Stockholm Day 3

After a good night of rest, we got up and headed out for more sightseeing. After checking out of the hotel and storing our luggage, we headed back toward Gamla Stan. On the way there, we saw the Royal Palace, Cathedral, and Parliament building. As we were walking up the side of the palace, we noticed a royal military guard. She was fiddling around, but when Ben went to take her picture, she stood straight up and still. Then she decided to do some sort of marching in a line thing with her sword, which was interesting. From here, we wandered around through Gamla Stan a little more. We were looking for breakfast, and found a café that listed cinnamon rolls and appeared to be open, but they weren’t, despite the serving window being open. Instead of waiting, we kept on walking.

We left Gamla Stan and walked over the bridge to Sodermalm, where we found a McDonalds. Not quite to local bakery we were looking for, but we were hungry, so we stopped there and split an egg mcmuffin and a potato cake. After breakfast, we began our Millennium tour by climbing the longest staircase ever. I had to stop and catch my breath a few times. When we made it to the top, there was a really good view of Stockholm. The majority of the stops on the tour were on Sodermalm, which is an island of Stockholm that is very residential and non-touristy. The tour stops included Lisbeth Salander’s old and new apartments, Blomkvist’s apartment, the Millennium offices, and the 7/11 where Salander shopped, as well as some other locations mentioned in the book. After doing the walking tour ourselves, we were glad we didn’t do the guided tour because we were able to stop or wander as we pleased. Sodermalm is beautiful and the views are amazing. Definitely my favorite part of Stockholm.

Royal Palace on right with palace guard in blue. Cathedral on left.

Fiskargatan. Where Salander bought her new apartment.

View of Stockholm from Sodermalm.

Steep cobblestone street in Sodermalm.

Blomkvist's apartment in Sodermalm.

After completing the tour, we zoomed back to Gamla Stan to catch one of the boat tours, except there was some sort of bike race going on all day, so we ended up on the wrong side of the road from the boat ticketing place, so we had to wait for breaks between bikes. Once we finally made it to the ticketing place, we discovered that we had gone to the wrong one for the tour we wanted to take. Darn. So, we gave up on the boat tour. We were tired and hungry, so we walked to this café we saw the day before for lunch.

Following lunch, we walked back to the hotel and grabbed our luggage, and then headed toward the train station for our 3:00 speed train to Gothenburg. The train ride was relaxing. I blogged and downloaded pictures as we rode through the Swedish countryside.

Train station.

View of Sodermalm behind us.

Now we are in Gothenburg. I need to go to bed because tomorrow is a big day! Volvo will pick us up at 8:00 and then we will get our car!! I’ll update again tomorrow (hopefully!).