HIGHLIGHTS OF OUR SCANDINAVIA TOUR: STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN DAY 2

Hello my dear readers, trust you are all well.

Before I continue my narrative about our Scandinavian adventure, I would like to apologise to all of you who kindly left comments under my posts to which I didn't respond on time.  The reason being that someone left a very scary comment on one of my latest posts with the link to a site that sells guns and other deadly ammunition because I had never set the option for "Comments Moderation" which means that I have to manually approve or delete comments that ended in my Inbox, but I totally missed that part of the process and as a result all the comments were sitting there unread and unanswered.  Funny enough, I had been wondering lately as to why all of a sudden people stopped leaving their comments until I finally figured it out👍.  And now I am happy to report that all of your lovely comments have been read and answered and all the nasty ones have been reported as scam and deleted.  

Well, this problem is now sorted, so back to this post.

On the morning of our second day in Stockholm we met our local tour guide for the day, Victoria, who would take us on a tour around the historical part of the city and its main landmarks so we all hopped on a tour bus eager to see the top attractions such as Stockholm City Hall, the Strureplan Square and Parliament Building as well as modern side of the city centre.

Our first part of the tour ended in Old Town.  After that we proceeded on foot, with Victoria taking us on a walk through the medieval cobblestoned streets of Old Town (Gamla Stan), one of the largest and best-preserved medieval city centres in Europe. Gamla Stan is located in the middle of one of the 14 of  Stockholm's islands that are all linked by the bridges over the canals and waterways. It is dates back to the 13th century.  Today the Old Town makes for a  colourful labyrinth with beautifully preserved old buildings, The Royal Palace and gothic churches, not to mention all its cafes, bars, restaurants and shops

During our walking tour, we crossed a few waterways between different parts of Stockholm and ended up at the foot of one of the city's most iconic buildings and the heart of modern democracy, Stockholm City Hall.  This is the place where all the Nobel Prizes are awarded apart from the Peace Prize that is awarded in Oslo.

FYI, if you are planning a trip to Stockholm and want to see the inside of this magnificent building, be aware that the City Hall can only be visited with a tour guide.  

But before we stepped inside The City Hall, Victoria wanted to show us the outside walls of the buildings so we can admire its magnificent structure built using the prominent red bricks (around 8 million of them were used) and its surroundings including this beautifully landscaped and maintained park.

Afterwards, we followed her inside and found ourselves in the world renowned Blue Hall where the annual Nobel Prize award ceremonies and banquet are held annually on the 10th of December (the date of birth of Alfred Nobel) for Nobel laureates, Swedish Royal Family and around 1,300 distinguished guests.

The name of the room is misleading as despite its name, the Blue Hall, the walls are covered in red brick.  Originally the architect planned to cover them in blue glazed mosaic tiles but then fell in love with the bricks, and as they say "The rest is history".😊 

We left the Blue Hall and found ourselves in the Council Chamber with it is magnificent 19-meters high ceiling with its exposed wooden structure that was inspired by Viking-era longhouses and resembles an overturned Viking ship.

The next room that we walked into was called Prince's Gallery.  This spectacular reception room was named after Prince Eugen, King's Gustav V brother and a prominent artist whose beautiful murals decorated the walls of the Gallery.

The Prince's Gallery is renowned for its panoramic French-style windows offering views of the lake and Sodermalm island with its famous Munich brewery.

Our last stop was at Golden Hall named after the gold mosaics that cover its walls.  Measuring 44-meters in length, it is best know as the location for the famous ball that follows the annual Nobel Prize awards in the Blue Hall.

There is a time 45 minutes limit for each tour group.  It might feel a bit short but our tour guide timed it perfectly.  We felt very well informed and were able to see all the major attractions open to the public.

We left the City Hall thanking Victoria for her time with us.  Our tour host Zdenka was waiting outside to take us for a group lunch at one of the restaurants serving traditional Swedish food.  My husband and I couldn't resist ordering their traditional meat balls that were served with mash potato and red cabbage salad.  The whole dish was utterly delicious. 

After lunch it was our free time.  I kept tracking the delivery status of our parcel with my husband's phone in it but it was still in transit so we went for another long walk around the neighbourhood and came across the most amazing store called Svenskt Tenn which translates to Swedish Pewter, a renowned Stockholm based interior-design studio and home goods store.  Once I walked in there and saw all the amazing wares that they are selling, I knew I was in heaven.  You should go on-line and see for yourself, this place is sublime.  

Also, we still have not heard a word from a delivery company about the whereabouts of my husband's phone.  In case you are wondering what happened to his phone, he left it behind in the hotel in Helsinki 4 days ago.  You can read the full story here . It was nerve racking as we were leaving quite early the following morning, when at long last at around 6 pm we received a message that our parcel was delivered to the drop and pick-up point a few blocks away.  When the guy behind the counter handed over the package containing my husband's phone, I nearly screamed Hallelujah, the pressure of the last few days was finally lifted off my shoulders.   My husband and his precious phone have been re-united at long last and we will be able to enjoy our holidays once again👍!!!

On that happy note we returned to our hotel to get ready for the next day departure to our next destination, Copenhagen.

Until our next stop

Anna

xoxoxo

OUR SCANDINAVIAN ADVENTURE - PROLOGUE

 Hello my dear readers,

It has been a long time since I touch my blog or read anything posted by my fellow bloggers.  I have no excuses or explanation to offer, I just felt that I needed to withdraw.

After a while, it all started comings slowly back to me, I realised how much I missed blogging so I decided to give myself another chance so please bear with me.

As it stands at this very moment, I haven't been taken any fashion shoots to share with you, my dear readers but I do, however have some lovely memories about our trip to Scandinavia and would love to share them with you.

So, without further ado, let me begin.

Last time my husband I have travelled overseas was in 2019.  First, it was COVID and the whole world was in lockdown but even after the borders were opened, we didn't feel safe enough to travel long distance.  However, by the start of  2025, we ran out of excuses and decided that we are ready to face the world.  The question was, where would we go? 

 As you might know or not that in Australia if you work a full calendar year, you are entitled to 4 weeks of annual leave.  It sounds like a lot, but if you live as far we do and pay as much in airfares as we do, you try to cram as much in your itinerary as humanly possible to make your money and time worthwhile.

While we contemplated our next move, one day while doom scrolling through my FB feed, I saw pictures of my niece and her family travelling through Scandinavia.  And that gave us an idea of where we should go.  The question was how were we going to do it.

We didn't feel like doing places-hopping as we used to.  We were considering joining a tour but didn't want to be among a big bunch of strangers nor being on the bus for hours on end.  So I started to search the net and shortly came across a company called Nordic Visitor that offers all sorts of tours around Europe and Scandinavia.  After a comprehensive search of their website, we settled on a fourteen day tour called Highlights of Scandinavia and Baltic Cruise.  What attracted our attention was that this tour was catered for a small group of people (up to 20).  That and the variety of the modes of transportation which mostly involves ferries and trains, while the buses were only used for city tours and dropping or picking us up from the point of arrival or departure.  

Here is the map of the tour but if you like to know more about this tour in detail such as full detailed itinerary, tour highlights, main attractions, accommodation, transportation etc, just click on this link or ask me a question in the comments section.

It was only one thing left to do:  select a date, book and pay which we happily did.

We were extremely careful choosing the dates for our trip as we learned from our first trip to Europe

Many years ago we happened to be in Europe in late July - early August and were shocked by the multitude of people everywhere.  Since I had never been in Europe before, let alone in summer, I had no idea of how busy it could be.  On the other hand, it was our honeymoon so we didn't have much choice of when to go, didn't we?  Armed with this knowledge and personal experience, after careful consideration we came to a conclusion that we should book our journey towards the end of summer. The Nordic weather would still be reasonably warm and the crowds in Europe would be mostly dispersed by then.  And let me tell you, it was the best decision ever.

However, since I had 4 weeks of my annual holidays at my disposal, we decided to have a sojourn in London before embarking on our Scandinavian adventure but that is for the next post.

Until then,

Anna

xoxoxo