Stockholm (Part 3)

After my adventure to Finland the day before, this was my only full day in the Swedish Capital.

I had some breakfast and then walked down to Brommaplan to catch the train into the city centre. It was snowing quite heavilly so the city looked quite nice (not that it looks bad any other time)! I saw from my guidebook that the changing of the guards took place on Sunday mornings, so I headed to the Palace. It was quite busy, mainly tourists. It was quite interesting to see, lots of music was played and a man was telling everyone about what the various trumpet calls were used for when (If) the Swedish military were ever deployed.

The whole event lasted about an hour an after that I did a bit of walking around the Old town (Gamla Stan). It was a very traditional area, lots of narrow streets and passageways and  of course rip off souvenier shops selling ABBA related material and Viking Hats. I bought a Viking figurine for my flatmates (which they very much enjoyed). I got some lunch and headed back to the modern part of the city and had a wander. It was getting quit cold again so after some shopping and visiting a few cafes I had some dinner and headed back to the hotel at around 7pm. I headed back out again for a few hours at 9pm but the snow became pretty heavy so I didn't stay in the city very long in case the trains were called off early. Turns out they weren't as, unsurprisingly in Sweden they can cope with snow and are able to run perfectly well when it happens.

The next morning was my last. I started the day by finally getting time to the use the sauna on the top floor of my hotel. The view wasn't amazing (I was in an industrial/residential suburb) but I could see all the way to Bromma airport, so was able to watch the planes come in and out! I stayed there for about 2 hours as it looked cold outside again!

I eventually decided to head right out of town and got to the Stockholm TV tower. It was quite a long bus journey out there, but once I got there it was very busy with what seemed like most of Russia on holiday. These were the first Russian tourists I'd ever met and they were not very friendly, not did they understand that you had to buy a ticket and not just barge your way onto the lift. There were plenty of signs in Russian so I'm guessing this is quite a common problem at the Stockholm TV tower!

The lift ascended very quickly and pretty soon I was enjoying a view of a very snowy and frozen Stockholm. The sky was clear so I could see pretty far. I spent about an hour at the top, they had a small cafe, which although expensive was pretty good. I headed back into town to do some last minute shopping and then had to head back to get my bag and my bus back to the airport for my flight home.

I just barely made the coach back to the airport as there was some kind of delay on the otherwise perfect Tunelbannen. I got there in the end and had a pretty uneventful journey back to Skavsta.

The airport is tiny, it has, I think 5 gates. 3 are for Schengen flights and 2 are for UK and Ireland flights. A lot of people made their way through to the non-Schengen departure lounge, which was clearly a mistake as there was nothing through there and as you had to go through passport control (which was one way, therefore you left Sweden) there was no way of coming back to get a drink from the very expensive bar, a snack from the very expensive restaurant or some sweets from the extremely expensive newsagent shop. I had the genius idea of taking an empty bottle through security with me and filling it up at the tap in the bathrooms and saved myself almost £2.50.

This airport was tiny, but had some very clever smoking booths. Smoking is also banned in most indoor places in Sweden and airports are no exception. However a private company seems to have supplied these little booths where smokers can sit and have a cigarette and the smoke is just sucked away. There was no smell or drifting smoke at all and they were not an enclosed booth (only had 3 sides) so they were quite a clever invention. UK Airports should take note, might stop a few smokers lighting up in the toilets between flights and long delays and causing smoke alarms to go off!

Once my flight was ready to board I made my way through passport control and joined the line. There were a few people there from my flight out, so I guess they all had the same £26 tickets that I did! The flight was slightly delayed taking off (no idea how, we were the ONLY plane at the airport) but we were soon on our way and out into the darkness. The only lights I saw were Aberdeen and then nothing again until Fife and then the approach into Edinburgh. The flight itself was perfectly smooth and we arrived about 10 minutes early. A short wait for passport control and I was in the car going home about 25 minutes after touching down!

All in all a very good few days away in some new places. I highly recommend Stockholm and the Åland Islands, although they are very expensive places to go. I imagine there is more to do in the summer months as Stockholm is built on several islands which have a whole range of water activities and water based tours going on between them. The Åland Islands are also popular activity holiday destinations for Swedish and Finnish people in the summer months too. It is nice to see Northern Europe in the winter though, even if you do have to wrap up a lot to enjoy it!

Hope you enjoyed my first update, many more to come soon!