We awoke to another lovely day, albeit a little cooler than
yesterday. After breakfast we
crossed the nearby bridge and walked past the palace and up the hill to Gamla
Stan, literally the “old town.”
The town dates back to the 13th century and its cobblestoned,
winding streets reminded us of other medieval towns we’ve visited. The architecture of some of the
buildings looked like that we’ve seen in German towns. The main streets are full of shops
selling the usual touristy trinkets, but with a Nordic and Viking
approach. There were plenty of
horned helmets and Viking swords for sale. We passed one
young American tour group all of whom were wearing matching horned
helmets.
 |
| A Royal Palace Guard - no horns just a spike |
 |
| Germanic style architecture around the main square |
 |
| Even in the midst of this medieval stuff there'e room for 7-Eleven |
We wandered for a while and then stopped for lunch at a
place serving Swedish dishes. That
somehow seemed more appropriate than the sushi, taco or Italian cafes we
passed. We tried fried herring
which was surprisingly good. I
think we’ve now had herring almost every way it can be cooked between lunch
today and the smorgasbord last night.
After lunch we went back to a store we’d stopped by earlier that sells
Swedish art crystal. We bought
something to remind us of our trip here and are having it shipped home. It’s a
piece by an artist named Ludvig
Löfgren, a disciple of Mats
Jonasson, a master art glass sculptor and painter. Hopefully we’ll have a lovely place to
hang it in our newly painted great room, keeping room and kitchen. We are accumulating a very eclectic
collection of stuff. We hope
someone else will appreciate it in the future as much as we do.
 |
| Crystal, handpainted eagle on final approach |
After a bit more wandering to the tune of 3 miles we headed
back “home” to our hotel for a bit of a rest. The Bangladesh delegation is still in great evidence with
their assorted cars and security.
They’ll probably be leaving tomorrow at the same time as we do, so there
will be a great crush of people at the front desk. I forgot to write about a rather funny tidbit of trivia I
heard yesterday. The Grand Hotel
opened in 1874 and when it did, it was the first hotel in Europe to change
sheets on the beds in between guests!
Tonight for dinner the concierge was unable to get us seats
in the hotel’s Michelin Star restaurant (guess we’ll have to try it next
time). Instead he got us a reservation
at a place called Michelle van der Milles. From his description we thought we were going to some kind
of place with a tasting menu that would be a little quiet and relaxing. Not so! We were in a relatively small place with tiny tables, loud
techno music which all sounded the same and lots of groups of very young and
hip Swedes of some gender. We were
by far the oldest people in there and the only tourists for sure. I think that’s why the Concierge made
the reservation. The food was
delicious and unusual and the people watching was fantastic. Al and I have both noticed that at
every bar or restaurant we’ve gone to there are lots of girl groups, a few male
groups, and not many mixed groups.
We wonder why.
Anyway we had a very nice meal and the walked home. When you walk here you need to look out
for bicyclists. There are bike
lines on parts of the sidewalks and they’d just as soon run you down than not.
Tomorrow around 1 PM a car will take us to our ship and
we’ll be off. The first five days
we’re onboard are all port days so I don’t know how much time we’ll have for
corresponding. I looked at ship
schedules and saw that on at least the first day we’re in St. Petersburg we’ll be there with several other ships,
two of which carry 3000+ passengers.
The crowds will be enormous.
Hopefully, we’ll be flexible enough to miss some of the crush since we
have a tour for just the two of us.
It’s late and I need to recharge my batteries, so I’ll try
to be back tomorrow.
No comments:
Post a Comment