More Stockholm
and Drottningholm Palace
16 August 2023
Last night’s rain gave way to a cloudy morning, and we decided to Uber to the famous Vasa Museum. We watched a fascinating film about the ship, its one short voyage and sinking, and its recovery and restoration over three hundred years later. We walked around the massive Vasa on three levels and read the interesting displays about the time the ship was launched plus the crew who lived and died on it. This museum was a highlight of our trip.
The ship was really hard to get all in one photograph.
Below shows some detail and the photo below that, the rear.
Our next stop was the next door Nordic Museum (see photo top of page), located in a beautiful neo–classical museum. This had an interesting exhibit about the effect of climate change on artic ice.
From there, we took a funicular up a steep hill to the Skansen Open Air Museum. This is the world’s first open air museum and the location of many old buildings from various areas of Sweden that have been relocated to the park–like setting. We liked the buildings with grass growing on their roofs. Skansen also has several Nordic animals on display, including moose, reindeer and a wolverine. A few photos below, including the funicular and a reindeer. We liked the grass on the rooftops.
We next took a taxi to Fotografiska, a museum located on another nearby island. The current exhibits, with one exception (Peter Lindberg), did not really excite us, alas. We finished the day taking a stroll from the Skeppsholmen Island where our hotel is located to the next island, Kastellholmen, with its nice view back towards the Djurgarden, the island that houses Skansen, the Vasa Museum and Gröna Lund amusement park.
The weather had cleared up enough that we could enjoy a pre-dinner beer in the hotel garden. Throughout our stay, we could periodically hear (excited) screams from people on the rides at Gröna Lund, which was open despite the tragedy on one of its rides earlier this year.
17 August 2023
We rode a bus from our hotel to Central Stockholm and walked past the late 19th century central train station (below) for about ten minutes to the Stromma pier for our boat ride. The boat traveled about one hour in narrow “lakes” past scenic islands to Drottningholm Palace.
Stockholm Central Train Station.
View of City Hall as we cruised by. We will visit it Friday.
First view of the palace rounding the bend on the boat.
Two photos of palace interiors; below, the library.
The Palace is the part-time residence for the royal family, and has a lovely “lakeside” setting. The interiors boast ornate furnishings, paintings and decorations, and the palace overlooks a large garden at its rear. After touring the Palace and its grounds, chock full of royal portraits, we had lunch and then walked to the other end of the garden to visit the Chinese Pavilion. Here’s one more interior shot, then the palace rear and the Chinese Pavilion.
We then walked back to the palace and returned to Stockholm by bus and subway. When we arrived back in the city center, we walked around the shopping district, including several pedestrian streets, visiting a food hall and a large department store. We ended our walk at Kungsträdgårdsgatan, a big square with an end of summer festival in full swing. From there, we took a bus back to our hotel. We spent the rest of the sunny afternoon relaxing in our hotel’s sunny garden.
18 August 2023
We took the bus to the Central (train) Station again and from there walked to the Stockholm City Hall. Before we took the first English language tour of the day, we spent a few minutes photographing the exterior of the building, the courtyard and views from the terrace. Because it was cool and quite cloudy, we decided not to climb the tower.
The tour of the building (which had its 100 year anniversary just two months ago) was a real highlight of the trip. We saw the Blue Hall, which is where the annual Nobel Prize dinner is held (photo third row below). We also visited the red–hued Council Chamber and the Prins Eugen’s Gallery with its frescoes. The highlight of the visit was the Gold Room, shimmering with mosaics.
The tower and view from the rear porch.
Above is the ceiling of the council chamber, and
below one of the frescos by Prins Eugen.
And here is the wonderful gold room.
From there, we walked to the T–Centralen and took a tram to the underrated Swedish History Museum. It has fantastic displays from pre–historical times and also of the Viking Age; there are thousands of well–preserved artifacts. In the basement is a room devoted to beautiful works made from gold. Here’s an example of that:
We next walked to the Östermalms Saluhall, where we had lunch at one of its many eateries. After lunch, we walked to past the Royal Opera House to the relatively unknown Medelhavsmuseet (Museum of Mediterranean and Near East Antiquities). The museum has a nice Egyptian collection and a fantastic art collection of figurines excavated on Cypress by a Swedish expedition in the early twentieth century. Here’s a photo of the Cypress works, excuse the poor lighting. Below that, one of the museum’s Egyptian works.
Next, we strolled through the festival going on in the city, which featured many musical stages and lots of food trucks and the like. We moved on to Kungsträdgårdsgatan and caught a bus back to our hotel. After a short rest, we visited the nearby Moderna Museet (Modern Art Museum). It was featuring an excellent Laurie Anderson exhibit. We wished we had more time to visit the adjacent architecture museum.
One last Stockholm photo, a beer truck at the street festival.
Tomorrow in the early morning, we are leaving Stockholm in a rental car.
We both have been extremely impressed with the City. It’s clean, the people are very helpful, almost everyone speaks English, the transit is excellent and the buildings are amazingly attractive. The City is also wonderfully pedestrian–oriented—every day, we walked between six and seven miles.
