Jill's Singapore Adventure: Stockholm, Sweden

July 1-3, 2013

Stockholm

Mom investigating type of tree

In our hotel elevator!

Day 1 - July 1: What a huge city Stockholm is, 2 days was definitely not enough time to see it all, but Mom and I did cover a lot. We arrived by train and once settled in our hotel Clarion Hotel Signs not far from the train station it was early afternoon. We started walking and went to Old Town (Gamle Stan ) A medieval city with narrow streets, tourist shops and other cute boutique shops. Mom and I found Xmas ornaments. The Royal Palace is the most popular place, supposedly on the island; however we only made it to the gift store. For dinner we walked a good half an hour to a restaurant Lykke's parents recommended called Riche - it was good (a little more casual than we were thinking and dressed for) I had the typical Swedish dish of meatballs, mashed potatoes, lingerberries and cucumbers.

July 2: We decided to do the Hop On Hop Off bus to hear about the history on the bus and get to all the places we wanted to see, particularly Djurgarden - this is a large island with many parks, an amusement area (another Tivoli), a zoo called S , the Vasa Museum where a ship the vasa is housed - it set sail in 1628 but only went about 300 feet then capsized but in 1961 (333 years later) it was raised out of the water pretty much intact. We didn't really see it, but we went to the gift shop.
We did go out past the busy parts of the island to the Djurgarden Gardens where there a variety of flowers and plants growing, small plants and seeds that you could buy and a great green house with a cafe in it. Mom and I, of course, went in the gift store and bought a cinnamon roll and a roll with cardamon which they use a lot but I decided I like cinnamon better.
Next we visited the new ABBA museum (opened May 7, 2013)... we actually just visited the ABBA gift store, but we did spend a lot of time in it!!!!

Dancing Queens!

July 3 - We took the Hop On and Off Boat tour on the river - it was nice to see the buildings and sites from the water and it was a lovely day. In the center of town there is a small museum called Hallwylska palatset, http://hallwylskamuseet.se/en , and it was founded by my grandmothers grandmother. She left this house/palace to the government when she died and said that nothing was to be touched, she wanted the after world to see it and she was a great collector of art and other thing, a very modern lady for her time.
This was a highlight of the trip, not only did the house belong to Lykke's great, great, great grandmother, but it was truly amazing how ahead-of-the-times this woman was and we would have never seen it otherwise.