Good Bye Norway, hello Sweden! Stockholm (Part 1)

We gave an emotional good bye to Norway on August 2, 2016. This country gave us endless emotions. Its beauty and serenity allowed me to initiate a major brain cleansing process after many relatively stressful years. It started a period of reflection on how our future could look like, as we have now reached the privileged status of "Permanent non-workers".

We flew from Tromso to Stockholm. I have to admit that I had no idea how Stockholm would look like. May be something like Oslo...a pleasant city but nothing earth shattering. Well, in fact, it is a really beautiful city in an exceptional setting on an archipelago of small islands. We spent hours discovering the streets of Gamla Stan (the old city), visiting museums, the Royal Palace, the town hall, walking along the water, through the multiple parks, taking the ferry to other part of Stockholm....In five days we had not yet seen it all and decided to come back after our visit to Uppsala, where we currently are.

In Stockholm, we had hoped to stay in the guest apartment of the Royal Palace (by invitation only, not yet advertised on Airbnb :)). Well, this did not work out, so we ended up renting a student studio, a 15 minute bus ride from the Royal Palace.

What we had hoped to get....a room in a pleasant building

and  a safe area

 THE royal guest apartment

What we settled on instead was......a student studio (kindly advertized on Airbnb) near the Karolinska Institute.

Note that I am keeping our host interior private by not showing it on the blog. It had lots of green plants and was nicely decorated. We really liked it :))

Back to our visit of Stockholm.
Let's start with the well preserved medieval quarter, Gamla Stan (the old town), which dates from the 13th century and elegantly presents a mix of medieval, renaissance and baroque styles with several landmarks from the 17th century.

This sculpture titled "Boy looking at the moon" is the smallest statue (15 cm high) in Stokholm. It is from the swedish artist Liss Eriksson. The little boy gets gifts everyday in the form of food or coins. Caressing his head is supposed to bring luck. Liss Eriksson had insomnia as a child and spent a lot of time at night staring at the sky. This is what inspired him to create this sculpture.

                                          The Nobel museum

Isn't it beautiful? If you look carefully, it is a double rainbow.

Now other areas of Stockholm......

The Vasa museum: the Vasa ship is a magnificently decorated warship built between 1626 and 1628 reflecting the king's ambition for Sweden. It was equipped with 62 bronze canons. It was going to be the most powerful armed vessel in the world. Vasa was put in the water in 1628, sailed for a few hundred meters and sank in the Stockholm harbor due to instability! After 333 years, in 1961, the ship was pooled out of the water in excellent condition. Conservation was carried out by impregnation of polyethylene glycol sprayed on the boat for several years. Too bad it could not carry out its mission but if it had, we would not have been able to ever see this piece of art!

A smaller copy of the boat with sails and canons

Other old boats displayed in a different museum

This one is my favorite!

The Rosendals gardens and palace in Djurgarden

And more of  Stockholm...the weather is changing

And now what we really like to find in Northern Europe :))

the CHEEEE-SE!

Good food in Sweden and well presented.

Our stay in Sweden would not have been complete without degustation of the famous swedish meatballs! Even better than our ONLY reference: the IKEA meatballs!!

Enjoying a boat ride

"The sky is the limit - Fear not"