Going to Stockholm, I was terrified. I’d just seen Erika–who was far more excited about Copenhagen than even I was–be crushed by unmet expectations. Now, here, we were going to maybe the one city on earth I most wanted to see, and I was terrified Stockholm would do to me what Copenhagen just did to Erika.

I could walk through our steps of getting into the city, how we spent our time there, slowly building up to the answer to the question implicitly posed by that first paragraph. But why bother: Stockholm is amazing. We both fell almost instantly in love, and right away we started talking about living there. Though the winters would be rough… hoo, boy.

Stockholm is one of my favorite places I’ve ever been, and it just seems to fit me so perfectly. It’s beautiful, pleasant, happy… sigh. I miss it. Let’s get into the story.

Nacka… Outside Where We Want To Be, But Right Where We Want To Be

There are a number of developing themes to our Phase 3 through Europe. “Didn’t spend enough time in ____”, “walked all over ____”, and of course, “____ is super expensive.” Well, Stockholm is super expensive. So, we stayed a bit out of the city center, in an area called Nacka.

Nacka is a big part of our love of Stockholm. It’s about 30 minutes from Gamla Stan–the city center–by bus or train, and it’s only that long because of how banged up things are at Slussen station with the giant rebuilding project they’re doing there. Despite being so close to the city proper, it’s a green, laid-back, beautiful residential area.

Our AirBnb was a short walk from a huge nature walk area around a beautiful lake. On our first day there, walking around the lake was all we did. We saw damned good swimmers out practicing, swimming in their wet suits from one side of the lake to the other. All the way on the other side of the lake is Hellasgårdens, a spa and sauna.

As we approached, we wondered if it might be one of those Nordic type spas. You know, the ones where people go… oh, yep, there goes a naked person jumping into the lake. It’s one of those Nordic type spas!

We went to one in Canada, which had the Nordic qualities, but not the nudity. Basically, you alternate between submerging in hot waters and freezing cold waters, with time in a sauna too. The stark alternation of temperatures is supposed to do wonders for your skin and long-term health. Here, that all tends to be done naked.

We joked about going, and giggled like children. But no nudity for us today!

We retraced our steps back home, and further still to the grocery store, so we could cook for ourselves for the evening. The closest store to us was the Hemköp and… oh… oh my…

That’s Erika trying to decide between the 45,000 milk choices. This store was enormous! And, really, the prices weren’t that bad.

Gamla Stan

The next day, it was time to head off to Stockholm proper and explore. From Nacka, there are plenty of buses you can take, as well as trains, though they’re not as frequent. Or, you can take the water taxi system!

Obviously, we did that. The water taxis leave from Nacka Strand, which is a decent walk from our place, but a beautiful one. Through narrow paths and leafy suburban streets, we happily, peacefully wound our way through Nacka, down to the pier.

The boat ride into town is gorgeous. The water ways are beautiful, as is the city of Stockholm as you approach. It’s a much longer way to get into town, but it’s also obviously the most scenic.

The boat landed at Strandvägen, and we began the short walk down to Gamla Stan, the old city. It’s a beautiful walk, as you cross the short bridge onto the tiny island. Gamla Stan is a lovely place to walk, with beautiful buildings and narrow streets, but it’s incredibly touristy. Don’t buy anything there, it’s all silly souvenirs. Except…

Fika

Remember hygge? That Danish feeling of coziness and togetherness? So the Swedish have something similar, which they call Fika. Fika is like a mindful coffee break. It’s the idea of slowing down, having a coffee, or a tea, or a hot chocolate, pairing it with some sort of sweet baked good, and just taking a break. You can fika alone, or with a friend.

We usually take an afternoon tea break as it is, but now we do it and call it cultural! And, we feel justified in adding a piece of cake or something along with it.

In Stortorget, a small square in Gamla Stan, are a couple excellent cafés for a fika, with wonderful outdoor seating and plenty of people watching. We went to Kaffekoppen, ordering enormous bowls of hot chocolate along with a delicious pastry. The café scene in Stockholm is excellent.

Meatballs

After fika-ing, we headed out of Gamla Stan for a late lunch. Sweden is known for its meatballs. I think? Maybe it’s known for meatballs? I mean, I know it for meatballs, but maybe that’s just me, or Ikea’s fault. Anyway, they do have meatballs, and so we hiked across town to a place we’d found that serves ’em.

Meatballs For The People–almost certainly a heavily tourist restaurant, but a delicious one, so I’m not complaining! At lunch time, there is a very good deal on their meatballs, which come with creamy, unhealthy mashed potatoes, and tart lingonberries. The lamb meatballs, especially, were excellent! We went twice.

Walking out to the restaurant took us through some seriously photogenic areas of Stockholm–though, I’ve yet to find a non-photogenic area. This included the beautiful Katarina Kyrka, which looked just resplendent under the beautiful blue sky we had that day.

The Vasa Museum

The next day, we skipped the water taxi to save time, opting to take the train into town instead. However, we then had to take a water taxi to get over to the island of Djurgården, to see the Vasa Museum, our target for the morning.

First, a brief word on Djurgården. It’s basically fully devoted to fun, culture, and relaxation. On the back half of the island is a large park. On the front half, closest to the city, is an amusement park, and numerous museums. This includes the Vasa–more on that in a minute. It also includes the Nordiska–a Swedish cultural museum–and a museum dedicated to that other thing Sweden is known for–ABBA. Mamma mia!

Alright, back to the Vasa. This was one attraction I’d heard about years ago, and had been very much looking forward to seeing. Imagine it’s 1628. Sweden has grown to be a dominant power politically and militarily in Europe. Their influence is expanding, as are their territorial gains. In the midst of their expansion, they’re at war with Poland-Lithuania. The King is feeling good, and he’s looking to flex some muscle.

So he commissions the construction of one of the biggest, most bad-ass warships the world had seen at its time. 172 feet in height! 64 guns! It was decked out in ornamentation, flying massive flags of Sweden, built to impress as well as conduct war.

And the son of a bitch sunk the first day it sailed.

So a funny thing about all those guns: it was too top-heavy, throwing its center of gravity off. So as it sailed for the first time, making its way through Stockholm harbor and out into the main shipping lane, a gust of wind caught its massive sails, and threw it off balance. And there it sunk. And remained, until it was salvaged in 1961, restored, and turned into a museum.

And what a museum! It’s a wonderful experience, touring a 1600s era warship up-close. It’s massive, especially impressive when you’re standing aft, looking up at the huge, ornate transom, filled with carvings.

We loved it, and couldn’t get enough of the museum.

Breaking Up Is Hard To Do

Europe had been a high-speed blur already. We’d been constantly on the move, trying to see cities in compressed time, or on trains or buses on to our next destination.

Also, we’d been traveling together now for seven months. Seven straight months of every day, all day, together.

Apparently these two facts smashed into each other, and caused a little meltdown, and we had a fight. A super important one too about… well it was about… oh I remember it…

Yeah who the hell knows, it was about nothing! It was just us having stressed ourselves out and sniping at each other for some reason. To reset, we decided to spend a whole afternoon apart.

Erika had wanted to see the Royal Palace, where I didn’t really care to. So after touring the Vasa, she headed there, while I took a long, slow walk all around Stockholm.

I walked on Djurgården along the beautiful waterway.

I crossed the bridge, and walked all over the extremely nice neighborhood of Östermalm

I walked to the Karlaplan fountain, and up the lovely Karlavägen boulevard to Humlegården park.

I walked through the ritzy shopping areas of Norrmalm.

Having had enough walking, I took the subway back to Gamla Stan. I wandered most of the streets of Gamla Stan again, slowly making my way near to the Royal Palace. It was still a while before Erika and I were supposed to meet back up, so I found a bench nestled in a small garden, tucked behind the Storkyrkan cathedral, to rest while I waited.

I’d been there maybe 90 seconds before I see Erika wandering into the same garden, with the same idea of waiting out the time until we were to meet up. I laughed as she came over and sat on the bench next to me.

We just can’t stay apart.

What’s Next?

I can’t believe we were only in Stockholm for three days. We packed so much into those three days, and I fell so head over heels, that it felt like weeks. I wish we could have stayed for weeks. We had Stockholm Syndrome bad–we didn’t want to leave!

But, we had to keep moving. Things weren’t getting any cheaper yet, as our next stop was Amsterdam. I hope you enjoyed our story from Stockholm! If you love it there as much as I do, let me know about it!