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August 20, 2004
First Day in Stockholm
Yesterday, following the Silja Line episode, which we all started referring to as the 'Hell Line', we landed in Stockholm and realized that Stockholm was quite a beautiful city, architecturally. We hung out in a cafe until 10AM, when museums and other touristy sites started to open.
We wandered over to the City/Norrmalm/Kungsholmen district, and headed over to the Humlegarden, where the 'a' in Humlegarden has a circle over it. Here, we saw the statue of Carl Linnaeus, famous biologist. In front of the statue is the Swedish Royal Library, which was quite impressive inside. I would have been more awake if I had managed to snag more than 4.5 hours of sleep the previous night on the Silja Line, though.
Thinking that some exercise would wake me up, we headed to the Stadhuset, which is the City Hall. From the top of the Stadhuset tower, which is 320ft. high, we could see the whole city. The climb wasn't nearly as difficult as the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona was. Thanks to a longer path, the result is a less steep ascent. The views from above were spectacular, and really emphasized to me the nature of how Stockholm is built - on a series of islands.
I thought it would be neat to see Sergel's Torg, which centrally contains a 120ft. high glass obelisk sculpture, but was somewhat disappointed in the sight. I guess it wasn't nearly as dramatic as I was expecting. However, it did bring us to the heart of the city, and we found another cafe to get lunch at. After that, it was back to the hotel for a nap, and then dinner at a take-out style sushi place called 'Roppongi', which had decent sushi. On our way to dinner, we walked through a large park, which was holding a youth festival of some kind, as there were Swedish teens competing in mixed floor hockey, racing go-karts, and listening to a heavy metal band. We also walked by Raoul Wallenbergs Torg, which is a somewhat controversial monument, design-wise, according to my guidebook.
Posted by Kathy at August 20, 2004 11:30 PM