Holiday in Stockholm - June 2003
This is my travel report about our holiday to Sweden.
The photos are in the Gallery.
Saturday, 5th July:
We left Raahe at afternoon and drove to Oulu to Jani's parents in order to let Sara get used to her holiday place, as we were going to leave her to Jani's parents. The day was very warm and we were quite tired because we went shopping to Oulu Centrum by bike. The distance between grandparents and the Centrum is about 10 km, which is a quite good distance for bicycling. I found a new bath suit in addition to new sandals I had to buy as the former ones went broken just the same day. Luckily they went broken before our trip so I had time to buy new ones.
Sunday, 6th June:
We left Oulu by train at noon. I had made some sandwiches and we had lots of juice and water with us, because the day seemed to be as warm as Saturday. But after traveling for about two hours of the total of eight hours in train, it began to be cloudy and that was really a relief. We had novels with us, so we read them, took photos and chatted about light things while sitting in the train. We had to change train twice in order to get to Turku harbor. I have just driven through Turku, when my family lived in Sweden and we were coming to holiday to Finland, so it was nice to watch the views through the train window. The railway goes just by the old Turku castle, it was a beautiful sightseeing. Maybe some day I can spend time walking around in Turku; it would be nice to see what the castle walls have inside themselves.
Finally, after eight hours in train, we got our boarding cards to the Silja Line ferry - or should I say a small cruise ship. The terminal was loaded of people heading to a cruise or just traveling to Sweden like us. There were lots of Asian and Russian people, I suppose they were on holiday in Finland and wanted to see Sweden at the same journey. We had only backpacks and I had a small shoulder bag, where I carried tickets, maps and guidebook of Stockholm, plus money and the mobile phone. We had decided to take as small amount stuff as possible with us, to be able to walk freely around and not need to worry about storage of extra luggage.
We had taken an economy class cabin, which seemed to be still quite cozy. The bed was made of a sofa and there was a small toilet and shower, and also a TV, which was quite funny - would you spend time watching TV when you can walk around the ship, do tax free shopping and enjoy the archipelago views. The only we did was trying to find weather reports for the coming two days in Stockholm, but as there wasn't news at the moment, we shut the TV down.
Monday, 7th June:
The crossing takes about 11 hours, so we were in Stockholm early on Monday morning. First we had to find a place to eat some breakfast, as we didn't eat it in the ship. We walked to the subway station, I bought two 72-hours traveler's tickets with my rusty Swedish (I had exchanged some euros to crowns or "kronor" as it is written in Swedish). It was quite awkward - I understand most of what people talked in Swedish but it was very difficult to find right words as quick as a normal communication demands, so first I felt very impolite, when I just said "Here you are" and "Thank you" instead of small talk and longer explanations I'm used into. But I tried to smile and be polite otherwise, so I think they all understood I'm not impolite, just have difficult to talk foreign languages. ?
When we had gotten our tickets and bought some sandwiches and ice tea in a small shop, we just sat on a bench and watched people, cars, buses and trucks rushing by. We decided to walk to the old town and look around there for a while before heading to another part of Stockholm, Djurgården, where an Aquarium we wanted to see, is located.
The Stockholm town consists of several islands, so there are lots of bridges, canals and ships, from rowing boats to big cruising ships and sightseeing water buses. During our stay in Stockholm I loved most traveling with water buses from one island to another, and also sitting on the shore, on wharves, on stairs near the water and just watch boats and people go by. I just love the sea, in Raahe and in other places, too! ?
But back to the Old Town (Gamla Stan): It's something I haven't seen before. There were really small alleys between high medieval buildings, lots of small cafés, restaurants and shops on the meandering narrow streets and of course the Royal Palace with guards and churches. The Old Town was very unique and I was happy to finally see it. As I'm still a Swedish citizen, I'm a bit ashamed of the fact that I haven't been seeing these places earlier, but on the other hand, if I were younger when visiting the capital of Sweden, I might not had appreciated that at all.
We both took lots and lots of photos of the alleys and the old buildings as well as other views and interesting places we went into. We are planning to put them on the Internet, but I wish I would find some time to edit the photos and write good descriptions.
From the Old Town I bought some postcards and stamps and then we continued our walking to the city harbor, where I knew the waterbus would leave to Djurgården. It was refreshing to stand on the foredeck and feel the wind on the sun-burnt face and watch the contrasting views: green Djurgården, historical Old Town and busy and modern City.
In the Djurgården, which used to be the royal hunting field, are nowadays several museums, including the water museum Aquarium, where we continued. The first part of it was made to a rainforest, warm and wet atmosphere. There we stood in a hut, when it was raining like cats and dogs and thundering. The night felt endless, but finally the sun started to rise, slowly, waking up the forest and lighting the lianas and tree-trunks. We could admire the big fishes in the water just below us. There were birds singing and other animal's voices coming from a tape. I nearly forgot I was in Sweden, not in the jungle.
The second part of the Aquarium was the aquarium part itself. Big sharks swimming around in a big pool - too bad we missed their feeding time - and smaller fishes, seahorses and other sea-animals in separate pools or aquariums. And of course all kinds of plants were growing in the pools and made them look like real sea. Then there was a café and a souvenir shop, where we ate our box lunch at and wrote the postcards to our parents and siblings, and rested for a great while as we had been on our feet for several hours. Before leaving we also wondered the Nordic mountain landscape and freshwater fishes.
Next we took a waterbus to the Old Town, had a late lunch there and continued to the City to find our hotel. It was located near a big park where sun lovers had placed their blankets and occupied all chairs in the street café. The City is the heart of Stockholm, full of life, especially in the evenings. Though the nature is close here too, there are several parks in the City too, as well as water, boats and even fishermen.
We took a nap in the hotel and continued our walk through the City later on that day. When we were returning from our sightseeing tour, we realized we couldn't find any open shop to buy juice and something small to eat. As my stomach was somewhat upset, I didn't want to go in any restaurant as I was afraid I would have to leave the dinner untouched any moment. ?
Luckily we then found an opened store very close to the hotel. Exhausted and with aching feet we then took shower and went to bed. This night I wasn't as happy as earlier, as I missed Sara really badly. As this was just the second time away from her, it felt quite tough to be away for three nights. But I knew she had everything fine at grandparents, so I just tried to look at the positive sides of the holiday.
Tuesday, 8th June:
We woke up quite early and breakfasted at the hotel. My stomach was still feeling a bit odd, so I mainly sipped a little this and that. Usually I eat a decent breakfast and do well with that for half the day, so this was a pity I couldn't eat when there was a long day ahead.
We rested in the hotel and sorted out our belongings until it was time to check out, that was about at the noon. The day was starting sunny and warm, but for our luck there came some clouds to the sky, so it wasn't as warm as the previous day. We aren't people who love warm weather, +25-30 ºC is the maximum for us and +20 - +25 ºC starts to be quite warm already.
We did some shopping in the city, walking around in a couple of shopping centers, but feeling them a bit uncomfortable because of big backpacks and warm weather, plus the need to walk quite a lot from one place to another. Of course the subway was great, and we got quite used to it on the first day already, but even that didn't remove the need to walk. We talked that one day would be enough next time we would travel with backpacks somewhere.
After a couple of hours shopping, we headed once again to the Old Town. That had become our favorite, as it wasn't as hectic as the City was, and also because of the sailing ships and waterbuses were so beautiful to watch. I once again ordered hamburgers with my "swenglish" and then we were ready to take the sea bus to Djurgården, where we sat and enjoyed the summer day. We had still some hours left before the ship would leave back to Finland, but we weren't into the mood of more shopping. We had got enough on the morning. ?
The last hours we spent grocery shopping for the next day's train trip and learning how to recycle empty bottles in Sweden, and also took the last photos and sights to the beautiful city. The sky had become grey, as to say goodbye to us. At this moment I felt I could sit for the rest of my life on the shores.
In the ship which left at 9 pm Finnish time, we got a cabin on the 6th deck. The previous cabin had been on the 11th deck, but that was quite noisy as it was in the rear end of the ship. We made lots of tax free shopping, had something to eat and slept really, really well. Actually we had planned to spend some time in bar, have a drink or so, but we were so tired that the bar wasn't in the mind at the moment.
Wednesday, 9th June:
We were back in Turku harbor at 8 am and the train left 8:30, so luckily we didn't have to wait so long. Though, there was a train change in Tampere, where we had to wait for over an hour. Most of the nine-hour train trip went asleep. It was sweaty and full in the train, so I was really, really happy to get back to Oulu.
Sara had come to the station with Grandfather, but she had fallen asleep, so she was a bit confused when she woke up and saw Mom and Dad back again. But soon she was just as normal as earlier, and enjoyed sitting in my lap and holding me tight. I think it was as great for me to see Sara again as it was to her to see us again.
We gave our presents away, as the whole family had gathered to Jani's parents, and after a while continued by car back to Raahe at the evening. It was luxurious to get home again, but I bet we'll travel to Stockholm another time too! ?