Trip to Stockholm

It’s been two weeks now since my family and my girlfriend were here and we have visited Stockholm. So it’s time to share some impressions. First of all: Stockholm is one of the most beautiful cities I’ve seen in my life and it’s definitely worth it to visit it. But it’s also – like Sweden – one of the most expensive cities. For our accommodation we have chosen Bed & Breakfast, e.g. we stayed at a private apartment during the landlord was on holidays as well. And I would very recommend it. The location was perfect. It was a very nice and clean apartment with everything in it you need. And if you are not only hardly focused on sightseeing but want to get know how people live here, this is really a great opportunity. And by the way it is much less expensive than a hotel! But let’s focus a little bit on sightseeing! :)

Stockholm has a wonderful old town (“Gamla Stan”) and has the highest density of museums in the world! One of them, the Vasa museum, is the most visited museum in Europe. So if you are here you should go there – very impressive. The Vasa is an old warship that sank on her maiden voyage in 1628 only after 15 minutes. The funny thing: they had known that the Vasa had some “balance problems”. But nobody dared to tell the king! 300 years later the ship was rescued from the ground and was completely restored. They said 95% of the ship, which is standing in the big museum now, is original! The Vasa even hadn’t made it to reach the sea (saltwater). And as fresh water is not that aggressive to the wood, it was in a very good condition. We listened to some English, Swedish, German and Russian guides there. Everybody was telling something different. Very amusing! So the Russian guide believed the ship was build in 3 years, the Swedish guide told us it were 2 years. The German guide told us it would be so dark in the museum because it’s necessary to create a safety atmosphere for the ship. And I was wondering since when wood is sensitive to some artificial light! Then the Swedish guide told me, it’s so dark in it just because the designers have decided to create a dramatic light ambiance there! Well, very amusing! Don’t ever trust guides!

Then we have made some boat trips, walked around it the old city and enjoyed the time in the “Venice of the North”. To make a long story short, it was a very nice trip. And it was real family vacation. Somehow the trip brought our family closer together again as we all don’t see each other so often anymore.