go to mass. We did wander into one pretty church on Gamla Stan and lit some candles. I didn't write the name down, but after searching through photos of the three churches in Gamla Stan, I'm 99% sure it was the German Church of St. Gertrude that we happened upon.
Luckily, it was a warm and sunny April day, so we enjoyed just exploring the city. We walked around the Royal Palace, and the Swedish guards (and Swedes in general) were much nicer than the British guards we had recently seen the prior month in London. They smiled and even spoke!
We ended up on Djurgarden eventually after getting a ferry over from Skeppsholmen. Djurgarden, the “green island”, was the prettiest one we saw. We were too late to visit the Skansen open-air museum, and the amusement park, Grona Lund, wasn’t open yet for the year. I would definitely have loved to ride those roller coasters though, it looked like fun! Despite that, we just enjoyed taking a lap around the island and appreciating the scenery.
Once back on Gamla Stan, we bought each other Easter candy from a chocolate shop, asked for a recommendation from a shopkeeper for authentic Swedish food and had the most fantastic dinner of the trip an island over (mine was roasted vegetables and halloumi), and at 11 PM tried to visit the Ice Bar near Centralstation but (yep) were too late.
Luckily we crammed a lot into our final day, but the weather took a drastic turn and it snowed all day. On the bright side, Gamla Stan looked kind of magical.
(Has anyone ever played an old PS2 game called Shadow of Destiny? Gamla Stan, especially in the snow, reminds me of Shadow of Destiny.)
Stockholm is very gay friendly, and we found a cute café with rainbow flags where we got a cozy booth and enjoyed a latte and cinnamon roll.
We took the metro to Globen afterwards and bought tickets to ride the Skyview. It’s this little clear-paned globe that rides up the side of the arena there which is the largest spherical arena in the world. It was ok, but the weather kind of ruined it. Like I mentioned, the houses of Stockholm are all very colorful, but the snow just made everything across the city white and bland. Not too picturesque.
We had signed up for a boat tour at 1:30 beginning back in Gamla Stan since we’d been (surprise!) too late to catch one the day before. Again, this would have been better if it wasn’t freezing, but we were given blankets and decided to sit on the deck anyway for the best views.
Well, until we found a dead guy in the water anyway. About halfway through the tour, we heard our guide, sounding caught off guard, saying that there was a man in the sea. They moved the boat closer, and she announced that he was already dead. Great! Then, of course, we had to stall next to it while they phoned the police to provide a location. We just sat next to this floating corpse for about ten minutes until the cops arrived. It was all slightly traumatizing. Leah and I moved below deck afterwards while I tried to avoid my creeping anxiety.
The boat tour continued as usual afterwards with the guide giving us facts and information about all of the islands and sights we were passing, but my focus wasn’t quite the same after having the image of a dead man's face burned into my brain and whatnot.
Lunch/dinner afterwards cheered me up a little since we went to this cool create your own pasta place with lots of plants placed around for atmosphere. We were out of time then though, so we grabbed our bags, took the metro to Skavsta airport, and tried to catch our Ryanair flight.
I say “tried” because first, they made me go back and check one of my bags since I’d now collected too many souvenirs to hide under my coat, and second, the customs guy almost didn’t let me leave because he couldn’t find my stamp into the EU from Pisa due to it being too faint. I didn’t even find it until days later. We only just made our flight to Edinburgh, and then I was convinced the plane was crashing upon landing, but that’s a story for another time.
The point is that our Sweden trip was somewhat of a mess between poor planning and incidental events like discovering a dead body on our boat tour, but Stockholm still sticks in my mind as overall being a cute, clean, friendly, and pretty city to visit. Just go in the summertime and bring lots of money.