Stockholm, Sweden 6
Day 6 was our last day in Stockholm. Shopping was on our agenda. We had a breakfast at the hotel as usual and headed to the city center. It was still too early to visit any stores anyway. We walked around the Old Town first. We found some streets that we hadn't walked before.
We revisited the main square of the Old Town. I thought I would be finally able to take some photos of the square without people in such an early morning...
Oops!
Forget about a photo of the entire square. I tried to focus on the colorful buildings while the tourist group gathered at the center of the square and listened to their guide...
Unbelievably the next tourist group showed up between the green and red building in a minute. I gave up!
Then, we walked to the mainland via the "Parliament House" islet.
We wondered around the north of the city center for a while, had a tea break at a bakery, Bageri Norrmalm, and then slowly headed to the Östermalms Food Hall.
We entered the Östermalms Food Hall shortly after their door was open for the day. Various kinds of fresh foods looked nice, but it would be hard to take them home. We picked up some Swedish treats that could travel well, such as canned fish, fish roe paste in tube, jam in jar and cheese.
We stopped by Sibyllan, an established teashop and coffee roastery, founded in 1916. Since coffee is very important in the Swedish culture, I guessed that high-quality coffee beans must be available. My question was where to find them. I chose Sibyllan because they have been well-reviewed and apparently locals are their regulars. They offered several kinds of coffee beans and we had no idea which we should chose for our Moka pot. J picked one of their specials.
We took a subway to the island of Södermalm and visited a cheesemonger called Androuet. More cheese!
We went back to our hotel, dropped off all treats we obtained by then, and came back to the streets to find a place for lunch. We explored the west area of the hotel at first. It was generally the residential area while many shops and restaurants were found along the roads. We chose Pastalogik, an Italian restaurant for our last lunch of the trip.
I had a kind of long pasta with tomato, basil, Burrata and pistachio. It was simple and pretty good. The pasta was a little chewy. I guess it was not dry but fresh pasta. Perhaps, homemade? J's dish was a kind of short pasta with Amatriciana sauce. It looked nice, too. The atmosphere of the restaurant was casual and homey, far away from the city center and tourist crowds. It was the perfect place for our last lunch.
Moreover, another store of the gelateria SNÖ was in the area! After long deliberation, I selected peach melba with krossade drömmar or crashed Dream cookies (Swedish light and airy vanilla sugar cookies), and 70% cacao dark chocolate that J had last time. J also got dark chocolate again. I don't remember his second flavor, though. SNÖ was a great discovery in Stockholm! We found a huge supermarket nearby and bought some cookies and flatbreads.
We walked though a hilltop park, where Högalidskyrkan, a 1900s church in Art Nouveau and National Romantic styles. The park was just a couple of blocks away from our hotel, which we hadn't known until the last day.
We visited another cheesemonger and got another Swedish cheese. Our cheese shopping was completed.
The last but not least thing to buy was cinnamon buns. Svedjan Bageri is a popular bakery and cafe, located very close to the hotel. The place always looked busy. Even though we passed by the bakery at least twice a day during the trip, we hadn't have a chance to visit them until the last day.
Swedish classic cinnamon buns and cardamon buns occupied most of the counter space. They must be the bakery's signature products. I picked up two cinnamon buns and a cardamon bun to take them home.
By the way, the bakery's name on their sign outside was written in Swedish and Japanese. Why?! I was very curious about it and asked a guy at the casher. He didn't know why. I asked him if they have a Japanese staff. He said no. Maybe he was a part-time or new staff and didn't know the answer. Even I felt he didn't know what I was talking about. Anyway, Solving the mystery would be on my to-do list if or when we come back to Stockholm. The trip was enjoyable enough to make me hope to return to the city sometimes in the future.
