We slept a solid 9 hours, maybe the days and days of walking around are starting to catch up with us!
Our hotel breakfast was one of the better ones of this trip, with a good layout that is designed to handle a lot of people. We enjoyed eating our eggs, fruits and yogurt at a relaxing pace, along with some unusual juices that really hit the spot.
We started that day by heading on foot across town to the Vasa museum. As we crossed town we had a lot more chances to see all the beautiful buildings, especially on the waterfront. The air was cool and the weather was beautiful – hard to imagine what kind of humid hell people were going through back in Japan.
There were not so many people at the museum as we arrived just at the opening time, and we used online tickets to enter. The Vasa museum centrally displays the 64 gun warship that sank on her maiden voyage in 1628. It was salvaged and restored, and the museum is beautifully designed to give you a feel for life on the ship, and see all the details that went into building it. Just looking through had me thinking of Master & Commander.
Once we finished with the museum we walked around the area to take pictures, especially of the compelling buildings. There were plenty of trees and it was a very natural setting.
From there we set out in another direction and found ourselves at the Ostermalm’s Food Hall, which was our kind of place. Full of local ingredients, meat, fish and vegetables, this was a gourmet heaven. Luckily we arrived with full bellies otherwise we’d have maxed out our credit cards.
In a department store nearby we browsed through all the candies looking for souvenirs for our students back in Japan. There were endless varieties of Swedish black salted licorice (an acquired taste) but also some more palatable options so we stocked up there. I was surprised to see so many candies from other Scandinavian countries – not so many local to Sweden.
We dropped off our souvenirs back at our hotel and then went to lunch at Bistro Bestick. It was quite close and promised traditional Swedish food. The staff were curious about Kuniko, and surprised that I spoke Japanese. At first they spoke to me in Swedish so I guess I blended in.
We started with bubbles and then had a great lunch: Reindeer meatballs, and some cured salmon in sauce with potatoes, egg and salmon roe. It was a great meal, and we were really getting our meatball cravings satisfied.
Off we went to see the Parliament House, and there were more tourists out on the streets by now. We walked through the grounds of the Parliament House and back behind to the Royal Palace, half of which was under renovations. Nearby was a culture festival with live music, and we saw many food trucks lined up. I noticed that all their menus and signs were only in Swedish, so meant for locals, not us. There was a fair amount of security guards walking around the area, too.
At Kuniko’s request we visited the Nobel Prize museum, and it was worth the stop. The exhibits showed a background of the winners, and sometimes some personal memorabilia indicating the Eureka! moment that helped them make the connections that earned them the prize. Some were pretty odd – a jar of a favorite kind of peanut butter, for example. Overhead there was an automated track system with little runners that carried a banner for each of the Nobel prize winners. Each one had a chance in rotation to go around the room introducing the winner. It was unique and fun to watch.
Finally we walked back to the hotel for a little rest and to do some journaling. Mostly we hung out in the hotel bar to await the cleaning of our room, and we played shuffleboard a few times, too. Eventually our room was cleaned so we went up for a short nap to build up energy for the evening.
For dinner we walked to Knut Upplandsgatan, and sat outside the restaurant in the beautiful weather. Some great dishes here, including Plate from the North: a sampler of moose sausage, vasterbotten cheese, smoked deer heart (yum!), reindeer steak, prosciutto cured with pine needles (excellent!). Also crayfish tails on dark rye with radishes and shoestring potatoes. We were also served spiced bread and butter mixed with whey.
When we first arrived one person set us up at the table, and while we talked another guy suddenly came up with a notebook and said hello, and I thought that it was somebody looking to conduct a survey. But it turned out that it was our waiter, and he had been just a bit tentative (perhaps wondering what language to open with). Later he said that their sous chef is from Japan, but unfortunately we didn’t get to meet them. With dinner we had a nice South African Cabernet Sauvignon – we ought to go visit there sometime!
After dinner we got some lingonberry caramels that were excellent – unfortunately we couldn’t find them in stores anywhere. But we did more walking around to explore new areas. We did a little more shopping at an upscale supermarket, and Kuniko bought salmiak tablets for her coworker. We walked to a nearby church (Gustaf Vasa), and then saw a metro station and on a lark bought tickets. There was no machine, but a very nice lady sold us tickets from a window, and I was struck again about how nice everyone was to us on this trip.
As we approached the gate to the station with our tickets a bunch of police were marching a young woman away, don’t know what was going on there.
We traveled from that station, Odenplan, to old town Gamala Stan. The train ride was smooth and in a modern design, but not really that special. But at least we had a chance to ride a train in every country on this trip.
We walked around old town again, this time there were fewer tourists as the tours were finished and it was dinner hour. Slowly we worked our way back towards the central area, but sat on the waterfront a bit. A young family were fishing for their dinner – the wife and husband both had poles while a little kid played nearby, crying quite loudly. Another fisherman thought he had something, but he only pulled up seaweed.
We went to Radisson Blu’s bar for a final cocktail, with the bartender winking (a little excessively) to each customer before making the drinks. Kuniko had a tropical twist which was tasty but the egg white merengue was a little too sweet. My drink was a ginger/basil/cucumber refresher that was very nicely made.
Finally we went back to our room and crashed out, the end of an active day of sightseeing and eating.
