Free time in Scandinavia - THREAD 2 OF 2 - COMPLETE!
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debsta922 · 08-14-2005, 01:32 PM

Another great update Cheryl!

lauren-roxy · 08-14-2005, 01:47 PM

Stockholm looks like such a beautiful place and your room looks nice too!! Can't wait to read more!!

**DrDolphin** · 08-14-2005, 08:50 PM

Cheryl - your trip report is absolutely wonderful!!! Thank you so much for sharing with us.

**Colexis Mom** · 08-15-2005, 05:18 AM

Just catching up Cheryl

More great pictures

Keep it coming

mestitch · 08-16-2005, 01:49 PM

I'm glad your room turned out to be nice!! Can't wait for more!

**chezp** · 08-16-2005, 02:44 PM

Wednesday 7 July – part seven: dinner’s a lot cheaper here and what are they doing with this lake?

We kept walking, looking for somewhere to eat, but not finding anything that really took our fancy and then we found ourselves by the Kungliga Slottet (Royal Palace):

Nearby was the Storkyrkan (Cathedral):

And the Riksdaghuset (the Parliament), which is split into an old building, dated back to 1905 and a new building, built in 1983:

We were right at the waterfront, so we headed down there…

…. and towards the Parliament building.

where we got some superb shots of the Royal Palace and the buildings surrounding it:

At the waterfront, we were fascinated to see that there was a lot of work going on and they were moving the lake, yes you did read that right – and here’s the proof:

We strolled through the Parliament building, accompanied by a guy who was playing the cello – very romantic.

On the other side of the building, we were again at the waterfront, so we took a load more photos (no surprise there then!

)

What struck me was how peaceful it all was. It felt as if we had stepped back in time to another world, a million miles away from the hustle and bustle of today and yet just a few steps away, it all started again with one of the longest shopping streets I think I’ve ever seen:

Next: Now this is more like the price and is that a British department store I see?

lauren-roxy · 08-16-2005, 03:15 PM

Beautiful pictures Cheryl, that is such an awesome place!! Can't wait for more!!

katspjs · 08-16-2005, 08:27 PM

Very beautiful.

**David's Mom** · 08-16-2005, 08:30 PM

Thanks for sharing this report with us Cheryl! Your pictures are beautiful. More please.

**Colexis Mom** · 08-16-2005, 09:25 PM

Another fantastic update

**chezp** · 08-17-2005, 12:53 PM

Wednesday 6 July – part eight: Now this is more like the price and is that a British department store I see?

By now, I was starving, so I was keeping an eagle eye for any restaurants that I liked the look of and I found one quickly enough. When I spotted a board with the words “special – salmon with rice 129 SEK (about £10 or $17), now that would do me and that’s a fair more reasonable price than we had experienced in Oslo.

This is more like it.

The other special was for beef steak in red wine sauce, so that was Mark catered for as well and in we went.

Although it was 9.30, it was still a warm night, but we decided to eat inside, on the grounds that you could smoke outside and we didn’t want a repeat of last night on the boat, so in we went.

We both went for the specials and boy, they were good.

I don’t think Mark could believed how quickly I polished mine off. Come to think of it, I even surprised myself, but I was hungry and I couldn’t fault what I had.

Even better, he was able to get a beer, as it’s far more reasonably priced here (about half the price that it was in Oslo!)

Our hunger satisfied (and Mark refuelled with beer!

), we decided to walk back to the hotel. It was a pleasant walk along perhaps the longest shopping street I’ve ever come across in my life!

Maybe not as long as Oxford Street in London, but it does run it close….)

On the way, we spotted Debenhams, a British department store, which was a bit surreal. In fact, I reckon we saw seven or eight department stores as we walked along. This was my kind of street, packed with department stores and all in the same area. How easy it is to go from one to the next, comparing prices!

We walked past Serg Torgels Square:

which seemed to be undergoing a lot of renovation work. I’m not quite sure what they were doing, but they were still working past 10.00 at night, which impressed us, although I doubt it would impress any nearby residents.

Eventually we got to the point where we turned off the main shopping street, but still it carried on with its multitude of flags (none of them English or American I noticed, they seemed to just go for coloured striped ones), which were fluttering away into the distance.

As we headed back to the hotel, we found a lovely church, just a couple of blocks away from where we were staying:

This was Adolf Fredriks Kyrka (church), which had its foundation stone laid in 1768. Built in the shape of a Greek cross and former Prime Minister Olof Palme, who was murdered in the street in Stockholm in 1986, is buried in the cemetery here.

Then we were back on the main road, where we had earlier caught the train from. We stopped off at the 7/11 store, which was at the bottom of the road that our hotel was in, to get some water for tomorrow and ended up getting two small tubs of Haagen Dazs ice cream for me as well (the normal price was 325 SEK each (around £3 or $5), but with the special offer they had going, it was 255SEK for both (around £2.25 or $3.80) and some cookies for Mark and then it was back to the room to continue to bask in the glory of the news that we would host the 2012 Olympics!

Our hotel

Today we walked 9.2 miles
The weather today was hot and sunny, with temperatures in the high 70’s.
The best thing today was wandering around Gamla Stan.
The worst thing today was turning up at the hotel – it seemed to be in the middle of nowhere and the lifts were just plain freaky!
The funniest thing today was seeing Eeyore in the middle of the Gamla Stan – he seemed somehow out of place there!

Today we tried the Norwegian Resistance Museum
And the result was it was one of the most moving museums I’ve ever visited in my life and really brought home to you the terrible suffering that the Norwegians went through in the Second World War.
The most magical moment today was seeing the Royal Palace in Stockholm for the first time – the sun catching it was just beautiful.

Next: what is it with us and early morning noise and I hate guided tours!

DawnDenise · 08-17-2005, 02:49 PM

Just got caught up on your last two updates!! I cn't say enough about your pictures. Looking forard to more!

GoofyMom · 08-18-2005, 11:28 AM

Sounds like another great day. Good thing your hotel turned out to be so nice on the inside!

BritDisFan · 08-18-2005, 03:38 PM

Oooh Cheryl, you dinner looked lovely

.

Karen

**chezp** · 08-19-2005, 01:04 PM

Thursday 7 July – part one: what is it with us and early morning noise and I hate guided tours!

The day started at 4.55, not due to people yelling outside the hotel this time, but due to the chiming of church bells. I only heard three chimes, so I had no idea what time it was. I was worried it was later, so we checked the time and when we found the answer, it was straight back to sleep for both of us.

We re-woke at 7.40 and headed down for breakfast shortly afterwards. They’re very hot on security here. Not only do you have to use your room key to get access to the floor your room is on, but you have to use it to get access to the breakfast room as well. Even so, there were still warnings about thieves up, telling you not to leave your valuables unattended, not that we ever do, but some people seem to think that all their cares are forgotten when they go away, so I guess it was a timely reminder.

The selection of breakfast food was again plentiful with lots of meats for Mark, but alas no fish for me. Still, there was a lot more fresh fruit and yoghurt this time and still some cheese, so I was happy enough.

We set off just before 10.00 and went to the metro station, a train arriving almost as soon as we got there. And at 10.00, just 10 minutes after we left the hotel, we were walking up to the Royal Palace. I can’t believe how efficient the public transport system is here, it’s excellent. I was glad we made it to the Royal Palace by 10.00, as we were lucky enough to catch the changing of the guard ceremony – a very pleasant surprise, as I thought that only hold one a day at midday.

We went to get out tickets for the Royal Palace after watching that and I asked about getting a Stockholm Card, but the guy told me that they only sold the one day one. That’s fine, as I couldn’t purchase one of those online before we got here and a one day one would suit us, as we were only here until tomorrow. I explained that to the guy and told him I only needed it to get access to City Hall in the morning. When he heard that, he wrote down the activation time on the pass as 10.30 to give us an extra half hour in the morning to get there. I like this guy!

We then snapped a few more photos in front of the Royal Palace…

.. before we headed into the Palace, just beating a group. Honestly, these guided tours would become the bane of our life as we went round, as we encountered quite a few in there and they wouldn’t move out of our way to let us through.

We weren’t allowed to take photos inside the Palace, but here are some shots from the guidebook we bought….

The Council Chamber

The Victoria Drawing Room

The Royal Chapel

The Royal Palace dates back to the 18th century and although it’s no longer a private Royal residence, it’s still used by them to greet foreign dignitaries.

I think we’re a little bit palace weary now. As Mark commented “once you’ve seen one palace, then you’ve seen them all” and that is true to a certain extent. They are all of a similar design and this one was nice enough, but similar to ones we’ve seen in Italy, France, Belgium and of course the UK. I guess really we’re spoilt, as to most people this would’ve been truly impressive. I think we’ll have to take a break from visiting Palaces…

Next: the Crown Jewels fail to impress and “what’s that on the water?”