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Last few days in Stockholm

21 October 2014 by evo

The last couple of days in Stockholm consisted of us walking all over the place, drinking coffee, staying up late at fun bars and going to the town hall.

The prettiest cafe didn’t have a name, only an address. It’s the dark photo with the eucalypt on the table. The fish eyed photo is a buffet breakfast…all you can eat? Challenge accepted.

Anna and Hallam walking back from seeing Stephen Merchant is the grainy photo and the other two are from Stockholm city hall.

The hall is where the Nobel prize ceremony and dinner take place every year for all but the peace prize (peace prize ceremony is held in Oslo). The Stockholm hall is an odd building, eclectic in design and so full of surprises.

The room photographed is a meeting room for the local council. The ceiling was originally supposed to be plain and flat, but once the architect saw the exposed beams he decided to leave them exposed and paint it instead. I like the perfect Tetris on the walls.

Breakfast fisheye (all you can eat buffet)

Voxholm

19 October 2014 by evo

Voxholm — pretty and eerie in the cold, haunting part of autumn

Stocksund day trip

19 October 2014 by evo

Yesterday we spent most of the day doing the big loop you can seem on the map above. We headed north from Stockholm by train to Stocksund, then about 40 minutes by bus north-east to Vaxholm, the largest island in the Stockholm archipelago.

The day was blustery and cold, with enough sun to get our hopes up. Warm did not eventuate, and to compensate we sheltered in doors for sustenance.

Our sustenance of choice in this case was American diner style burgers and onion rings. Oddly tempting on a day like it was.

The visitor centre was closed by the time we arrived, but we managed to sneak in to get a map. Expecting some kind of bush walking or the like, we found the island was well covered by the town and the tourist map made odd choices for places of interest, for example the former military parade ground (read: a grassy field). So we attempted to bush walk anyway, mostly by walking just behind people’s houses or just off the road among the trees.

As we walked and lost our way the whole place grew increasingly eerie — washed out, grey and windswept. The only colour were the yellowing leaves, but something about them falling silently in an empty world of holiday houses and silent school playgrounds was haunting. It set a mood like The Name of The Rise before the snowfall crossed with Les Rivières Pourpres. And the mood swelled.

We criss-crossed the island and came back to where we started. While walking around to the ferry we came to the main tourist attraction: Vaxholm Fortress.

The fortress casts a strange figure from its own island, barely 100m from the shore of Voxholm. The shadowy reflection of its tall stone walls made it halfway across the water to us.

I had to run to catch the ferry back to Stockholm. And on the hour long ride home thought that though pretty, Vaxholm was also kind of creepy.

Stockholm

18 October 2014 by evo

We arrived in Stockholm from Bergen around lunchtime on Thursday. After meeting our friend and dropping out bags at his place we set out to find some food.

At restaurant Pelikan we had Swedish meatballs, mash and beer. Traditional and satisfying. After stalking through dark alleys and unlit paths exposed on both sides to train (see slow mo video) and truck we found the path we intended to take and arrived at Fotografiska, a contemporary photography gallery. The photos were a combination of the Humans of New York photographer Brandon Stanton and Robert Mapplethrope — honest, gritty and dark.

We briefly walked through Gamla Stan (the old district) on our way home.

We slept in a little the next day and set off for the ferry at about 11. We left the ferry at Djurgården and began a walk through autumnal trees and parklands. Absolutely beautiful. We followed the river all the way to the eastern end of the island. On the way back we stopped for lunch at the Kaknästornet — the radio/tv communications tower.

After resting a while we made our way to the Vasa Museum, which houses the re-floated Vasa. It sank after a sailing time in the hours due to a fatally flawed design, simply rolling over in the wind. It was sunken for 333 years then found and raised in the 1950s. The history, restoration and stories are all quite amazing.

Finished the night with tasty vegan food and mead at a Viking bar.