If you want to experience the real feelings of Scandinavia, your place is definitely Stockholm. The cleaniness and the tranquility will help you to relax really fast, especially coming from a busy and noisy city (maybe Taipei?).
Stockholm is one of the greenest city in Europe, having one of the cleaniest air (after Berlin and Copenhagen), so you will surely skip the odor of the gasoline. Since it is built on 14 islands (and 50 bridges, how cool is that), you will definitely need public transportation. You can buy an all-access ticket to use buses and the subway, but if the weather is generous, you can hop-on a citybike to ride around the city.
It is quite convenient, you will have an absolutely all-inclusive bike path. The cars are taking good care of you, the pedestrians are respecting your lane, so all you have to do is to enjoy your ride, the sunshine and the clean air. Please note, you can only use the bike for 3 hours, before you need to check it in again, and choose another one. Three hours are surely enough, as the bike itself is very uncomfortable to ride, and it takes at least half an hour to find the spots you can leave the bike at.
After riding 15 minutes from the city center, you can already reach places where you can relax or meditate. And it is still the capital city!
About enjoying the sunshine: funny part, which is quite unbelievable to those who have not experienced this before – in the summertime the sun was already up at 3:30am, and it was still bright at 23:00 pm. Still better than it’s opposite during winter, when the darkness is constant, so if you can, I would definitely recommend you to choose summer.
See this picture – it is taken from the window, at 22.00 pm.
There are plenty of things to do in Stockholm, which I will share with you. But this weekend was a very special one as it was Sweden’s national day. You can listen to concerts, get involved into festivals, and maybe if you have luck, like me, you can actually see the royal family!!
Carl XVI Gustaf of Sweden the King, and Queen Sylvia.
Left side: crown princess Victoria and his husband, Daniel. Right side: prince Carl Philip, his fiancé, Sofia and Victoria’s and Daniel’s little princess, Estelle.
But even if you don’t happen to see them, you still have a lot to do.
For example the Vasa museum. I have been there before, but it is so special and breathtaking, that it is definitely worth a second (maybe even a third) visit. The ship itself sank in 1628 in just a few minutes, after only sailing some hundred meters from the port, due to it’s bad construction and unstability. They wanted it to be the greatest and most impressive ship of the army, but obviously it never happened.
It was under water until 1961 when finally it was discovered and luckily salvaged.
It was under water until 1961 when finally it was discovered and luckily salvaged. It has been under water for 333 years, still the experts managed to piece it together, and now 98% of the parts are original. Impressive!
The Stockholm-story will continue, I will also write about the international food festival, so stay connected! 🙂
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