Sweden - Week 9

After our lovely stay at Gammelstad Church town, we drove south through Sweden on the E4. It’s quite boring, mainly trees, trees and more trees. In fact you couldn’t see wood for trees at times.

I think they must be used as some sort of cloaking device as sometimes, just occasionally, you could see glimpses of buildings through them.

Toilet emptying and fresh water was pretty hard to find at times. We didn’t have trouble finding places to stay though using the Park4night app. 

We did do a detour inland, half way down, to find the Thai Pavillion which was well worth the effort. What a little gem in the middle of nowhere.

In 1897, King Chulalongkorn (or Chaka Khan as I call him), visited Sweden from Thailand. He was loved by his people as amongst a lot of other good stuff he did, he abolished slavery. He visited many places in Europe and took ideas back to Thailand with him. In 1997 the Swedish and Thai people built this Pavillion in his honour.

We even found a parking spot next to a crazy golf course. Some of the older locals came talking to us and asking us where we'd travelled from. It was really nice to chat to them. They told us they all meet up once a week to play crazy golf in an effort to keep fit. 

 If we'd stayed on a campsite, we would have missed out on all of this.

Nest stop, Stockholm.

We stayed at Bredäng campsite just on the edge of the city. They have everything you need including a launderette & small shop. 

We collected a detailed map of the city from reception and walked the easy 700m to the Metro station. We bought 2x 72 hour travel cards from Pressbyrån (the shop next to the entrance of T-Bredäng).This worked out at £5 each per day. You can use the cards on the trains, the metro, the bus, the trams and the boats. So well worth the money in our opinion. 11 stops later, (20 mins) we arrived at the main station, T-Centralen.

Day 1
We decided to buy the Hop on Hop off City Sightseeing tickets that included the entrance to the ABBA museum as it worked out cheaper than buying them separately. Wish we hadn’t bothered with the HOHO bus. Not sure if a Saturday was a busy day but we wasted so much time waiting for one that wasn’t full to bursting. When we eventually got on one and travelled 2 stops before we found a seat, the commentary was not very good. It was in English but played mostly classical music rather than telling you what you could see. We felt quite let down by the whole experience which is such a shame as we’ve been on them in other cities previously and loved them. The ABBA museum on the other hand was brilliant. If, like me, you grew up in the 70’s listening to them or came out of the cinema on a high after watching Mamma Mia (even though Pierce Brosnan’s singing voice left a lot to be desired lol) then this place is for you. It had TV screens everywhere showing interviews and TV performances etc. Costumes hung in cabinets and there were even karaoke booths where you could sing along to your favourite ABBA tunes. Andy wasn’t keen on going in but even he had to admit how good it was!!

Day 2
Using the travel cards we bought yesterday, we went by metro to the Central station. Today’s main activity was the 1 o’clock walking tour around the old town, Gamla Stan. Our guide Kevin did an excellent job regaling stories from Sweden & Stockholm. Another 10/10 from us. 

After the tour we visited the Nobel Museum. They have a guided tour every hour that’s included in the price of the ticket. I hadn’t realised Alfred Nobel was Swedish! It’s an interesting museum with interactive screens and films to watch. Every prize winner has a banner that makes its way around the room on rails hung from the ceiling, like clothes at a dry cleaners. Maybe one day, one will be presented to someone who has found a cure for diabetes, wouldn’t that be something! 

The rest of the day we spent wandering around the narrow cobbled streets of the old town in the sunshine and drinking coffee.

Day 3
Today we wanted to see the changing of the guard at the Royal Palace on Gamla Stan. It happens at 12:15 every day, except Sundays when it’s an hour later. We caught the metro and got off at T-Centralen. It’s a lovely walk to the palace and mostly pedestrianised so very easy to do. The pomp & ceremony lasts about 45 mins and we loved it, especially the brass band players on horse back. They can certainly knock out a tune. It does get pretty crowded so get there early if you want a good view. 

Using our travel cards we took the ferry boat over to the Vasa Museum. 

It was another place on my to do list. Basically, 333 years ago, the King of Sweden commissioned a war ship that sank within 20 mins of its maiden voyage and to cut a long story short, it’s been preserved for all to see. The most remarkable thing is it’s 98% original. They found 100’s of artifices buried in the mud and they’ve even made reconstructed faces from some of the skulls they found. A guided tour is included in the entrance fee. Well worth a visit.

The rest of the day we just wandered around looking at all the amazing colourful buildings and drinking coffee, again. The city is beautiful and has a real gentle feel to it. There’s just no way we could see it all in 3 days. I’d definitely come back. It’s our favourite city so far!!

Harriet’s Hint: Don’t waste your money on the HOHO bus, it doesn’t orientate you around the city like it does in other places, but if you do decide to try it, keep the ticket to get into Tivoli Gröna Lund free of charge.