Extra day at Stockholm

Friday, July 26, 2013
Stockholm, Stockholm, Sweden
Today we decided to stay for an extra half day at Stockholm and take a later train to Copenhagen so that we could catch up on two more must-see sights: the daily military parade at the palace and the city hall. So, in the morning we all packed (Alekro is still with us, FYI), had a huge breakfast, checked out from the nice hotel and took our bags to the lockers at the central train station. Finding big enough locker for our luggage was a bit of a challenge, because smart-ass tourists with smaller bags put several small bags into a big locker to pay less and people with larger suitcases cannot find a free locker anymore.
Well, after a while we stored the luggage and walked to the old town again, roam the streets for a few more minutes, checked out the old square again and then walked to the place of the military parade/changing of the guard . The place was really crowded, as expected, but I managed to get fairly close to the edge of the crowd and some people left in the middle of the ceremony, so I ended up in the front row. The changing of the guard ceremony at Stockholm palace is a pompous and elaborate affair: there's a mounted band with drums and brass, marching troops of blue-clad soldiers with mirror helmets, lots of shouting, sabre waving and marching back and forth.
After all of that we walked to a fancy-shmancy department store called NK (Nordiska Kompaniet), which has a huge selection of Swedish and Finnish design articles.
We didn't have that much time, so we moved to the city hall with haste. There was an English-speaking tour in about 20 minutes after we arrived, so we chilled in the shade for a bit. The tour guide, a cute smiley Swedish girl, told us about the Nobel award banquet that is held annually at the city hall, about its unique architecture designed to imitate Italian palace but adapted for Swedish weather, and about all the different rooms that we walked through. The most impressive room is, of course, the Golden Room (see a photo here, my photos to follow).
When the tour was over we had a little time to wander through the gift shop and then had to go back to the train station to pick up our luggage and board the 4 o'clock train. Well, that's where it turned out that our train was running late and was expected at 5:50... After a while of running around and dealing with unhelpful rude train station workers we settled down in the main waiting hall to wait for the train. In the end, it was 3.5 hours late and we arrived to Copenhagen at 2:15 am instead of 10:30 pm. So now we are checked into the hotel, our room is very cool and futuristic but really tiny, especially for 3 people. Going to sleep soon and will start the city exploration in the afternoon tomorrow.
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Comments

Irina
2013-07-27

Golden Room is really a wonder, reminds me an amber room in the Winter Palace

Julia Sl.
2013-07-27

Most of all I like the changing of guards description at Stockholm Palace. Can imagine how beautiful this scene is!

2025-02-08

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