Day 2 Stockholm City Walking Tour
Great nights sleep and back out on the streets. Our hotel has been just perfect, quiet, clean and a king size bed! Can’t ask for more than that. After a quick breakfast we started our walking tour of Stockholm. Weather is good, no forecast for rain and around 630 so perfect conditions for walking.
Drottninggaden – Stockholm’s main shopping street
We decided to start far away and work our way back to the hotel so first stop is the Nordiska Cultural museum, Stockholm’s largest museum. This museum is supposed to have displays and artifacts dating back to the 1500’s that represent life in Scandinavia. It takes about 35 minutes to get to the museum which is housed in a wonderful building designed by Isak Gustav Clason, and built in 1907 to house the material inheritance of Sweden. The main hall of the building is 126 meters (413’) long and is only 1/3rd as long as originally planned. Money seems to always get in the way.
Once we arrived, we understood how the Swedes had derived a plot to get more funding for the museum, charge an enormous entry fee and bingo, money worries are no more. Well, after reading the description of what was on display, we decided that seeing place settings, clothing and a nylon stocking collection wasn’t quite worth the $30USD admission. Gonna save those bucks for drinks later on. Snapped a few pics of the outside and decided to go to the ABBA museum just down the street.
Strike one!
Yes, they actually have a museum dedicated to ABBA, the pop band from the 1970’s, who just so it happens, are from Sweden. The group has sold over 380 million (yes, million) albums and still have a following. I’m sure you’ve seen these people, long hair, flowered shirts, bell-bottom pants held in place by a macramé belt, sandals – holy shit- sounds like Art! Just kidding.
Interesting side note: Anni-Frid Synni Lyngstad, one of the lead singers for ABBA, is of Norwegian / German descent. Her father was a Nazi Captain stationed in Norway during WW2. When the stuff hit the fan, he was sent back to the Motherland after making several attempts to stay with his new family. Not sure if they ever reconnected but interesting story.
Well the ABBA museum wasn’t about to be outdone by the Cultural museum so they threw down the entrance fee gauntlet and won the war! $25USD per person to enter the mecca and see once worn clothing, hear songs you haven’t heard in decades, and the pièce de résistance, see a piano that is electronically connected to Benny Andersson’s piano at home that will mimic the key movements, if he is playing. If you haven’t guessed, Benny played piano for ABBA. Damn, this is hard – no thanks.
That’s strike two but we still have one more museum on this island to check out before throwing in the towel and heading back to the open-air market, the Skansen open-air museum! Located on 75-acres, this open-air museum was started by the same man who started the Cultural museum. The Skansen was created to show people the way of life in Sweden before the industrial era. Wait, isn’t that pretty close to what the Cultural museum was presenting???? No matter, at $30USD, we passed.
Strike three!!
Back to the city center for a tour of Stora Saluhallen, the open-air market, lunch and a quick tour of the first German cathedral in Stockholm.
Beautiful 17th century Baroque architecture
Stora Saluhallen is a smaller version of most European outdoor markets. Lots of flower vendors, fruit & vegetable vendors and a few clothing vendors make up the square. Didn’t see anything we needed but still nice to walk through and talk with the vendors.
What else but Lingonberries!
After a lunch of burgers and fries, needed to walk a bit so back to Gamla Stan and the German cathedral. Just happened to catch the Royal Guards doing their thing again so here’s a few more pics.
Are those Clydesdales?
Enough for today. Taking the long walk back to the Radisson for a glass of wine while we do a little people-watching then up to our room to pack. Tomorrow we drive to Krokom and our cabin on the lake. Talk to you tomorrow.
Cheers