Erik and I began my third day in Stockholm with a major tourist attraction that I somehow missed during my first time there: Stadshuset, the city hall and home of the annual Nobel Prize banquet. Actually, “somehow” is a bit euphemistic, since on the day my program toured Stadshuset, I was playing hooky to visit Emmy in Barcelona. So, determined to redeem myself, I made visiting Stadshuset a priority of my return to Stockholm.
Stadshuset sits at the bottom of Kungsholmen, an island just east of Stockholm’s business district. The posh neighborhoods of Kungsholmen are also the home of Mikael Blomkvist, the male protagonist of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium trilogy. Thanks to its location, the views from the grounds of Stadshuset are fantastic, and I took in the sights while we waited for our tour to begin.
At right, the omnipresent Citybanan construction as seen across Lake Mälaren.
The tour began in the “blue hall,” so called because it was originally intended to be blue. Today, the room is the home of the annual Nobel Prize banquet, which brings the laureates from all over the world to Sweden. Anyone can enter a lottery to attend the Nobel banquet, and the odds are actually not terrible. But the hall is surprisingly small, so guests, even the famous ones, even the royal ones, have surprisingly little room to sit and eat. Such is the suffering of glamour.
We filed upstairs into the beautiful Stockholm city council chamber, which overlooks Lake Mälaren. Lawmakers somehow squeeze themselves in around Stadshuset’s busy tour schedule to manage the affairs of the city.
Anyone from anywhere in the world is allowed to get married in Stadshuset, if you’re willing to waiting to get on a months-long waiting list, and our tour guide made a point of explaining that this is true for couples of any gender. Unfortunately, when you get into some of the lesser-used rooms, some of the art chosen by the building’s architect doesn’t exactly scream wedding to me.
Our tour guide said that, in fact, there was quite a bit of outcry about some of the art in Stadshuset when people first saw it. But the designer prevailed, I guess.
After leaving Stadshuset, we walked along Norr Mälarstrand, the southern edge of Kungsholmen, past plenty of boats and adorable little cafes. Someday, I kept telling myself, I’ll be one of the beautiful people who hang out at these places.
We turned onto Kungsholmstorg and walked up towards Rådhuset. When we passed a branch of Systembolaget, the state-run liquor store, I couldn’t resist doing a bit of journalism inside. As it turned out, the Absolut vodka, theoretically a domestically produced item, was about twice as expensive in Systembolaget as in the duty-free shops at Stockholm’s Arlanda airport. That’s one way of getting people to drink less.
We took the tunnelbana to Rådmansgatan and walked across to Cafe Saturnus, which is well-known for its enormous kanelbullar, a Swedish cinnamon roll. We stopped for a fika, and though Erik resisted having a kanelbulle and stuck with a sandwich, I had traveled too far for such healthy nonsense.
Leaving Saturnus, we walked through Humlegården, a large urban park, to Kungliga Biblioteket, the royal library, which is akin to our Library of Congress.
We walked down to Stureplan, Stockholm’s fanciest square, where the most attractive and the wealthiest mingle. Being neither, we had to move on. The “mushroom,” visible in the picture below, is a common meeting place.
We walked over to Östermalms saluhall, a food court that is a much fancier version of Philadelphia’s Reading Terminal Market and bears almost no resemblance to the food courts of Thailand or Singapore. The market is a feast as much for the eyes as for the stomach.
We took the tunnelbana down to Gamla Stan to indulge me in one more tourist sight: the beautiful island of Riddarholmen, which adjoins Gamla Stan and overlooks Norr Mälarstrand and the bluffs of Södermalm. From Riddarholmen, we could see central Stockholm, Stadshuset, Slussen and all the way across to the Västerbron.
We walked back to Gamla Stan and up to Stortorget, the historic center of the city and now a tourist mecca, ringed by cafes.
We took the tunnelbana up to Fridhemsplan, where we stopped at Prisxtra, the grocery story of my youth. My favorite part of the Prisxtra was always the self-service salad greens station, where you can mix and match. And, as further evidence of halloumi’s popularity in Sweden, it was on special.
We retired to Spånga for another night of grilling and relaxation.
Singing along
Written by Chaz on 1 September 2011I began my last full day in Stockholm with the ultimate trip down memory lane: a return to my apartment in Sundbyberg, just outside Stockholm in the direction of Spånga. Erik and I took the tunnelbana to Duvbo, and despite having been up the station’s escalator hundreds of times, I was still impressed by its height and length.
As two years prior, the front door of the apartment building was unlocked, so we went right in to the first landing and saw the door of my apartment. Having done just about enough creeping, we walked down to the center of Sundbyberg and hopped the pendeltåg into Stockholm.
I had two errands to take care of in Stockholm before starting the day’s touristing. First we stopped by the Stockholm tourist bureau to buy a map of the city’s ABBA tour, a gift for my friend Joanna. And second we stopped by an office building downtown to drop off a copy of my friend Vernie’s fantastic senior thesis for her Swedish host family.
After exploring the museum and its grounds, we rode back up to the Djurgården ferry and headed over to Slussen. Once again, the views across to central Stockholm were fantastic.
We walked from Slussen down to Fotografiska Museet, the photography museum, which is new since my time in Stockholm. The museum, perched right on the Baltic by the ferry terminals, was terrific. In particular, I really liked the exhibit of Liu Bolin, a Chinese photographer known as the invisible man because of his knack for painting himself right into a photograph.
We took the tunnelbana up to Odenplan to meet Erik’s friend Jasmin, and as it had begun to rain a bit, we made a beeline for dinner at Ramen Ki-Mama. Both Erik and Jasmin are in Stockholm University’s Japanese studies program, so it was only fitting. It was my first ramen since our ramen in Hong Kong, and I have to say, it compared very favorably. The near-natives approved too, which is worth something.
After dinner, we headed back to Djurgården for a Swedish tradition: “Allsång på Skansen,” a one-hour singalong at Skansen, Stockholm’s outdoor museum, that features well-known Swedish musicians and is broadcast live on Swedish public television. The songs, all widely known in Sweden, are available in a little book, and the host says the number of the song they’re going to sing so that you can find it in your book. The TV broadcast also has the lyrics at the bottom of the screen, karaoke-style. The show had a new host this summer: Måns Zelmerlöw, a pop singer who rose to fame from Swedish Idol and Melodifestivalen. The show also had a “web host,” Anton Lundqvist, who, I was shocked to learn, is younger than I am.
We had seen the show on TV at Lögla, and since the show is free to attend after you’ve bought a ticket to Skansen, I thought it would be pretty cool to go. We arrived a few minutes before the show’s live broadcast began at eight, and immediately wished we had allowed more time.
But we did make it inside in time, and while our viewing spot wasn’t optimal, I had a pretty good view thanks to my height. I was really glad we went! There was a huge crowd, and lots of people had brought signs. It was also a beautiful evening — the rain held off — and the view from Skansen out over the city was great.
Allsång was also interesting to me culturally. I can’t really imagine the U.S. having an equivalent, not least because there aren’t that many songs that the whole country shares as folk knowledge. Sweden is a small enough country that this kind of thing is possible. The show also reflects Swedes’ well-deserved pride in their country and its capital. The show always opens with a song called “Stockholm in my heart,” really a love song to Stockholm.
After the show ended around 9:30, there was still plenty of light, so we took a walk through the Nordic animals section of Skansen, checking out the foxes and the bears. Exhausted, we took the spårvagn back to the central station, where we parted ways with Jasmin and headed back to Spånga. Another wonderful, busy day in Stockholm.
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Tags: Chilling with the locals, Cultural commentary, Ethnic eats, Music, Ramen, Sightseeing, SO MANY PEOPLE, Traditions