Stockholm: Day One

The previous day had been pretty stressful and exhausting, so we had a bit of a lie-in on our first morning in Sweden before going to the local train station and getting ourselves some 72-hour travel cards. Then we travelled to the central station, a huge place which is basically like a shopping mall.

Claudio wanted to buy an international phone chip from a shop there, but unfortunately for some reason none of the chips would work on his phone, so we ended up having to give up and ask for our money back. It felt like a bit of a disappointing start to the trip, but we cheered up once we'd had some delicious coffee and cakes at the Espresso House café (they do the best vegan brownies), where we were entertained by a chihuahua in a handbag at the next table!

Then it was time for us to finally see some of Stockholm!

The city is made up of various islands on the Baltic Sea and is connected by many different bridges. For this reason, it's sometimes described as "the Venice of the north". 

The most famous part of the city is Gamla stan, the historic centre, which is mostly located on the island of Stadsholmen.

As we walked away from the central station, Gamla stan suddenly came into view on the other side of the water. It was amazing to see!

On our side of the water, we found Stockholm City Hall, a very impressive building with a beautiful courtyard. There was actually a wedding taking place while we were there. It's definitely a photogenic place to get married!

Then we crossed over the bridge in order to explore Gamla stan. The first place we saw there was Riddarhuset, or House of Nobility, a grand house from the 17th century. It's a very beautiful and elaborate building.

On the Riddarholmen island, we saw the Riddarholmen church, which is one of the most famous churches in the city, as it is where the monarchs are buried.

The area surrounding the church was very attractive, with lots of very typically European-looking buildings.

The next famous landmark we saw was the Royal Palace, but to be honest, we weren't that impressed by it! There were many other places around the city that were a lot more eye-catching.

Located near the palace is Stockholm Cathedral. It's not a huge building but it's pretty to look at.

Shortly afterwards we ended up accidentally leaving Gamla stan! But it didn't matter, because there were plenty of other great attractions to see in the nearby area, such as Saint James's Church. I really liked how brightly coloured it was.

We also passed through a nice little park, Kungsträdgården (King's Garden). 

A short while later we found ourselves in front of the Royal Dramatic Theatre, a very beautiful and ornate building. The surrounding area was also very scenic.

Sometime around this point, we entered a shopping centre in order to find a bathroom, and it turned out to be some kind of infinite labyrinth that we felt like we were going round forever! But eventually we found both a bathroom and then a nice sushi place to have something to eat, and afterwards we made our way back to Gamla stan.

By this time, it was already getting dark, even though it wasn't that late. But if anything, it was actually even nicer to explore the Medieval cobbled streets at dusk.

Neither of us had working GPS, but we managed to find our way through the narrow maze of streets to see a couple of the city's most famous squares. First of all we visited Kornhamnstorg (Grain Harbour Square). Although it was smaller than I expected, the buildings were very nice.

And then we visited the oldest square, and perhaps the most iconic place in the whole of Stockholm, Stortorget (the Grand Square). Here you can find the Nobel Museum, as well as the colourful row of buildings that are seen on most postcards from the city. It was a really beautiful place to see, with a very European, fairytale-esque vibe, which made me feel Christmassy, even though it was October!

Eventually it got too dark to carry on sightseeing, so we headed back to the central station. But on our way, we passed this little island with a grand building on it, and I just had to take a picture! An internet search tells me that  it's the headquarters of an organisation called International IDEA. Interesting!

In summary, our first day exploring Stockholm was brilliant, and we both loved Gamla stan. The evening before, I think we'd both felt like travelling to Sweden hadn't been the best idea, but after our first full day there, we felt like the previous day's stresses had all been worth it now that we were able to experience such a beautiful city.

The following day was also very memorable, as we got to discover more of Sweden's nature, culture and history, when we visited Skansen open air museum and the Viking museum! It was a pretty exciting day and I can't wait to write about it!

Read about Stockholm: Day Two here and Stockholm: Day Three here!

London: Day Four + Arriving in Sweden

Claudio and I had just one morning left in London before we had to catch our flight to Stockholm, so we wanted to make the most of it.

As we still hadn't managed to ride one of the red buses (I find the tube a lot easier to understand), we decided to just catch one at random and see where it took us. There weren't many people on board, which meant that we could sit in the best seats: right at the front on the top deck! The short journey took us through the West End up to Green Park, and we had great views.

When we got off the bus we discovered a Porsche showroom just across the road. Now, Claudio is a massive car fan, so he was really excited to see it and wondered if there were any more nearby. We searched for Ferrari on Google Maps and discovered that they also had a showroom just round the corner in Berkeley Square. 

We got there and found out that there were also showrooms for Bentley and Bugatti in the same area! Claudio was so happy!

Afterwards, we walked back towards the hotel enjoying the sights of all the designer shops along the way.

Once we arrived in Piccadilly Circus, I took a couple of photos as a reminder of our stay in the area. It had been a great final morning in London.

We arrived back at the hotel entrance in order to check out, and that was when everything started to go wrong...

I reached into my pocket for the little wallet where I was keeping my hotel keycard and the Oyster card I'd borrowed from my dad, only to find that it was gone. It wasn't in my other pocket or in my bag either.

We retraced the entire route that we'd followed that morning, including the part that we'd travelled on the bus, but we weren't able to find it. I realised it had probably fallen out when we were on the bus, so I sent off a lost property form. (In the end, it never showed up, but it turned out there was no money left on the card anyway, so the situation wasn't as bad as I'd thought.)

After I'd bought a new card and Claudio had topped up his, we were finally on our way to Heathrow Airport on the metro. However, the journey took a lot longer than we'd expected, and we arrived there with less than an hour and a half before our flight.

Then when we went through security, we hit another problem. Normally when I travel by plane, I put a suitcase in the hold and take a bag on board with me, but in order to save money this time, we'd chosen to take hand luggage only. For some reason, I'd forgotten this while I was packing, and had put a bunch of liquids in my suitcase and just a neat little transparent bag of liquids in my rucksack, and Claudio had done the same. I didn't realise the mistake until we'd actually reached the front of the queue at security. Obviously the liquids were picked up by the scanning machines, and we had to have our suitcases unpacked in front of everyone and have some of our items thrown away.

After all that, we were running very late and I seriously thought we were going to miss the plane. We hurried through the airport to our gate, expecting it to be closed, but thankfully it was still open. The flight turned out to be quite badly delayed, meaning that we hadn't missed it after all.

Once we had arrived in Stockholm and got off the plane (which was absolutely packed full - so much for British Airway's "social distancing measures"), our problems didn't end there. We had to figure out how to get to our hotel, and it was actually quite difficult. We ended up relying on the advice of Google Maps and taking the Arlanda Express train from the airport to the city centre, which was lethally expensive. Then we needed to take a commuter train to the neighbourhood where we were staying, but it was hard to figure out which train to take, and we accidentally took one going in the wrong direction!

At around 8pm, we finally arrived, exhausted, at our hotel in the Årsta neighbourhood of the city. It was fairly basic and the area wasn't the most attractive, but at least it was cheap and the room was nice and warm. 

It had been one of those disastrous travel days that happen to all travellers occasionally. However, the important thing is that we made it to our destination in the end! And thankfully the rest of our trip went smoothly, and we had an great few days in Stockholm. I'll be blogging about all the amazing places we visited around the city very soon!

Read about London: Day One here, London: Day Two here and London: Day Three here!