Stopover in Stockholm - Highlights

As some of you know know from my blog (and other ways), there are now direct flights to to Stockholm for $620 USD return from Erbil! Not a bad deal... Never having been to Stockholm before, I decided to include a stopover of sorts on my way to Vancouver. (Note: If you are continuing on to London... it is actually cheaper to switch airlines as SAS and Virgin fly return to London cheaper than the extra $280 it would cost to continue on Viking. Viking's advantage? An extra 5 kgs of luggage)

"Why Stockholm?" many query. It seems strange that there exists a direct flight to and from Erbil! And no, I don't think it is because the Kurds are related to the Vikings... or that it was created just to faciliate easy travel for all the famous Kurds living in Sweden (among whom, I am only familiar with pop star Zakaria) . Or maybe it is loosely related to the latter. Wikipedia says that about 50-60 thousand Kurds live in Sweden and that there are areas where it is recognized as one of the parent languages. In addition, in many public places, Iraq Kurdistan (or North Iraq as it is called in Turkey) is referred to simply as "Kurdistan." However, that said, what I would like to share with you here is not the Kurdish connections with the city... But rather the things I enjoyed here that were unlike Erbil... I saw this as a transitional place- a place to relax and enjoy a few vacation-like moments before going to face the many tasks I had to do in Canada.

Day 1- Wining & Dining

I was so tired by the time I got to Sweden after having spent the whole night (not sleeping) in the Erbil airport, that I just wanted to go to my hotel and rest before dinner. The kind staff at the reception of my hotel in the old city of Gamla Stan made a reservation for me at Matbaren in the Grand Hotel. I crossed a little bridge to the Grand (Stockholm is made up of about 14 little islands -the downtown part all connected by bridges). Dinner was amazing! I started off with seafood! Herring arranged in a line next to neat line of halved new potatoes and topped with a line of roe. This was followed by tender slices of duck in a nest of ginger buckwheat soba . And of course I couldn't resist finishing off with coffee and the highly recommended dessert listed as "baked chocolate" which sat next to a tiny scoop of toffee ice cream sitting in a dollop of sour cream and decorated with a flag-like shard of carmelized sugar. The women sitting beside me were dining on equally magnificent-looking dishes and were friendly. Must remember to find their business cards and send an email.

After dinner, I wandered further North into Norrmalm, past the Hauftbahnhof (central train station) to the Nordic Sea Hotel (home of the Absolute Icebar-see below). After a couple of overly sweet Absolute cocktails served in blocks of ice, I headed back to Gamla Stan for a good night's sleep in my teeny tiny (but comfortable) room.

Day 2- Sightseeing

I started early on Day 2; walking back past the Grand and along the water to Djurgården, the island which is home to Grona Lund or Tivoli (a 100+ years old amusement park) along with a number of beautiful musems. Not having time for everything, I stopped at a few museums, entrance included on my handy Stockholm card, including the Vasamuseet which houses the world's only remaining 17th C ship... (pictures of the actual ship on Facebook). I also visited the SkansenOpen Air Museum where I had a hearty lunch of Swedish flat bread & butter, salad, new potatoes with a slice of sausage... and ale. (Yes, I was still all about the food on Day 2!)
After lunch, I walked to another island, Skepsholmen, to visit the Moderna Museet (think Tate Modern in London). By this time I had finished touring the galleries, I was pretty exhausted (my feet hurt) and hence went back to rest for dinner at Gondolen. Dinner (lucky to get in without reservation) was in a lovely room high about the city filled with locals out on dates. I opted for seared scallops followed by reindeer round steak with lingonberry gravy). Excellent! Note: reindeer more tender and less gamey than venison - which I don't like.

Day 3 - Shopping!

I started my day in the south of the city -SoFo (south of Folkungagatan) an area on Sodermalm Island. I started with a coffee at Rival Hotel (owned by members of ABBA - No ABBA memorabilia, but does have cool retro bar)! This hotel overlooks a little park where local people gather to play a game I was informed was called boules.

I then wandered around in the eclectic collection of funky boutiques located here until I had dropped a significant amount of money for very little merchandise.... which in the end, turned out to be not Swedish, but Danish. I then headed back down the street (pictured below) to the Stadsmuseet (one of Stockholms 80+ museums that happened to be FREE!). I then returned by subway to Gamla Stan for lunch and a quick tour of the Nobel Museum before finally going north to the central shopping district for window shopping (no more money) in Åhléns Department Store - the place where it seems all of Stockholm shops. I am afraid to say that I didn't have time to make it to Stockholm's IKEA- apparently the biggest in the world. Is this a good enough reason to return to Stockholm in future?

I covered even more distance than the half marathon I covered on Day 2, but saved my feet a little by using my Stockholm card not so much for Museum entrances as for mastering the public transportation system.

Unfortunately, that was all the time I had in Stockholm, but a coworker who went a month before I did and stayed much longer will hopefully be able to give me some tips for next time. He had enough time to leave me a postcard at my hotel! Sweet.