UK & Europe '24 Day 12 - Hello Stockholm!

Another very early rise this morning, which is the norm for travel days. Up at 5:15 and ready to hit the road well before our Uber ride arrived. Gateaux came out to wave us off. We were leaving a clear, sunny day behind in Amsterdam, not knowing exactly what we would fly into in Sweden.There were a couple of moments on the freeway I thought we were gong to get collected by a truck that started moving into our lane, the a Mercedes that swept into our lane with not much room to spare, but we made it to terminal 1 unscathed, grabbed a coffee and marched down to gate C16. For a city no bigger than Adelaide, Schiphol airport is unbelievably big, with twice as many services as Sydney airport (which services twice as many as Adelaide). Los and lots of people, which is consistent with our experience of Europe. 

You know I listened to ABBA on the way over, so I won't pretend I didn't. What I will say is that I hit play on the Live at Wembley album on the runway in Shiphol and its duration was the same as the flight duration to Arlanda sirport, so the encore, Waterloo, was playing as we touched down. Also, let's have a shout out to the infant in the seats in front of us, less than 52 weeks old, who has already flown 27 times. More flights than I've had in 52 years. Anyhow, we played the "how do we get out of the airport" game for significantly less time than the "how do we exit the station" game in Amsterdam and headed downstairs to the Arlanda express. The underground station is an impressive excavation and if I didn't know better, I would have thought the black tunnel was made from coal. The Arlanda express is very comfy. More comfortable than the Eurostar and certainly more comfortable than any airline seat I've ever travelled in. The train cruised along at 186 km/h and had us in Stockholm within 20 minutes.

Stockholm Central station is HUGE, and very nicely set out with food vendors dotted throughout the concourse. today wasn't the day to be paying by eft since the internet was down in the station which, luckily for us, resulted in free locker hire for our bags while we had a bit of a wander while waiting for check-in.

Stockholm is a big city, but not frenetic like London or the smaller Amsterdam. There's more of a sense of space and it feels a bit more laid back on first impression. It reminded me a lot of Sydney in the 1980's, but that is probably mostly because of the climate we walked out into. It was warm and quite humid, like late spring/early summer in Sydney. It had a real Christmas School Holidays feel to it. We walked up the street and found a little park with masses of rhododendron flowers in bloom and did what seems to be our thing over here - laid back on the lawn, but in the shade this time because it was quite hot. 

Sufficiently rested, we wandered down to the water and followed the path to Stockholm City Hall, which was built between 1911 and 1923. The size of this building is awe-inspiring. Grand archways and painted ceilings, fountains and a view to the islands of Riddarholmen and Södermalm are descriptors that cannot begin to articulate the sheer size and imposing nature of this building. Its 106 metre tower is like nothing I've ever seen. It has the grandeur of an old monastery, but was built for a completely different purpose. 

This is going to be an interesting city to explore, and we've plotted out our days so as not to miss out on what we want to see. Yes, I've already booked the ABBA Museum, because nobody needs to experience me having missed out by not booking, thanks for asking! It's been a pretty easy afternoon. Another park, more lolling about, a quick trip to the supermarket which, this time, is a quick walk around the corner, not a 1.5 km bike ride and then a wander down the street for some food. 

The apartment here is comfy, although the view isn't what we became accustomed to in Amsterdam.

Swedish meatballs for dinner, except here they're called meatballs. It wasn't unlike what you'd get from Ikea, which caused Chris to question the authenticity of the meal as a national dish, but I assured him the Swedes were unlikely to list it on the menu to troll international visitors.

It's 9:45 pm, has cooled down nicely, and doesn't look like getting dark any time soon. The novel observations of a tourist, no?