Escaping to the nation’s capital for the weekend, we were greeted by sunny weather and the most gorgeous Autumn colors. It’s nice visiting a city like Stockholm in the Fall season. With so much nature around the city, it’s so picturesque and makes for some beautiful photos.
This was our very first visit to Stockholm which is just a 3 hr train ride away from ‘Goteborg C’ (or Goteborg Central station). The scenery along the way included green pastures with grazing animals and a few lakes.
Stockholm feels like a more proper city compared to Goteborg, not just because of the subway system but there’s more traffic, more people and the various areas in the city are farther apart. It may have just been because it was sunny and a weekend, but it was also pretty lively. Goteborg seems so quiet in comparison.
Snowboarding in the city!
As we were walking around, we heard music and decided to check what was going on. Turns out it was some sort of snowboarding competition in the city centre.
We did a lot of good walking while we were there. It’s an easy city to get around in with all of the walking paths through city parks, pedestrian only streets and paths along the waterfront.
Like other cities in Europe, Stockholm also has many good biking paths. Walking through the shopping areas felt very international. We almost forgot we were in Sweden.
Spotted this busy weekend market
We also walked around Skeppsholmen, one of the islands of Stockholm. There was an old fortress on this island and it offers some beautiful views of the city.
This little guy swam really close and even hissed at a dog that approached.
Ostermalm and along the waterfront, and the Royal Palace…
Other areas we visited were Old Town or Gamla Stan and Sodermalm (where we ate Pho – Pho blog)
One activity I highly recommend is a visit to Vasa Museum. Vasa Museum or Vasa Museet, houses the salvaged and reconstructed vessel, the Vasa, which sank on her maiden voyage just off Stockholm. The ship was amazing!! There’s a free movie you can watch that gives the visitor some background on the ship. We joined a free tour in English afterwards and the tour guide took us around the ship and told us some stories and facts about the Vasa.
Vasa Museum is located on Djurgarden which is an island that has a little amusement park, a few other museums as well as a huge park that we walked around in after our visit to the museum.
We didn’t get to visit Drottningholm which was also recommended to me and there is a Free tour Stockholm free walking tour that is highly reviewed, for the city or old town. The tour we wanted to do was in the middle of the day and we decided to take our time at Vasa museum instead of rushing back for the tour.
There was just too much too see in such a short time. We plan to visit again and of course we have to do another trip when it’s warmer 🙂
Note: Although it may seem like it’s the same price, taking the train is the better option. Arlanda Airport is a 30 min bus ride from the city centre. We took the train to Stockholm decided to fly back but our flight ended up delayed by 2 hours. Stockholm to Gothenburg is only a 45min flight. We ended up rushing when we could have spent that extra time enjoying the city. Definitely taking the train both ways next time 🙂
Debuggirl's blog: Travel, Food & Adventure (in Sweden and beyond!) 