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Food: The food in Sweden was outstanding, but expensive. Go into any restaurant (even a pub) and you'll spend between $20-30 or more for a plate. The fish dishes were well worth it though and I have to say we had some of the best fish ever. Salmon, or any fish, and potatoes in cream are a staple here. Mario never did get to try any Swedish meatballs - I guess that's something for next time :) (Ulf mentioned to go to Ikea and try the meatballs there :)) Beer of Choice: Eriksberg Memories: trying to decide whether or not to get the Stockholm card, touring the royal palace, dressing up in parkas at the Ice Bar, doing a lot of walking because the city felt smaller than most, incredible views over the water, Gamla Stan, trying to get a good picture of Gamla Stan from the train(s), Skansan, the bears fighting in the water, rainy/cloudy and cold weather but beautiful skies if the sun did come out, meeting up with Ulf for a day outside the city in Uppsala.
Economy: Stockholm was founded in order to control trade in the Baltic region. Today, Sweden remains with one of the strongest economies in the EU. Known for its high-tech industry, it exports 70% of its technology produced. We found Sweden to be quite expensive when it came to food and transportation. Climate (end of May): Feels like winter! We heard it was much nicer for the 2 weeks before we arrived (of course!). Our time here was quite chilly (40's and 50's) and somewhat cloudy and rainy. Perhaps June would be the best month, but coming here in May did have the bonus of a few less tourists. Exchange Rate: 1 US dollar = 7.28 Kronor
Recommendation to friends: 9 out of 10 for Stockholm - Stockholm is a quaint and beautiful city. It is definitely worth a trip up here to Scandinavia to see this city made up of 14 islands and surrounded by an archipelago of thousands of small islands and islets. We'd recommend combining a trip to Sweden with some of the other Scandinavian countries as well. Maybe next time we'll come in winter and stay at the Ice Hotel?! Take your time here - while there's a number of museums and sights to see, it's great to just soak up the atmosophere. Day 151 - Stockholm < | Index | Photo Galleries | > Day 153 - St Petersburg © 2007 Blue Ocean Studios, LTD. All rights Reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Services | About | Contact Prints | Return Policy | View Cart World Travel Galleries | World Travel Blog | Links |
Another crowded buffet breakfast with the masses of people staying at our hotel, and we were ready to begin our day. We gave Ulf a call to let him know we were leaving the hotel around 10am, a little later than we had been planning for. We opted to take the subway up to central station in order to save time, but it turns out we might as well have walked there, because we still missed the 10:10am train leaving for Uppsala (4th largest city in Sweden). The trains were only running once per hour which meant we'd have to wait in the station until the 11:10 train. We gave Ulf another call to let him know we'd be arriving at 11:50, as it was a 40 min ride. The time in the station went by pretty fast, and the train ride even faster, as we slept most of the way there. Not sure why we were both so tired...I think the only explanation are the relatively sleepless nights we've been having here as a result of the strange hours of light. I woke up last night at 4am and noticed it was already light out! Even though our curtains are fairly good, you can still tell it's light outside and therefore I kept waking up thinking it must be time to get up, when actually there were several more hours of "good" sleep to be had. 
Ulf and Freda picked us up at the train station and we drove to nearby Domkyrkan church for a nice lunch. We ate at one of the best restaurants for fish (only fish on the menu). Mario had a Swedish favorite, the cured salmon, which looked kind of like sushi, but bigger pieces. I had a white fish with balsamic and mango salsa - very delicious. After lunch, we walked over to check out the inside of the church. We could only stay a few minutes because a baptism was about to begin, but what we saw was very impressive - including the grave of King Gustav Vasa - founder of Sweden. We walked back to the car and made a quick stop at Uppsala Slott, the palace overlooking the city with a spectacular view, and then headed out into the countryside.
We passed by many homes painted in the traditional Swedish red with white trim and corners. Ulf told us this paint color came about from the by-products left over from steel manufacturing. The countryside is very beautiful this time of year with lush green fields covered in dandelions. We arrived at Skokloster Slott, a baroque palace built from 1654 to 1671, and had about 20 minutes to look around before the English tour started at 3:15. The tour brought us through 14 of the 80 rooms, and gave us only a taste of what the rest of the palace must be like. We enjoyed touring the rooms, especially the unfinished banquet hall and the extensive collection in the armory. You could easily spend a day exploring this palace (if they'd let you :) ). The sun finally decided to peek out as we were wandering around the palace grounds, although it was still bitter cold here today forcing us to have on all of our layers possible! 
We had dinner with Ulf and got to meet the rest of his family at the hotel where his wife has a spa. Too bad we don't have more time in Sweden, as we didn't get to have our Swedish massages! It was such a treat to be shown around by Ulf, as it really is a different experience to tour with a local. It was especially nice to be able to get out of the city and see some of the country as we drove from place to place in Ulf's car. Interestingly, Sweden has the highest gas prices we've seen so far - it's over $6 / gallon (for the cheapest grade)!!! Back on the train, it was a quick ride back to Stockholm and we walked the 25 minutes back to our hotel from central station, enjoying our last evening in Stockholm. We both really enjoyed our time in Sweden and would like to come back someday to see more of Scandinavia! 
Final thoughts on Sweden:
People: Everyone we met was really friendly and it was strange, we kept running into the same people all over (the british guys and the guy who helped us at the restaurant the first night). Stockholm has a smaller city feel to it and people can always be found out and about enjoying the town - even in the freezing cold. These hardy people will sit at an outdoor cafe sipping a beer with their winter coats on and a blanket! Touring the countryside with Ulf and meeting his family made our time here extra special. 
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