Stockholm, Sweden 2

We started Day 2 with breakfast at our hotel, which was fine, actually better than I expected. After leaving hotel, we first checked a rocky hilltop viewpoint near the hotel. It was a small but definitely rocky park, which gave us a little climbing exercise and a nice overlooking view of the water and the island of Kungsholmen. 

The Stockholm City Hall was seen on the eastern tip of the island. We were going to visit there the morning!

We walked along the water providing us a nice view of the island of Riddarholmen. It was a little breezy and chilly but refreshing!

The City Hall was getting closer and closer...

We had tickets to visit the City Hall Tower but it was for 10 am. To kill a couple of hours til then, we wondered around the Old Town on the island of Stadsholmen. We liked being in the Old Town in the early morning before crowds of tourists flocked to the cobble streets.

The door with number 81 was the entrance to Mårten Trotzigs gränd, Stockholm's narrowest (90cm wide) street. J wasn't interested to walk through it, so we just confirmed how narrow the street was from the door. 

There was a statue in Järntorget square. He was Evert Taube (1890–1976), one of Sweden's most beloved musicians, songwriters, and poets. Later I learned there were three statues of him in Stockholm. I found only this during the trip.

We walked under the back side of St. George and The Dragon Statue that we saw on the day before. 

The equestrian statue of Karl XIV Johans, King of Sweden and Norway from 1818 until his death in 1844, stands in front of the Royal Palace.

We peaked the outer western courtyard. The Royal Guards wearing bright blue uniforms were standing and sometimes pacing here and there around the palace. 

Next to the courtyard was Storkyrkan, also known as Stockholm Cathedral. Although the building didn't look so huge, the pink exterior would be unmissed.

We got to the Stockholm City Hall early. Built between 1911 and 1923, the design of the City Hall is similar to Italian renaissance palaces. Also, with the national romantic style, the same brick size and brickwork as the castle Three Crowns, the old royal castle (Tre Kronor), which was previously located in the Old Town before it burnt down in 1697, was used for the City Hall. About 8 million locally made bricks were used to build the building.

There were already many people at the courtyard. The tour in the City Hall starts at 9:30 am, which includes a visit to the grand banquet halls, such as the Blue Hall that is used for the annual Nobel Prize banquet. The tour may be interesting but you have to join a guided tour and it takes about 45 minutes. We skipped the tour this time. Instead, we chose the tour for the tower, which allowed us to move around more independently. 

There was the City Hall Park between the building and the water. There were some fountains, sculptures and benches. It was a convenient place to kill the last 15 minutes before for our tower tour. 

You have to climb approximately 365 steps to get to the top of the 106 meter high tower. The good news is there is an elevator that takes you halfway up the tower. Of course, we did. Also, the passageway was a combination of stairs and slopes. It didn't make us out of breath. The tower museum was found in the middle of the way. Many models of sculptures and decorations that can be found both in the interior and on the exterior of the City Hall were exhibited. We didn't spend any time there, though. We were more excited with the bird view from the top of the tower.

The 360 degree panoramic view of Stockholm from the top was wonderful. I liked the view of the islands of Riddarholmen and Stadsholmen (the Old Town) even though it was backlit. I was worried about the weather because the weather forecast told me in the morning that it would be overcasting and possibly raining around that time. A miracle happened!  

It was time to go down. The tower tour allows us to stay at the top for 15 minutes. First I thought it would be too short, but actually it was enough to walk around the balcony three or four times, admiring the scenery and take lots of pictures.  

At the corner of the City Hall building was Restaurant Stadshuskällaren. Opened in 1922, it's one of the oldest restaurants in the city and the only restaurant in the world that can offer all of the Nobel menus from the past served on Nobel porcelain. Does it sound fascinating? I'm not sure as I am not a follower of the Novel Prize scheme... 

Since we were already on the island of Kungsholmen, we walked around the island for a while. Most likely it looked like a residential area. We stopped by Volca Coffee Roaster. The small coffee shop offered various sweet and savory treats. I almost ordered a cake but I wasn't really hungry yet. I just had Matcha latte while J picked three kinds of empanadas. 

We walked through Kronobergsparken, a hilltop public park that was created on the site of a mill in the early 20th century. In fact Stockholm was more hilly than I imagined.   

Then we crossed a bridge to Vasastan, a residential neighborhood in central-north Stockholm on the mainland. By then I understood the layout of Stockholm quite well.

We checked a bakery called Lillebrors bageri in the area, which I was interested in. Unfortunately we found a very long waiting line in front of the bakary and we only enjoyed the pleasant aroma of freshly baked cardamon rolls that wafted outside of the shop. On the other hand, SNÖ, a gelato shop nearby which was also on my wish-to-go list, didn't let us wait for more than two minutes. In fact I needed more time to peruse all flavors of the day written on the wall. Choosing only two flavors for a small cup was the most difficult task of the day for me.

I ordered it in a hurry, but the results were great. I had mango and rum raisin. Mango tasted like nothing but perfectly ripen fresh sweet mango! The rum raisin was supposed to be Crema Inglese with roasted vanilla topped with blonde raisins soaked in rum and muscovado sugar. Although I didn't really taste rum, the creamy texture and vanilla flavor were delightful. J had rum raisin, too and dark chocolate. He particularly liked the latter. 

We took our gelato to Vasaparken, a large park in front of the gelato shop and found a bench to have a gelato break. By the way, one of what I liked in Stockholm was concrete lions that were installed all over the city to block vehicles from driving into pedestrian areas. We must have seen dozens of them every day. They were cute and made me smile whenever I found one. 

Then, we walked miles around the city center, the busy shopping area, the harbor, and Östermalm, a neighborhood in central-east Stockholm.

We arrived at Karlaplan in Östermalm, a lovely circular plaza with an impressive fountain. We rested on a bench for a while. We slowly headed to our hotel. The plaza was about an hour walk away from the hotel.

We kept walking and missing a chance to have a lunch. Thongwiset, a Thai restaurant near our hotel solved the problem conveniently. The restaurant was small and very busy even though it was kind of late for lunch or too early for dinner. Luckily one tiny table next to the entrance was available. J had a glass noodle salad with seafood. It looked very spicy! He didn't mind any heat as usual. I had stir-fried rice with Tofu and veggies. While I enjoyed the dish, I was able to forget how painful my feet were after a day-long walk.

To be continued...