As promised, the upcoming 4 entries will be my recent trip to Stockholm.
My friend, Solène had wanted to go somewhere for the Easter break. Coz we've got 5 days of break during this time. It will be a shame if we just stayed in Denmark instead of exploring other places outside of Denmark. hahaha .... coz having been here for close to 7 months, most of the important sights on 'Zealand', I've visited them.... I had wanted to travel to Oslo and Stockholm during these 5 days, but Solène was tight on money, so we decided to just head to Stockholm.
Our flight was departing from Copenhagen airport at 7am. Hence I had to wake up around 2.30am! Yup! coz I wanted to prepare my sandwiches and get ready to leave the place. Furthermore I had to catch the nightbus, which will bring me to Nørreport station and from there I need to take the metro to the airport. For the nightbus, the bus comes like every 1/2hr. I had to take the 3.57am bus otherwise I'll not make it for 5am at the airport! Yup! i did finally reach the airport at 4.55am! after we checked-in, I ate 1 of my sandwiches and 1 piece of the cake that I had packed. As this is a rather budget trip, we brought some food and instant noodles. Coz people had told us that it will be expensive... anyway, its better to be safe and sorry... and furthermore, i did not change any Swedish kroners! Yup! so smart of me right? hahaha.... I departed Copenhagen with only 350 SEK in my wallet and my credit cards. I could not find any ATMs in the CPH airport! Hiaz... the problem with Danes is they like to go 'cash-less' so it maybe a little difficult to find ATMs. I decided that I'll use my card to withdraw in Stockholm then.... no choice... even though i maybe charged some form of service charge.... otherwise i would not have sufficient money for the 4 days there.
We reached Arlanda Airport at about 8am. Yeah! its only about 1hr of flight from CPH to Stockholm. However, to get to the city center, we need to take the bus or train. And we know that if we take the Arlanda Express, it will cost us a bomb! yeah its about 200 SEK for just 1 way! and there is the normal train and we had no idea how much that is. Anyway we asked at the information counter. The person was really nice, he explained to us if we take the normal train is 4 clips and that will be 100 SEK per person and the train ride is about 1hr. If we take the shuttle bus its 99 SEK for 30min! of course we bought the coach ticket.
On our way to Stockholm city center
Once we reached Stockholm central, we found our way to the hostel that we're staying. Solène had booked 2 beds in a 8 bedder female dorm in this hostel. By the way, the hostel that we stayed in is: City Backpackers.
Hostel: City Backpackers
Address: Upplandsgatan 2, 111 23 Stockholm, Sweden
Lobby of City Backpackers hostel
My friend, Solène sitting in the lobby
Its not cheap to stay in Stockholm. Coz even though its a hostel, we each had to pay 935 SEK for a bed in a dorm! Really expensive. Its like the money i recenlt withdrew, almost all had gone... and i was left with only 350SEK. hiaz... Solène was wose off than me, she withdrew 1000 SEK and left with only 65 SEK.
The 8 bedder female dorm. My bed is the one with my iconic red jacket hanging on the railings
i must say that I'm pretty impressed with this hostel. Its my 1st time staying in a hostels and a dorm with other strangers. The hostel was nicely decorated... sort of give u a Bohemian feeling. The beds were really clean, bed sheets too were also clean! the toilets were also very clean! So i'm quite impressed! we found that there was a well equipped kitchen, so we can do cooking here.... and this will definitely help us to save money here! They even provided free pasta! Yup! pene was provided and there was a fidge with leftovers from occupants. As our beds in the room were being cleaned, we could only get our beds at 2pm. So we decided to walk around before heading back at 2pm to get to our beds. We decided to walk along Drottninggatan. And this is a very busy shopping street. there were many shops selling souvenirs, clothes, accessories etc. And because we were still early, most of the shops were starting to open. Initially we thought that all the shops will be closed. Coz it was sort of a public holiday in Denmark and we thought that is would be same for Sweden too. But shops were open & business was in progress! we were really surprised!
Drottinggatan street with all the shops
A real man posing as a statue
We soon found ourselves in Helgeandsholmen, where the government building, Riksdag building and Museum of Mediveal Stockholm were.
The Riksdag building on Helgeandsholmen
The both of us capturing a self picture in front of the Riksdag building
Crossing the next bridge and we'll be in Gamla Stan
The huge pile of snow in the cannel on 1 side of the bridge
Walking south somemore, we come to Gamla Stan. And the 1st building we saw was the Royal Palace of Stockholm. i must say that Gamla Stan is a very nice town! I really like it. This town dates back to the 13th Century. With the cobbled pathways and narrow alleys, sort of give you the feeling of being in a whole new world, era! Back to the Royal Palace, everyday at a particular time, there will be changing of guards. And the tourists are allowed to view the change over duty and take pictures. So that day, the changing of duty was at 12.15pm. As there was still time to 12.15pm, we walked and explored Gamla Stan.
Stockholm's old Royal Palace
Swedish guard on duty
Scenic view on 1 side of the palace
hahaha... this is a male public toilet! this man was exiting from the toilet after doing his 'business'. =P
We found ourselves in the scenic large square of Gamla Stan, Stortorget. And surrounding that square are the iconic colourful houses of Gamla Stan and the Nobel museum! I was excited to see the Nobel museum! hahaha.... we did enter it, but we did not pay to view the exhibition. Coz i read from somewhere that the exhibits were not that fantastic. So after snapping pictures and walking a little more around Gamla Stan, it was time for the change of guard duty. Goodness! There were lots of people already standing there to get a good view of the change over duty! and everyone had their cameras up snapping pictures. Hmmm.... for me, its sort of like the National Day parade that takes place in S'pore's National Day celebration. hahaha... only that in this change over duty they were speaking in Swedish. But it was interesting. =D
Iconic colourful houses in Stortorget
Nobel museum
Cobbeled pathways of Gamla Stan. The old buildings are now filled with shops, cafes, boutiques.
Continuing on in the main shopping street in Gamla Stan
One of the many Chocolatiers i saw in Gamla Stan. The triangular packages are chocolate truffles.
German Church in Gamla Stan
One of the many figurines in Gamla Stan. I had this taken coz the 'old lady' was dressed in a colourful skirt. =P
After that, we decided to head back to the hostel to 'chop' our beds. and also to cook our instant noodles for lunch. Coz by now, we've a rough guage of the amount for a meal in the eateries in Stockholm. I must say that its slightly cheaper than Copenhagen. And this the both of us were surprised. hahaha.... but because we did not have much cash with us, we had to budget well.
There were only the upper deck beds available. So Solène and me each took 1 bed. Then we headed to the kitchen to cook our lunch and eat a little of the cake i brought. After lunch we decided to head to another part of Stockholm. We went to Skeppsholmen and Kastellholmen. To get to these 2 places, we need to cross a very iconic bridge of Stockholm. It the bridge with the gilded gold crowns! initially i thought this bridge has lots of gold crowns, but was hugely disappointed where there were only 2 crowns on the bridge; 1 on each side.
This is Kungsträgården. I think during winter is where people will come here to ice-skate
River scene of Stockholm. Boats are docked in the river sides.
Gilded gold crown on the bridge that links Norrmalm with Skeppsholmen
me & the gold crown
People fishing despite the cold
hahaha.... then we walked to Kastellholmen. And its here that we saw something interesting in the waters. When we saw from the sides, i thought that it looked like the remains of a whale's head, but it was only when i climbed down to the shores and saw it in front of me that it came upon me that I was looking at the remains of a ship! yup! but it was interesting. After we walked around that island, we walked back to Skeppsholmen and strolled through the park in front of the Moderna Musset. And this park had some very weird but colourful sculptures/statues.
Stockholm. Really beautiful with the clear & blue skies
Boats stuck in the frozen waters
Looks like a whale's mouth/head right?
This is how it looks like when u look at it in front of you. Yup! remains of a ship
weird colourful sculptures/statues in the park for modern art
After that, we headed back to the mainland and went to a supermarket to get our groceries. Coz we've decided to cook pasta for dinner that night and we'll eat bread and sandwiches for tomorrow's breakfast and lunch. By doing this we can cut cost! In fact i thought maybe we will be the only ones doing the cooking in such form.... hahaha... apparently most of the occupants in the hostels cook their dinner too! so the kitchen was a little crowded when we were there cooking and eating and it got pretty noisy as the night passed. Most of them were definitely younger than us... and they were into drinking beers and other forms of alchols. The both of us have already passed that stage in our lives.... and we're not into drinking and getting wasted.
Later, we cleaned up, did our washing up had a bit of cake then we call it a night. Coz tomorrow we'll have quite a bit of walking to do. Coz we'll be going to another part of the city to explore! Till tomorrow! =D
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