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By Debra C. Argen
Stockholm, Sweden
In our previous edition, I had written about Kalmar, Sweden and the Glass District. This month, I continue writing about Sweden, this time from Stockholm. Edward F. Nesta and I took the train from Kalmar to Stockholm, in June 2004, and were enchanted with the architecture, people, museums and restaurants in Stockholm. Sofia Nilsson, our guide, met us at the train station, to provide us with a quick city tour to familiarize us with this fabled city with the largest Royal Palace in Europe.
Stockholm is made up of 14 islands, connected by 54 bridges. We stayed at the Victory Hotel www.victory-hotel.se Lilla Nygatan 5, 111 28 Stockholm, a Relais & Chateaux hotel, a charming 45-room hotel perfectly located in Gamla Stan (the Old Town), within walking distance of the Royal Palace, museums, shops and restaurants. (Please read our in-depth article on the Victory Hotel in the Hotels & Resorts section.)
 We explored every nook and cranny of Stockholm’s cobblestone streets, and even found the Jarnpojke, Liss Eriksson’s 1919 Iron Boy sculpture. It is the smallest statue in Sweden, and probably the most beloved. People leave small offerings of coins or candy, and rub the statue for luck to return to Sweden. Saturday is candy day for children in Sweden, and hence since the statue is a small boy, he too, receives candy. Eager to return to this beautiful country, we rubbed Jarnpojke and left him some US coins and candy.  We walked past a Rune stone dating back to Viking times in Gamla Stan, and made a brief stop at the Ice Gallery www.ice-gallery.com on Osterlanggtan to see a preview of the Ice Hotel. Guests are given heavy parkas and mittens to enter the Ice Gallery, and James and Tom, 2 young men visiting from London, were pleased to pose in their ice-gear for the magazine. We continued with a tour of Svenskt Tenn, www.svenskttenn.se founded in 1924 by pewter designer, Estrid Ericsson. Today Svenskt Tenn is owned by a foundation which promotes scientific and medical research and cultural values in Swedish interior-design tradition. Their contemporary designs exemplify Swedish Classics in their furniture, pewter, and textiles.
We also visited a number of museums, including The Vasa Museum www.vasamuseet.se to see the warship the Vasa that sunk on its maiden voyage in 1628, and was raised in 1961, The Treasury at the Royal Palace of Stockholm to see the Crown Jewels, the Nobel Museum www.nobel.se/nobelmuseum to see their exhibition marking the 100th anniversary of the Nobel Prize, the Livrustkammaren (the Royal Armory) www.livrustkammaren.se to see their fascinating collection of armory and royal clothing, the Stadshuset (City Hall) www.stockholm.se/cityhall, where in addition to holding Saturday afternoon weddings, it is also where the Nobel Banquet is held each year in the Blue Hall, which is not really blue at all, and the Golden Hall whose walls are covered in approximately 18.6 million pieces of gold-leaf mosaics, and we also visited the Stadsmuseum (Stockholm City Museum) www.stadsmuseum.stockholm.se. Christian Buchberger B.A. the Associate Curator provided us with a personal tour of The Royal Palace and the Royal Apartments, engaging us with interesting anecdotes along the way.
We visited the Riddarholm Church, which is known as the burial place for the Swedish kings.
The walls are covered with the coats of arms of the Knights of the Seraphim Order, which show the date the knight received the order and his date of death. When a knight dies, they ring the bells of the Riddarholm Church, which are known as the Seraphim chimes.
W e took a short ferry ride to the island, Skansen, www.skansen.se, the first open-air museum created in 1891. The park is a wonderful collection of buildings depicting daily living from different periods of time. Among the many buildings, there is a working bakery from the 1870’s, where visitors can purchase freshly baked breads, traditional buns and pastries, where we stopped to sample a few of their goodies; a pharmacy dating to the later half of the 18th century, and the allotment huts of 1920’s where working-class families during the war years grew their own vegetables due to shortages of food. We also had a very nice lunch in the Skansen restaurant. While we were on the island, we also visited Prince Eugen’s Waldemarsudde www.waldemarsudde.com, where we toured the grounds as well as his mansion built in 1903 – 1905, and saw his enormous studio where this extremely talented prince painted.
Sweden has 24,000 islands in its archipelago, so we decided to take a ferry and do a little exploring. We went to the island of Grinda, a nature preserve where the only people that are allowed to live there permanently are Jan Pfister and Annika Hanson of Grinda Wärdshus, www.grindawardshus.se, and their 3½ year old son. Located 40 minutes from Sweden by car ferry, the hotel is open year-round. The Hotel was started 10 years ago, and there are 10 rooms in the Main House, as well as four other houses with 8 guestrooms in each. There is a small grocery store, a little bar by the harbor where you can savor a drink or espresso as well as enjoy some snacks, and if you do not have your own boat,  you can rent kayaks, play boules, go trekking or take nature walks past the sheep. They also have a very good restaurant, which was voted “the best kitchen in the archipelago.”
Since it was summer, we had a typical mid-summer festival complete with head wreaths, and midsummer fare. Jan and Annika taught us to make our own wreaths using birch leaves, and seven different types of flowers. Typically, girls would pick flowers at 10 o’clock in the morning and make their wreaths, and then would dance around the pole in the afternoon, with a barbecue in the evening. After the festival, the girls would put their wreaths under their pillows to dream of the man they would marry. Since we  were visiting Grinda with several of our friends, we all decided to create and wear wreaths, and what a sight we were as we posed next to the sheep in the pasture. We dined al fresco, still wearing our wreaths of course, and since there was a slight chill in the air, our waiter Henrik Rosvall gave us fleece lap robes to keep us cozy. We began with potatoes, pickled Baltic Matjes herring and Vasterboten cheese with chopped red onions, carrots, sour cream, and served with crisp breads, accompanied by a Peter Lehmann The Barossa 2001, an Australian Cabernet Sauvignon with a nice balance of fruit, and a 2001Tahbilk Marsanne, with pronounced black cherry and pepper en bouche. There was a choice of entrees: Lemon Sole topped with mushrooms served with asparagus, Chinese peapods, haricots verts, radishes and bowls of crispy new potatoes, Entrecote covered with sautéed chopped onions, button mushrooms, pearl onions and chopped bacon, as well as Catfish with Baby Shrimp and chopped hard-boiled egg yolk. Henrik, tempted us with all three of Chef Lars Sunekvist’s creations, so as a group, we sampled all of the entrees, and all were dazzling. For dessert we moved inside to the comfortable lobby next to the fireplace, where we warmed up with coffee and a delicious creation of strawberries, vanilla ice cream and whipped cream. (Read Cook’s Corner for recipes from Chef Sunekvist.) Alas, it was time to return to Stockholm.  Before boarding the ferry, I tossed my wreath into the sea, in the hope of returning
Since we were in Stockholm on June 6, the National Day of Sweden, we went to the Royal Palace to watch the changing of the guard and the festivities.  This year the Palace celebrated 250 years with impressive pomp and circumstance. Military bands played on horseback, speeches were given, medals were awarded, and many of the women wore national folk costumes.
Later that same day, we went to a “Taste of Stockholm” and enjoyed live music, great food and drink. We heard two very talented young singers, Jade Ell and Josfina Sanner, who were playing together for this event. (Read Edward Nesta’s review of their CDs in World Music Review.) Three Royal Sweden planes flew over – bright blue and yellow, which was amazingly exciting. Hearing horse carriages, I ran to see the Royal family passing by in open carriages.  I had to run a few blocks, but was rewarded with visions of King Gustav XVI and Queen Silvia, and even managed to take a picture of the Crown Princess Victoria and her sister, Princess Madeline, as they passed in their carriage.
During a stroll around the city, we found an interesting Sunday flea market, where serendipitously, I found another cut-crystal saltcellar to add to my ever-increasing collection. On Monday, we met our friends, Annika and her husband, Bob, for lunch at the restaurant Lisa Elmqvist inside the Food Hall (Östermalms Suluhall) where we savored another taste of bleak roe. Later, we went shopping at the upscale department stores N/K and Åkane, where Bob and Edward stocked up on Oscar of Sweden dress shirts, and then we stopped in the many small boutiques along the way, adding to our growing purchases.
Stockholm has many incredible restaurants, and we tried to sample as many of them as we could during our short stay. (Read about a few of the restaurants we experienced in our Restaurants and Restaurant Notes sections.)
Always on the lookout for new music, we went to the Berns Hotel www.berns.se, where they have 7 bars, and the live music venues run the gamut from Jazz, Blues, New Jazz, Hip Hop and they even bring in famous DJs from around the world who come to spin some music. Since they are open until 4:00 am, we had ample time to roam from bar to bar, checking out the music and party scene.
After a whirlwind trip, it was time to return back to New York. We relaxed in the comfortable SAS lounge before flying SAS www.sas.se from Stockholm to New York. On board, the attentive flight staff kept children occupied with small gifts of puzzles and colored pencils, books and markers. As for Edward and I, all we needed was a glass of wine, before we fell asleep in our comfortable seats, remembering this astonishing trip.
For more information on Stockholm and Sweden, please visit: www.stockholmtown.com and www.visit-sweden.com.
© October/November 2004. All rights reserved.
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