A Traveler's Photo Journal

Drottningholm Palace

I made the most of my last two days in Stockholm.  Taking ferries, I managed one UNESCO site, two museums, Gamla Stan, and two more stellar restaurants.

Things to do in Stockholm with only two days:

1.  Sightseeing.  Gamla Stan has many small streets to walk, the main square (Stortorget), the cathedral (Storkyrkan), and the Royal Palace to name just a few sites.  It is easy to spend more than a day just walking the small streets of Gamla Stan.  The entire waterfront and the parks would take many more days to cover.  There is so much to see without even entering a museum, it keeps you busy.

Stockholm waterfront with the Grand Hotel

A street in Gamla Stan

2.  Drottningholm.  I took the first ferry out to the Queens country palace (Queen Hedvig Eleonora from the 17th century), now a UNESCO Heritage Site.  The palace itself is interesting with beautiful rooms, but even more so I enjoyed the tour of the theater on site, dating from 1766.  It is still in use today using the original stage workings.  The English language tour was worth waiting for.  A walk through the gardens and grounds, and a tour of the Chinese Pavilion covers a large area and much walking is involved.  The ferry ride to and from the palace from near downtown was an excursion of its own.  I can recommend the fish soup at the Drottningholm cafe.  http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/559

Along the waterfront on the ferry ride to Drottningholm Palace

Drottningholm Palace

Drottningholms Slottsteater

In the gardens at Drottningholm

The Chinese Pavilion at Drottningholm

Swans in the gardens and parks of Drottningholm

The Baroque Garden at Drottningholm Palace

 3.  Museums.  In one day you can visit the Nordiska Museet and the Vasa Museet.  Both are located on Djursgarden, another ferry ride from Gamla Stan.  (Skansen, another very good outdoor museum is in the same area, but that takes more time than I had).  Again, the ferry ride is another sightseeing ride.  The Nordiska Museet has exhibits on Swedish trends and traditions from 1500 to the present.  I particulary liked the examples of table settings from 1500 – 1950.  The Vasa museum is truly amazing.  The building of the ship was an accomplishment, the sinking on August 10, 1628 a tragedy, but the most amazing part of the museum is the salvage of the ship after 333 years at the bottom of the harbour.  http://www.nordiskamuseet.se/en   http://www.vasamuseet.se/en/

The Nordiska Museet

A table setting in the Nordiska Museet with a swan as a center piece.

Another table setting example in the Nordiska Museet

The Vasa warship

The Vasa’s lion figure head

The Vasa

4.  Shopping for the Dalecarlian horses.  I love these carved symbols of Sweden, and can’t seem to get enough of them.  There is a small shop near the main square that has a few cabinets of rare and collectable horses.  I spent some time in this shop, and others, looking for just the right one.  These carved horses became famous after the 1939 World Expo in New York.  Of course they were carved for hundreds of years prior to that, but it was the exhibit at the World Expo that catapulted the little horses to fame.  The Nordiska Museet called them “The greatest sales success of the Stockholm Exhibit.”  http://www.woodenhorsemuseumsweden.se/

From the website of the Wooden Horse Museum:

The first Dala horse factory was started by the Olsson brothers in Nusnäs, a village in Mora, in 1922. The second one was started in 1928. Both factories are still run by descendants of the Olsson family today.

During the 1939 World Expo in New York, 20,000 wooden horses were sold at the Swedish Pavilion. The same year, almost one ton of Dala horses was shipped to the USA. Mass production of Dala horses began after this Expo. 

The simple toys made for Swedish children became Sweden’s No.1 souvenir and symbol, as well as a collector’s item.

Dalecarlian horses for sale in a Gamla Stan shop

The shop window of Wooden Horse Museum Shop at Stortorget 14, Gamla Stan

5.  Good food.  I can now recommend three wonderful dinner spots in Gamla Stan.  Fem Små Hus is a cozy place with many levels descending into the cellar.  I had the best shrimp appetizer of the trip here, plus a wonderful lobster dinner.  For my last dinner in Gamla Stan, I dropped into Mårten Trotzig.  I didn’t know what to expect, but ended up having the best fish soup of the trip.  http://www.femsmahus.se/en

http://martentrotzig.se/en/

The lobster dinner at Fem Sma Hus

The fish soup at Marten Trotzig’s in Gamla Stan

A dog on the ferry from Sandhamn to Stockholm.

I will admit right at the start to being a dog lover.  But I live in a rather dog unfriendly state, so it was wonderful to see how dogs are included in everything in Sweden, or almost everything.

We saw dogs just about everywhere.  My theory is that the dogs are introduced to this inclusion at a young age, and their good behavior in public is the result.

Dogs on the beach in Sandhamn

We saw them on the ferry, on the bus, at cafes, on the street, at the ruins in Visby, and at the palace at Drottningholm.

A poodle on the ferry.

Getting off the bus to take the big ferry to Visby, Gotland.

A woman gives her puppy a drink of water in the waiting area for the ferry to Gotland.

There was a special seating area for passengers with dogs on the large ferry to Gotland

This sign on a gate in Gamla Stan warms people to be mindful of the laws regardings dogs in churches.

This dog was walking the grounds of the palace at Drottningholm, a UNESCO site.

A dog in the ruins of St. Catherines in Visby, Gotland.

The only place that I saw the following sign, “No Dogs Allowed”, was on the gate of The House of Nobility in Gamla Stan.

No dogs allowed in The House of Nobility in Stockholm.

According to the World Heritage Committee, Visby was worthy of the UNESCO World Heritage designation due to the following:

Visby is an outstanding example of a north European medieval walled trading town which preserves with remarkable completeness a townscape and assemblage of high-quality ancient buildings that illustrate graphically the form and function of this type of significant human settlement.

Here are my images of Visby:

A stop on the west coast of Gotland

The original plan was to rent two small motorcycles and tour the island of Gotland.  Things don’t always go as planned.  We ended up two on one large bike, and we saw about half the island.

The west coast of Gotland

We headed north out of Visby on 149.  The bike was bigger than I am used to, and I am also not used to having a passenger, but with time I felt ok.  I like the feel of driving a bike and being in the elements, but the drawback is that it takes a lot of dinking around to stop and take photos, so you end up taking less.  Touring on bikes means you get a great experience, and less photos.

The area between Visby and Farosund to the north is interspersed with farms and very small settlements.  We stopped at one beach type area on the west coast that was all closed up, something we would see a lot.  We spoke later with a shop keeper in Visby and were told that the restaurants in Visby shut down in Oct and don’t open again until May.  This was definitely at the end of the tourist season.  Another shop keeper told me it was a great time to be in Gotland as most of the tourists had left.

The picture stone at the Bunge open air museum

Bunge Museet picture stone detail

We stopped at Bunge Museet, the open air museum in Bunge (www.bungemuseet.se), a good museum with examples of farms and homes from different centuries.  They also had some picture stones.

A building at the Bunge Museet, Gotland

The interior of the 18th century fisherman’s cottage at the Bunge open air museum

After heading as far north as possible, without going to the island of Faro, we turned south along the east coast of the island.  Stopping briefly for lunch, we traveled as far south as Ljugarn, before turning westbound back to Visby.  We drove through some very scenic farming areas with horses, cows and sheep, but could not stop for photos.

Me on the big bike in Ljugarn

At the end of the road in Ljugarn with the Baltic Sea in the background

Back in Visby, we had dinner at a small and very local place called Bakfickan, recommended for its fish soup.  So once again, fish soup for dinner.  It was good.  An after dinner stroll and then back to Hotell Gute.  I mistakenly thought we could see the entire circumference of the island in one day.  It would take at least two, maybe three.  This wasn’t the first time that I overestimated the ground/miles that could be covered in one day.

The fish soup

Visby’s stortorget at night. The pin pricks of light on the ground are tiny lights imbedded in the cobble stones. They looked like stars on the ground.

The following images are postcards of what we saw during our motorcycle tour but were unable to photograph:

In keeping with our Islands of Sweden theme, my brother and I left Stockholm for Gotland.  It was a short bus ride to the ferry dock in Nynashamn, and just under three hours by ferry to Gotland.  As with everywhere else, dogs were allowed on the ferry.

Fountain in the inner city of Visby

My first impression of Gotland was a lot like the rest of Sweden; clean and orderly.  But the little town of Visby, the innerstad a World Heritage site, is one of the most picturesque towns I’ve visited.  The houses along the tiny stone paved streets are all well kept and nicely painted, most with roses or holly hocks out front.

Front door to a home in Visby

Our room at the Hotell Gute was quite nice and in a very good location.   We checked in, put our feet up for about an hour, then walked to the Gotland Museum, only a few blocks from the hotel.  Visby is known for its ruins and roses, and we certainly saw that.  For a small city, it has a wonderful botanical garden and a stellar museum.  The Gotland Museum guide includes the following statement “Visby was added to the World Heritage list in 1995.  It includes the intramural city with adjoining green open spaces.”

These stone sheep are at each entrance to the city and around the town

The ground floor of the Gotland Museum is filled with picture stones, all found on Gotland

With only two hours in the Gotland Museum, our first stop, we made the most of it.  The three floors housed some fantastic picture stones, a history of Gotland including remains from the Battle of Gotland, Viking buried treasures, and a farmhouse interior from the 18th century, plus many other interesting exhibits.

On the stone above, the largest in the museum, you can clearly see the horse and rider in battle in the top most picture.  This stone was accompanied by the following description:

This stone is a good example of the picture stones from the late Iron Age, the Viking Age, with its many images and different scenes.  The picture stone might be a memorial to a man, who has died a hero’s death in battle on the battlefield.  Borne by the ship of death, he is on his way to Valhalla, the dwelling of Odin the god.  There, a woman welcomes him, handing him a horn of mead.  Perhaps she is a Valkyrie, a female figure connected with Odin.  The scene below the ship might be an illustration to one of the Icelandic sagas in which a man, Gunnar, is thrown into a snake pit and left to die.

A picture stone in the Gotland Museum

A skull from the battle of Gotland.

After the museum and before dinner, an evening stroll through the inner city revealed lovely homes and many friendly cats.  The botanical garden is quite large for a small city, and beautiful.

One of the many cats we saw in Visby

The main square in the old town, Stora Torget, is next to the ruins of St. Katarina and ringed with restaurants.  St. Catherine Church was a Franciscan monastery, founded in 1233.  It was completed in 1250, and survived until the 16th century.

The interior of St. Catherine’s Church ruin in the main square in Visby.

The ruins of St. Katarina, next to Stora Torget

Dinner at G:a Masters in Visby

Stockholm harbour

Nordiska Museum as seen from the ferry on our way into Stockholm harbour

Only two hours by ferry, Stockholm city seems world’s away from the outer archipelago.  We almost had culture shock coming in from the quiet of the islands.  Between our arrival by ferry into Stockholm at 5 Pm and collapsing that evening, we covered a lot of ground.  We walked from the ferry dock to our hotel, witnessing the Stockholm rush hour on bicycle.

Bicycle rush hour in Stockholm

Kungstradgarden

The Nordic Sea Hotel where we are staying, had a nice room, good size for Europe, and a private bath.  Yay.  This hotel has the Ice Bar, which we hit prior to turning in.  After dropping our things in the room, we walked to Gamla Stan, about 20 minutes, for more sightseeing and window shopping.

The restaurant I had hoped to try luckily had a table.  This particular restaurant, Den Glydene Freden has won many awards.  It lived up to its reputation and more, with my brother ranking one of the best meals of his life.   The brown bread they served tasted exactly like the home made bread my grandmother used to make and it started us reminiscing.  I had a very good crab salad to start, and then another fish dish I couldn’t pronounce for dinner.  My brother continues to compare Swedish meatballs at nearly every restaurant.  These got high marks.   Such a lovely place to sit and relax, we splurged on dessert.

Den Gyldene Freden in Gam la Stan

Den Gyldene Freden interior

Crab salad at Den Gyldene Freden

We made a leisurely stroll of our walk back to the hotel, (not on Gamla Stan) and popped into the Ice Bar.

Gamla Stan’s most narrow street, Marten Trotzigs Grand

The Parliament House at night.

The Ice Bar was a fun thing to do, but we only lasted 15 minutes in the -7 C temp of the room.  They rework the ice bar itself once per month, and the entire room once per year.  The bar tenders take shifts of 3 hours, which is longer than I expected.  The drink was good, served in a glass made of ice, which you “recycle” by dropping through a hole in the ice as you leave.

The Ice Bar in the Nordic Sea Hotel

Me in the Ice Bar

Website for our dinner spot:  http://gyldenefreden.se/eng/start.html

We took several hours and walked all around the island of Sandhamn using the small gravel streets, a path through the woods and the shoreline.  These photos are from the walk.

Sandhamn Hotel

Sandhman docks.

Waterfront houses along the approach to Sandhamn’s harbor.

The trail through the woods.

Colorful rocks

The Sandhman hotel’s bar.

In front of the only clothing shop in town.

Sandhamn from the ferry as we departed.

Sandhamn harbour

If I thought Vaxholm was all about boats, I hadn’t seen anything yet.  The two words I would use to describe Sandhamn are “serious boating.”  The Vaxholm area struck me as a more family fun boating area compared to the serious boaters here.   Bigger boats, and further out.   Lots of room for sailing, due east are the Baltic Sea, Estonia and Finland.

We took the 1 1/2 hour ferry ride from Vaxholm to Sandhman.   It was a crowded ferry on a Sunday morning, with the usual dog or two.  Another sunny sky with not a cloud to dilute the blue.

One of the beaches in Sandhman

There do not seem to be any cars on Sandhamn, only bicycles and ATVs.  The ‘streets’ are gravel lanes between the houses.  We walked a short distance to a beach, looking at the houses and enjoying the view, including an unending line of boats going in and out of the harbor.

Sandhman street

A cute little house in Sandhamn

Per Jan and Dawne’s suggestion, lunch was enjoyed at the Sandhamn Vardhus.  It’s a very popular spot and I had the fish soup.  Very good, but still not as good as my mother’s salmon soup.

Sandhamn Vardhus, a popular eating spot with very good fish soup

The fish soup

Prior to dinner at the Sandhamn Hotel and Yacht Club, where we are staying, we walked the 25 minutes or so to the other beach.  The water was clear and cool, and we saw another of the large cruise ships come by heading east, presumably having departed Stockholm.

Dinner was good.  The hotel, rooms and restaurant, is lovely in a very nautical way.  Tommy Hilfiger would think he’d died and gone to heaven.  The house wine, at 95 SEK per glass, was the best I have had since I got to Sweden.

The bar in the Sandhamn hotel, overlooking the docks

Nice? It’s the ONLY thing,’ said the Water Rat solemnly, as he leant forward for his stroke.  `Believe me, my young friend, there is NOTHING–absolute nothing–half  so much worth doing as simply messing about in boats. Simply messing,’  he went on dreamily: `messing–about–in–boats; messing—-‘     From WInd in the Willows

The little boat we rented in Vaxholm harbor.

I have never been and don’t claim to be a boater.  However, it does seem to be the thing to do on a sunny weekend in the Swedish archipelago.  I don’t go boating often, but I do know how to read a chart and am pretty good with directions.  So with my brother’s limited boating experience, we decided to rent a boat for four hours out of Vaxholm harbor and have a cruise around.

The cruise ship bearing down on us, coming out of Stockholms harbor.

The waterways were full of both power and sailboats, and large cruise ships as well.  We putted around a bit sightseeing, and then found ourselves in the main channel into Stockholm harbor.  We saw a large cruise ship coming towards us, and idled over to the side to watch it pass (passengers waving from their balconies).

We saw many beautiful houses with docks, people gathering for parties, jumping into the water to swim.  We also saw a lot of swans.

A house in the archipelago with swans passing. We saw many swans around the islands.

The man who rented us the boat pointed on the map to a small island where he said he had heard there was a restaurant but hadn’t been there himself.  We went to check it out, and did indeed find a restaurant.  The dock was small and packed with boats, pretty dicey for parking, but we got it done.  The tie down job would have made any sailor cringe, but it did the trick.

The restaurant on the small island.

The restaurant was a casual, outdoor spot on a hill with great views and picnic tables.  The meal turned out to be one of the best fish dishes I have ever had.  My brother had a cheeseburger.  Lunch was as much as the boat rental, but was worth it.

Another cruise ship, going into Stockholm, from the picnic table.

Our 605 SEK lunch. It was very good.

We made it back to Vaxholm without any trouble.  It was a nice way to spend the afternoon and do some sightseeing.

Boat traffic, with Vaxholm in the background.

The east façade of The Royal Palace on Gamla Stan

We had time for an early morning walk through Gamla Stan before boarding the ferry to Vaxholm at noon.  The tour groups were already on the streets by 8 am.

A palace guard.

The sign to the Livrustkammaren, the Royal Armoury museum and oldest museum in Sweden. Gustav II’s stuffed stallion from 1632 is in the museum

We did some window shopping, which is all you can afford here.  The beautiful sweaters were around SEK 1800 – 1900.  The small Dala Hests were SEK 500.

SEK 1900 sweaters

Dala hests in the window

A street in Gamla Stan

We went back to Stortorget square in the early morning light.   The fountain is off a well dated from 1778.

We checked out of The Rica hotel in Gamla Stan and boarded a ferry to Vaxholm.  It was beautiful pulling out of the harbour and cruising through the islands.

The Rica lobby in Gamla Stan

Leaving Stockholm on the ferry to Vaxholm

Gamla Stan from the water

The ferry ride from Stockholm to Vaxholm lasted about one hour.  We had to take another small ferry to the b&b in the Kastellet.

The Kastellet, a small island fort near Vaxholm. This is the b&b where we spent two nights.

We walked the small town of Vaxholm and had lunch.  Lunch was reasonable, SEK 230 for two.  The last ferry to the b&b was at 5 pm.  A co-op and a farmers’ market provided snacks for dinner on the island, since there is no restaurant at the Kastellet.

Lunch spot in Vaxholm

Farmers’ market in Vaxholm

Relaxing in the sun and waiting for the ferry to the b&b.

Vaxholm, taken from the top of the tower on the Kastellet