Finally the girls’ weekend was here. I could not wait to hop on the airplane and head off to Sweden to meet Jayne and Georgina. Dinners, Wines, Adventures was just around the corner.
Flying into Stockholm, Sweden was one of the coolest flight experiences I have had so far. You fly in low for about 20 minutes; you can see the frozen estuaries and the landscape up close. The Scandinavian coastal islands make a magnificent first experience of the eastern capital.
Landing at the airport I headed straight to find the girls, it was time to get the wine flowing. First point of call was to drop our bags at the hostel and head off to old town. Tickets from the airport to Stockholm cost around fifty-euro return, this was my first hint that Sweden was going to be expensive.
But hey it’s a girl’s weekend and money is meant to be spent.
Walking from the Generator Hostel to the Medieval Old Town took us about 30 minutes. Old Town is on one of Stockholm’s 14 Islands and dates back to the 13th Century. Most of the buildings there are form the 1700s-1800s and is one of the most expensive places to buy and live in Stockholm.
We explored the labyrinth of cobbled streets and alleyways on our way to the restaurant called Tradition, but before making it here we stopped in one of the many cafes and purchased a bottle of Rose. At Tradition we tried some tradition Swedish food. I had some potato dumplings with fried pork, browned butter and lingon berries, Delicious.
Skansen
The girls had done some research before and Jayne suggested we head to the open island museum the next day. Skansen is situated on the island of Djurgården. This was an amazing experience, after hiking all through the city, having breakfast and catching the ferry from Slussen we ended up at island of the museum around 11:30am.
Skansen was founded by Artur Hazelius in 1891 and his aim of the museum was to bring the traditional rural culture to life by exhibiting furnished houses and farmsteads, cultivated plots and gardens and both domestic and wild animals. At Skansen there are both domestic and wild Nordic animals such as bears, wolves and lynx.
My favourite part was seeing the Wolves, Lynx and Red Foxes, but we also saw many more animals such as the Otter, Elk, Reindeer, Grey Seal, Common Seal, Wild Boar, European Bison, Great Grey Owl and Eagle Owl. Unfortunately we did not see the Wolverine (Was no where to be found) and the Scandinavian Brown Bear (Because he was in hibernation).
Food Time!
Food was always on our minds, breakfast and dinners were essential and Stockholm is a foodies dream. Modern hip bars, cafes and restaurants are everywhere and to make a choice of what to eat was hard. Traditional Swedish the first night, Thai the second and burgers at the hostel the last night (Only because we were too tired after doing roughly 24,000 steps per day) were all delicious meals. Breakfasts were also scrumptious and we visited many yummy cafes for coffees and cakes. We were never hungry and wine-o’clock was a great way to relax in the afternoons.
Coming to the end of our trip we had reserved one day for a free city tour through old town to get some history of Stockholm. Parts of the tour we did not keep up because we were taking photos of all the amazing sights. Before the afternoon tour though we had spent the morning shopping. Drottninggatan is full of small boutique shops and also the big brand stores such as H&M and Zara. You can also find some amazing Swedish furniture on these streets; unfortunately my backpack was not big enough to take some of these pieces home.
The last day we said our goodbyes and flew out of Sweden back to London Town and Vienna. After my adventure to Sweden I will definitely be heading off to see some more Scandinavian countries and hopefully back one day to see the northern lights.