Stockholm Splendor

We arrived in Stockholm in the early morning of Sun (8 May), which we hoped will herald a great start to a rather uneventful past two days (we spent the night on the cruise playing some card games with drinking beer/tequila pops as forfeit). The cruise into the Stockholm harhour seems promising. Great sunshine, nice harbour views and looking extremely clean, even from the ship. Just as the bus was to depart from the harbour to the city, I realised that my trusted Nokia was in the ship cabin! Good thing I managed to get it back from a frantic search-and-rescue.

With too much drinking and eating from the Helsinki/cruise, we headed straight for the Gamla Stan (Old Town) despite the zen comfort of the Freys Hotel (I would recommend this for anyone who's travelling to Stockholm). The old town was buzzing with activities and people. The boys walked and played on the cobbled streets while the gals went about buying souvenirs. Again, we met a Malaysian lady at Hard Rock who gave us tips on making the most out of the two days we have in Stockholm.










We then rushed to the Royal Palace to catch the change of guards, a somewhat dramatic pomp with all the music and cannons. We bought student tickets @ SEK600 for ten, which would have been SEK1300 and went on a good guided trip in the Royal Palace. I did not know Sweden was such a powerful war nation in the past (they had Finland before the Russians conquered them) and had a mighty navy. I finished the day with a leisure walk to the small islet, Skeppsholmen, which had a good view of Stockholm from Kasstellholmen.










The chilly morning air woke me up, only to realise it was snowing. Yes, despite the bright sunshine it was snowing. Myself and Andy had to get tickets for the archipelago cruise, then rush to Vasamuseet to get tickets. The Vasamuseet houses the oldest/largest warship from the 18th century (see pictures above). Ironically this ship barely cruises for a mile before sinking just 100m from the southern tip of Djurgarden, where the museum is housed. It took them over 300 years to retrieve this long-forgotten glory. We then proceeded to Skansen to visit miniature, old Sweden and saw wild native animals like reindeer, elks, otters and bisons. Time seems to pass very long and before long, we were on a taxi to Arlanda Airport.

Hasta la Vista, baby!