written by ed; photos by jayne
After driving for 12 days, we finally arrive in Stockholm, Sweden’s capital city. With a population of 1.4 million, entering the city limits on a weekend was a bit of a shock to the nervous system.
None of the cities we had visited over the previous ten days had the density of people we encountered as we navigated our way to our hotel and car rental return. 
SO many people walking, cycling, and electric scooters with virtually none of them masked. From the outset of the Covid outbreak, Sweden’s strategy of dealing with it has been well-documented and scrutinized, and for the most part not too favorably, at least to those outside the country. As of this writing though, 80% of Swedes have received at least one dose of vaccine and about 50% have been fully vaccinated. There has been a recent outbreak and those who have contracted the virus are young adults (attributed to clubs and bars being reopened) and others who have not been vaccinated.
Getting back to the difficulty in returning the car though, the most central part of Stockholm is undergoing construction everywhere you look, and even with a GPS it was crazy difficult to find the car rental return.
After finally returning the car, I hugged Jayne as the anxiety and tension I felt from driving over the previous 30 minutes was over! Ninety-five percent of the time, driving was easy and relaxing, but the other 5% was intense, navigating cars, bicycles, and electric scooters in an unfamiliar country. We’re happy to have rented the car and happy to have returned it – absolutely no need for a car in a city the size of Stockholm.
On our first morning, we walked an hour to Djurgården, an incredible island/park in central Stockholm. We were happy to have taken the walk as it was a beautiful day, and it helped in orienting us to the city. The park itself is filled with gardens, museums, cafés, harbor views, and on and on.
Our first stop was the Vasa Museum, dedicated to an ornately built ship (Vasa) commissioned in 1626 by the King of Sweden to demonstrate Sweden’s national prowess. Unfortunately, for the King, but fortunately for us today, the ship capsized in 1628 on its maiden voyage after traveling just 1000 meters. Thirty sailors of the 450 people on board drowned, and the ship sat at the bottom of the Baltic Sea with several attempts over the years to recover it. Finally, in 1955, more than 330 years after it sunk, the ship was lifted out of the sea and over the years 98% of the ship has been salvaged. The museum is dedicated to the ship and the meticulous manner in which it was retrieved and restored. A truly remarkable story and accomplishment. As I mentioned earlier, in some ways it was fortunate that this tragedy occurred. Had it not, we probably would never know as much as we do about this sea-faring marvel. If you ever get to Stockholm, this is a must-see.
Rosendals Tradgard, an organically certified greenhouse café, was our next stop in the park. The line was long but well worth the wait. Beautiful farm-to-table food in a beautiful setting.
Of course, no visit to a Swedish city seems complete unless you’ve visited the Gamla Stan – the old town. You may remember from previous blogs, mention of Gamla Stans we visited, well, Stockholm’s old town was in a league of its own, simply because of its sheer size. No other city we visited had as many streets with cafés and other shops or as many homes that exemplified the architecture and feel of 18th century Sweden.
After walking over 9 miles (we’ve been averaging around 6.5 miles per day), we were pretty exhausted and made our way back to our hotel, not before stopping for that obligatory pizza and salad. An early evening with some Netflix (we’ve not watched any TV at all since we arrived in Denmark, almost a month ago. Of course, we wouldn’t understand most of what’s playing on TV, so the decision not to even turn on the tube (actually, TVs these days don’t have any tubes, do they?) is pretty easy.
Decided that since it looked like it would be another beautiful day, after breakfast we headed to the ferry for a ride to the closest island of Stockholm’s archipelago, Fjäderholmarna (say that 5 times, or even once; pronouncing almost any Danish or Swedish word of more than 3 letters, simply by looking at the letters is nearly impossible, but that’s a subject for another time).
In thirty minutes you arrive at the island that has a number of cafés, some artisan workshops, and a pleasant walk. After experiencing the archipelago outside of Gothenburg, this was ok in comparison, but I guess there’s no need to compare just enjoy, which is what we did.
The following day, on our way to a park named Humlegarden, I decided to stop at a frisor (hair salon, barbershop), of which there are many, and get my hair clipped. The shop named Cut the Crap had an opening right there and then, and before I could say stop, I had the shortest haircut I can remember. I don’t think my request for a trim was lost in translation, as he spoke perfect English, just, let’s say, a misunderstanding. Oh well, I’ve been told the hair will grow back.
And to think this was me, yes this was me, just a few short years ago. Oh my!
As we strolled through the park, there was some filming going on of a Swedish love story, set in the 1930s, called Burn All Your Letters, set to be released in 2022. Several actors, dressed in the garb of the time could be seen walking through the park. It almost made you feel like you had been thrown back in time.
We continued walking along one of Stockholm’s busiest streets, Drottninggatan, and grabbed some delicious food at Indian Street Food café, enough to supply us with leftovers for dinner.
Nightlife is not something we indulge in, especially when we’re pretty exhausted from the day’s walking, so it was back to the hotel and an early evening.
Not every day is full of adventure, as we needed a “handling logistics and domestic duties” day and walked with two bags filled with laundry to the closest laundromat (which are difficult to find) twenty minutes away. On our way, we stopped at a vaccination clinic where we were able to get a PCR test, which we will need to be negative, as we travel to Kenya on Friday. We’re pretty confident we will have a negative result as we took one, two days prior which was negative (we made a rookie “traveling during Covid” mistake, as we didn’t read the fine print of what airlines are requiring versus what countries require, as well as closely looking at arrival versus departure deadlines) Traveling during Covid, does necessitate some additional planning, something we’ll have to get accustomed to.
Given the rainy weather forecast for our last day in Stockholm, we decided in advance that we would go to Fotografiska, the largest photography museum in the world with exhibits that are curated around a common theme. It was unlike any other photography museum we had seen before. It’s a museum that “encourages change through its five core values: innovation, inclusion, inspiration, sustainability, and relevance”. We also enjoyed a great lunch in their café with fantastic views of the city and finally had some Swedish “meatballs”, of the vegetarian variety, with lingonberries and tasty new potatoes. We each had a soft drink: Jayne had the lemon and mint one, while I had the tasty strawberry-rhubarb one.
We enjoyed the leisurely lunch and took in our final views of Stockholm on a rainy afternoon.
Well, after finally receiving our negative PCR results via email, we got a few hour’s sleep and headed off to the airport this morning for our flight to Kenya. Check-in went smoothly, but man, there were so many printed forms and QR codes we needed to show. Fortunately, all of our documents were in order, and I am now sitting at an airport charging station waiting to board our flight to Amsterdam (connecting flight to Nairobi).
Last night, Jayne and I talked about all the things we were grateful for during our stay in Scandinavia (BTW, did you know that Scandinavia is made up of only 3 countries -Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. Finland, along with the Faroe Islands and Iceland, are considered Nordic countries, not Scandinavian. Just thought I’d share that fact). Anyway, below in no particular order are those things we are grateful for:
- Peter and Bowie, our awesome tour guides (and friends) in Denmark
- Swedish National Parks, especially Tivedens
- Lykesil nature reserve and the Gothenburg archipelago
- our rainproof rain jackets
- bike ride on the Gota Canal
- the interesting people we met along the way
- access to a washer and dryer
- our rental Mercedes A-class car
- people commenting on our blog and photos (keep’em coming)
- award-winning blue cheese
- our good health and negative PCR results
- the konditoris and bageris (confectionaries and bakeries that supplied us with delicious pastries and lattes)
- Vasa and Fotografiska museums
There are probably more, but I’ll leave it at that.
Off to Kenya!
We love hearing from people, so feel free to email Jayne at fitnessbeyond@aol.com or me at etrost@gmail.com. We are also both on WhatsApp.
Cheers!
