After another long day of hitch-hiking, I was in Stockholm, already one day ahead of schedule. Because of my early arrival, I caught my friends a little off guard. I was very lucky though and was able to spend my first two days in Stockholm at Torbjörn's place. Torbjörn lives in Djursholm, a part of Stockholm which is Sweden's answer to Hollywood. Djursholm has a lot of large old (and new) mansions which are holm to some of Sweden's elite - including members of ABBA, Roxette, and many famous Swedish tennis players and skiers. Torbjörn's mother gave me a tour of Djursholm; she was very nice, she made some excellent dinners and made sure I had a nice room during my stay. Wed April 19th was my first full day in Stockholm. I had terrific weather the whole time I was in Stockholm. Stockholm is quite far north (the furthest north I have ever been), just below the 60th parallel, and since it was April I was expecting some cool (or even cold) weather. Instead the days were hot and sunny. I found myself carrying my winter ski jacket instead of wearing it. On this day I saw KTH (the "King's Technical Highschool" - a university) where a lot of my Swedish friends in Karlsruhe study. The campus was really nice. After KTH I went further downtown. On the advice of my father I saw the Vasa museum. The Vasa was (at the time of its launch) the largest ship in the Swedish military, the pride and joy of the King himself. It was completed in 1628 under the direction of a Dutch ship builder. At the time the most successful ship building nations were Holland and England. The ship was massive and had two gun decks, each with about 24 canons. Other ships of the time had one gun deck. As a result the ship was extremely heavy and required an enormous ballast. On her maiden voyage, about 20 minutes after her launch, the Vasa keeled over and sank, still in the Stockholm harbour. There simply wasn't enough ballast. It was a huge embarrassment to say the least for the King and the ship builders. For over 300 years the Vasa sat in the mud, and was actually preserved as the waters of the Stockholm harbour do not contain the small creatures which rot wood. In 1960 an independant hobbyist found the Vasa with a homemade device, and in 1961, 333 years after her fateful first trip, the Vasa was raised. Today it sits in the Vasa museum in Stockholm. Later that evening Torbjörn showed me a few of Stockholm's bars. They had a good atmosphere, well-dressed customers, and Swedish beer at a very Swedish price: 49 SEK, which is about $9 Cdn. The next day I spent more time downtown. I saw the palace of the Swedish royal family, which is actually quite plain when compared to Europe's other royal residences. The palace is still used for a variety of functions today. Here is a guard outside one of the palace entrances. Completely by chance I managed to go by the palace at noon, which meant I had the chance to see the royal chaning of the guard. In January I had seen the changing of the guard in Copenhagen. The daily changing of the guard in Stockholm is quite small, except on Saturdays, when there is a huge performance for the many tourists. Torbjörn told me I would have to go again in two days to see the Saturday version. The palace is on the island of Gamla Stan, which is Swedish for "Old Town". Gamla Stan is smaller than many of the other islands and has many narrow streets and old houses. There is also a German section of Gamla Stan, which includes this German church. I also took a boat tour of Stockholm on this day. Stockholm is made up of 14 different islands, so a boat tour made it easy to see a lot of the city. Although there wasn't a student rate, I managed to convince the cute girl selling the tickets to sell me one for half price. I was quite happy about that! On the tour we went by a large bird sanctuary, the Kaknäs TV tower (below), and the fancy houses of many diplomats and ambassadors in Stockholm. We also passed a large elaborate residence which was often mistaken for the royal palace (and consequently fired at) by invading ships hundreds of years ago. After the tour I wanted to see the tower up close, so I went up the Kaknäs TV tower for a great view of the city. The area around Stockholm looks like a scene from Northern Ontario. Until this summer the tower was the highest building in Sweden at 155 m (the CN Tower is 553 m). The recently opened bridge connecting Copenhagen to Malmö is now the highest building in Sweden however. I also went by the bird sanctuary and saw numerous nests of herons and other large birds. At the end of the day Torbjörn took me to Tumba, a suburb of Stockholm where I met up with Martin. I spent the next two days at Martin's place. On Friday April 21st Martin and I took a bus and then a ferry to a small island on the edge of the Stockholm Archipelago. The Archipelago consists of many small islands and extends far out into the sea. We went to the island Sandön and saw the town of Sandham. This shot was taken in Sandham's small port. We were lucky to have really good weather without so many tourists (there are of course less of them in April). We checked out the town and then walked around almost the entire perimeter of the island. I would say that this is a typical small Swedish coastal town scene. Here I am at the Western end of the island. Again, the island the and archipelago made me think a lot of Georgian Bay. Some of the rocks on the island were covered with some sort of algae or lichen which made them a bright white. There was a guy fly fishing amongst the white rocks. We saw a snake on the island, the only one I have ever seen in Europe. Martin said it was rare for Sweden too. On my last day in Stockholm (a Saturday) I went into the city with Martin to see the big changing of the guard. It was quite a show. Afterwards we went up the 100+ m tower of the Stadhus (City Hall) for another fabulous view. This is what Gamla Stan looks like from above. Later we went back to Martin's place. After lunch, Martin drove me out to the highway and I began another marathon day of hitch-hiking. My new destination: Göteborg. I was lucky. My first ride took me to Södertalje, which was only about 15 km further. He left me at a gas station which was great, there I found a Norwegian guy from Oslo on his way to Göteborg! He took me the whole 450+ km to Göteborg, on the West coast of Sweden. If he was actually going to Oslo I think I would have changed my plans, but I was very happy to get to my destination so quickly anyway. Back to the Main Page - Zurück zur Hauptseite