I recently came back from a holiday in one of my
favourite cities– Stockholm. It was my second visit to Stockholm, so apart from
admiring Sweden’s beauty I
also had the chance to observe what has changed since my last visit there in 2009.
I spent my holiday in Sweden in the company of my boyfriend and our
Swedish friends, Anders and Viktoria, with whom we stayed during our trip. They
made this trip even more amazing. <3
From my point of view, Stockholm is an open-minded, calm city
with a lot of stuff to do, whatever your interests are. Our interests
included getting to know the gothic & alternative scene in the city - parties, concerts,
alternative clothes shops; vegetarian and vegan eating options; sightseeing and
getting to know some of the beautiful and unique places in the city.
Hopefully this journal entry could serve as a small city guide to you, if you go on a trip to Stockholm:)
Sightseeing
There is a plenty of lovely places to see in Stockholm,
so of course we did not manage to see all of them.
One of the places you definitely should not miss when
visiting Stockholm is Drottingholm. It is a wonderful castle, which must
have been inspired by Versailles, but you can find there also typically Swedish
elements and in addition even some Asian elements – there is a Chinese
Pavilion nearby the castle which is also worth seeing. Unfortunately, it is
forbidden to take pictures inside both Drottingholm and the Chinese Pavilion,
so I cannot show you photos of the interior, but here are some photos of
what the castle, pavilion look like from the outside.
If you want to see something typically Swedish, you should
visit Skansen. It is basically an open air museum where you can see traditional
Swedish houses, pottery, goldsmith’s and other kinds of workshops, you can buy something tasty in the
bakery and see what the buildings in a Swedish town might have looked like in
the past. There is also a lot of greenery here, a lot of gardens and
playgrounds, parks where you can have a picnic and you can also find a Zoo in
the Skansen as well as a smaller kind of zoo with Nordic animals and a place
with domestic animals such as rabbits or goats. I should mention that none of
these Zoos are a typical Zoo with small cages for the animals, the animals here
in Skansen have quite a lot of space here. This time we have not visited the
zoo with exotic animals only the one with Nordic animals, because there is
simply too much to see in Skansen to see everything at one time (unless
you spend the whole day there). Here are a few pictures from Skansen.
In Stockholm you will also find several truly interesting
museums, for example Nordiska Museet (The Nordic Museum) and Vasa Museet (The
Vasa Museum) - located close to each
other at Djurgården, Fotografiska Museet, Ostasiatiska Museet (Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities) and The Royal
Armoury located in the Royal Palace. We have visited Vasa Museet and
Fotografiska museet this time Here are a few pictures from the Vasa Museet
which houses a ship from the 17th century.
One of the most charming places in Stockholm would also be
Gamla Stan – the city centre.
It is the perfect place for an evening walk. Also you will
find the Royal Palace (Kungliga slottet) here, in the city centre. I personally like
Drottingholm much more, but if you happen to be around at noon, the ceremony of
changing the guards in front of the palace may be interesting to watch. Inside the castle there is the Royal Armoury, which is also worth seeing.
There is so much more to see in Stockholm, I could write
lots more about sightseeing, but instead I will show you a few more
pictures and then provide some information about shopping ;)
Shopping
Shopping and looking for alternative shops, Japanese and
Chinese shops and unique second hand shops in the places where I travel is
always a part of my travelling adventures :)
In comparison with 2009, now, in 2012 a couple of
alternative/goth shops unfortunately closed down – Black Moon (which used to be
in Gamla Stan), Saturn Return (also used to be located in Gamla Stan at Tyska
Brinken) - I think they are currently searching for a new location for the
shop and also Poizen, which used to be a very nice goth shop only kept the
name of the store, but they now sell souvenirs for the tourists instead of
alternative clothing and accesorries =/
So far, it may seem to you as if there were alternative/goth
shops left in Stockholm, but fortunately that’s not the case. You can still find some really nice alternative and
goth shops. They are located mainly at Drottninggatan – Rio (which could be perhaps
the cheapest of alternative shops in Stockholm), Rockzone (more rock and metal
oriented, but you might find something also there), C.U.M. Clubwear (which has
awesome and crazy party clothes), Beyond Retro (a unique vintage shop with lots
of glittery clothes). Some of them are also situated just around the corner
from Drottinggatan - at Gamla Brogatan: Blue Fox; Sko Uno – an alternative
shoes store; Mum’s Underwear – basically
underwear shop, but they also have some nice platform shoes and high heels.
I also
stumbled across 2 Chinese shops (there are probably much more but I was not
particularly looking for them). There is one called simply China at
Drottninggatan, where I bought a lovely black-red Chinese blouse and there is
Xin Xin at Gamla Brogatan.
Addresses:
Blue Fox
Gamla brogatan 27
111 20 Stockholm
Mum's Underwear
Gamla brogatan 25
111 22 Stockholm
Sko Uno
(alternative shoes store)
Gamla brogatan 34
Stockholm
Xin Xin
(chinese shop)
Gamla Brogatan
11120 Stockholm
Rio
Drottninggatan 28
11151 Stockholm
Rockzone
Drottninggatan 10
111 51 Stockholm
C.U.M. Clubwear
Drottninggatan 71b
Stockholm
China Store
Drottninggatan 88
11136 Stockholm
11136 Stockholm
Beyond Retro
Drottninggatan 77
111 60 Stockholm
Sound Pollution
(record store)
Stora Nygatan 18
111 27 Stockholm
(also has a selection of manga ^-^)
Västerlånggatan 48
Gamla stan
Stockholm
Rocktown
Västerlånggatan 42
Gamla stan
111 29 Stockholm
111 29 Stockholm
Shock
Beyond Retro
C.U.M. Clubwear
Sound Pollution
Mum's Underwear
Blue Fox
Clubs/Events
Unfortunately
we did not really get to explore the nightlife of Stockholm much, since there
were no events we were interested in during the short period when we stayed in
Sweden. There was a sort of summer break for most clubs and parties at
that time. But if you happen to be in Stockholm in August or later on there are
some interesting upcoming events – for example a Zombie Walk on 25th
August connected with an after party in Club BODY SHOP and also The Stockholm
Burlesque Festival on 12th and 13th October. There will be also probably other
events as well, also the club TechNoir and Club Bodytåget
organize events, though not regularly. Besides there are also fetish parties organized
by Dekadance (www.dekadance.se).
Links:
Tech Noir
http://www.tech-noir.org/
Club Body Shop
http://www.facebook.com/bodyshopSTHLM
Stockholm Burlesque Festival
http://www.stockholmburlesquefestival.com/
Eating
The last part of my entry about Stockholm is about eating possibilites.
Both me and my boyfriend being vegetarian, we are always
interested in veg-friendly and vegetarian restaurants when we travel. This time
we were accompanied by our Swedish friends who are vegan, and we also got to
know about some restaurants suitable for vegans.
While in Stockholm we ate twice in a vegetarian buffet
restaurant called Hermitage in Gamla
Stan. Most of the food in the bufet is vegan, the rest is vegetarian. The food
is tasty, i tis not over-prized and the other people eating in the restaurant
were friendly. So we enjoyed eating there!
Another good option for vegans and vegetarians is O'Mamma Mia. The
cuisine is mostly Italian but there are some Mexican meals as well. It is not
particularly a vegetarian restaurant, they also have meals with meat, but
there is a good choice of meals both for vegetarians and vegans. We tried
some of their vegan pizzas and
they were delicious.
There’s also a Chinese vegan restaurant in
Stockholm called Lao Wai, but they are closed during the summer
months, so we did not get a chance to eat there. Our friends Anders and
Viktoria recommend this restaurant.
Some other restaurants, where me and my
boyfriend enjoyed a meal during our stay in Stockholm are not specifically
vegetarian, but we could find there a good choice of vegetarian meals. We ate
for example at Pong Buffet . We also tried the Mongolian Barbecue Restaurant at
Drottinggatan. The restaurant has various buffets, so we ate something from the
Chinese and the Japanese buffet, we could not really choose much from the
Mongolian buffet though, because there was mostly meat.
A cheap option as for eating in Stockholm is Kungshallen – a
building which houses 15 restaurants – some of them are fast foods. There’s
cuisine from all around the world – Indian, Thai, Lebanese, Italian, Greek,
Swedish, etc. It’s quite crowded and noisy, but it’s cheap and the choice of
food is also good.
And last but not least when talking about
eating in Sweden, do not forget to try the yummy cinnamon cookies when you are
there. Some very delicious ones are sold for example in Skansen. :)
Addresses:
Hermitage
(vegetarian restaurant)
Stora Nygatan 11
Gamla Stan
Stockholm
(Chinese vegan restaurant)
Luntmakargatan 74
Stockholm
O'Mamma Mia
(vegan-friendly, Italian and Mexican cuisine)
Kungstensgatan 60
11329 Stockholm
I hope this journal entry provided some good/useful info about Stockholm =)
Have a nice day everyone! ^_^
