Hej hej Stockholm!

I wasn’t sure what to expect when we arrived in Stockholm, mainly because it was half past five in the morning, but the city surpassed my expectations. I read a blog that described Stockholm as one third city, one third green parks and one third water. I think that’s probably accurate! The city itself is comprised of fourteen islands, interconnected with more than fifty bridges, and a passenger ferry network.

After dropping our bags at the hotel on our first morning, we set off into the city to explore and found our way to the old town, or Gamla Stan. The Royal Palace is large but understated and the cobbled streets are lined with tall, warm toned buildings. Because Sweden is a neutral country, it didn’t participate in either world war, the city was never bombed, and is well preserved.

We then took an old style tram to Djurgården, which is an island and Royal land that used to be a hunting ground for King Carl XII. It holds many museums and historical buildings and is favourite spot for runners and cyclists. We were pretty knackered at this point, so we headed back to the hotel and had an early night!

Revived by a massive breakfast the next day, we headed on a free walking tour of the city, which was fantastic. Our tour guide, Nora, is from Kyrgyzstan and moved to Stockholm with her husband a year ago to do a masters in economics! We learnt lots of new things about the Swedish Royal family and about Swedish culture. My favourite part of the culture is ‘fika’. Fika can be used either as a verb or a noun and means to take a break, have a coffee and eat some pastry. In Stockholm, there are lots of places for fika and the coffee is amazing! A typical pastry to have is a kannelbullar, or cinnamon bun. I don’t think I could afford too much fika though, as Sweden is so expensive!

We hadn’t run in a couple of days because of the train travel (excuses, excuses), so we headed out for a run at dusk to Skeppsholmen, passing the Royal Palace and the lights of the waterside hotels and boats.

The next day, we headed to the Vasa museum, which holds the preserved Vasa ship. This is a Swedish warship that was built in 1628 having been commissioned by the Swedish King Gustavo Adolphus. On its maiden voyage, not far out of the harbour, it sank, due to its high and narrow design and lack of ballast. The ship lay at the bottom of the harbour until it was salvaged in 1961. 98% of the ship on display is original and amazingly preserved, due to the sediment and anaerobic conditions at the bottom of the harbour. Then, sadly, it was time to go to the ferry to make our way to Helsinki! Not that we’re sad about going to Finland, but Sweden was beautiful and I can see why they rank so high on the list of the happiest countries in the world. ❤️🇸🇪