The most interesting 24 hours in Stockholm. 🙂 Read on to know more.
I dined in wine with an American traveler, enjoyed fika in an orient café, was a trekker with no proper shoes on, gave a ‘Mama Mia’ stage performance (quite literally), was an Indian guest at a Swedish residence in the country side, all in a day’s ‘work’!! Quite incredible, right? It was and for the most part, unbelievably enjoyable.
It was an unexpected way to end the evening with a complete stranger whom I had met just about an hour earlier. We had an enjoyable chat on various topics while on a city tour. She had quit her job, liquidated some shares to get in some cash just so she could embark on a Scandinavian tour, all by herself. Quite a fantastic way to treat yourself for days of continuous laboring! We accompanied each other for some fine wine and hazelnut and pistachio cookies over talks of carrier and networking in work place, business plans, United States and its people & politics, India and its innumerable cultures and so on. It was a good discussion followed by polite good byes with no strings attached and no promises of catching up on fb or connecting elsewhere. 🙂 Woh ho, are we living in this age of social networking????
The early morning was a bit of an odd turn around. The morning walk further upwards my cottage took the form of a trek when, looking for some beautiful views, I bravely ascended a meandering hill wearing casual shoes. It was only when I started to descend on the other side that I realised it was going to go all the way down to my cottage. I should’ve been happy, right? Now I wouldn’t have had to take the long winding road around the same hill to get back home. Happy or not, I was definitely thrilled because I was literally carving down a non-existent path on that hill leading to my cottage. It sure was a success.
ABBA-the museum, was a delight of the highest kind. 3-4 hours of foot tapping nonstop ABBA music. Right from singing the top chart buster Dancing Queen in a studio setting to a stage performance on Mama Mia along with the other ABBA members amongst other things like an ABBA quiz, getting videotaped while dancing to the beats of their phenomenal music, donning the ABBA costumes, for real. The Hall of Fame had several popular stars on display but the music by Roxette was icing on the cake. I left the premises of the museum with their songs humming in my head for days at length!!!
A quiet dinner with a Swedish family was the highlight of these glorious hours. A fast train ride with my host, filled with the information about Swedish history, architectural stories about the buildings and cityscape that we left behind and talk about life in the suburbs of Stockholm made our 30 min journey pass like a snap of the fingers. My host, a fellow architect working in the Swedish Center for Architecture and Design, Stockholm drove me around through the vast green pastures which were once agricultural lands and now most had been converted to horse rearing farms (mostly for the money) . There were small row housing communities mottled with IKEA designed homes, the traditional gabled and mansard roofed countryside homes along with the more modern looking ones, all juxtaposed to leave the spectator to his own interpretation.
The evening had arrived and I was finally going to reach my destination after taking in the gorgeous countryside. We drove to the first of five or six cottages located at the foot of a small hill. It was a beautiful cottage with marvelous views in the fore and the tall birch wood tree forest in its backyard. We took a stroll in the vicinity eating fresh and juicy apples from the trees and smelling the aromatic herbs in the newly designed nursery. My host has a beautiful family with 2 children (each looking lovely in their chocolate smeared faces) and 2 handsome looking cats. It was a simple dinner of traditional pea soup and bread with some waffles and grilled marshmallows for dessert. There were a few firsts for me on this particular visit and grilled marshmallows topped the list! Others included seeing couple of deer run across the pristine landscape of green, relishing freshly plucked apples and enjoying the setting sun with its ethereal hues sprayed across the sky.
A few tips to the future Stockholm traveler:
Having already visited the likes of Prague and Budapest, this city is only a reminder of all that is good and worth visiting those cities. Stockholm, to my mind is a fine amalgamation of the old and the new, the modern and the antique, fine balance between water and land and while I was there, even (presence of) rain and sun made it to the list.
-A bigger city as compared to Helsinki but all key neighborhoods are walking distance to each other. The key is to chalk out areas smartly and allocate days for each division.
-Östermalm is a bit of an up market area. Might spot celebs/ members of the royal family.
-Must indulge in ‘fika’ (Swedish for coffee break usually accompanied with something sweet). Café options: Café Blå Lotus, Copacabana.
– If you are a vegetarian or a chocolate aficionado, take the steps going up opposite Fotografiska. These end at one of the best buffet places for vegans called Hermes offering a beautiful view of the Stockholm city. For the Choc lover, walk about 150 yards on Renstiernas gata, Chokladfabriken is on your right (traffic light corner)
-ABBA Museum: EXPENSIVE but completely worth spending a good 3 + hours (Not only if you are an ABBA person but also are deeply rooted in music in general). Take the audio guide. Watch ABBA the Movie. Can skip reading introductions because most of it is spoken by the celebrities themselves on the guide. Quite interesting!!
-Like in many other cities, Stockholm, too, has the option of free walking tours. All are worth the time but good luck with your guide. The Stockholm City tour and Old Town tour are recommended.
-Unlike other cities, the a few Stockholm metro stations are an art gallery on display, free for all! Check on trip adviser for a comprehensive detail on this tour by the metro.
Did you know?
*Stockholm is built on garbage and poop of the bygone eras.
*It has crowned itself as the “The Capital of Scandinavia”
*It is the second most visited city in the Nordic region, often called “Venice of the North”, of course minus the gondolas!
*It’s old town has one of the world’s narrowest street. It’s only about 3’ft wide. Look carefully above, the top edges of the buildings in this street are beginning to tilt towards each other.
Snippets from Stockholm- Have fun Spotting them in the city !!!
Have a Wonderful trip to this amazing city of islands!
manika 
beautiful pictures and captivating description–makes one feel to be there very next moment–