Posts Tagged → port

Stockholm

After sailing about 36 hours from Copenhagen (more about those “at sea” days later), we docked in Stockholm, Sweden early on the second day of our big trip.

Owing to my non-functional internal clock and cabin black-out curtains that were not particularly effective at keeping out the bright sunrise, I was wide awake for some absolutely spectacular scenery as the ship slowly made it’s way up the long archipelago from the Baltic Sea to the city.

This is obviously a part of the world that is attuned to living on the water.

Stockholm itself is spread over fourteen main islands, with lots of smaller ones in, for lack of a better term, the metro area.  Even many miles out from port, the shores were dotted with clusters of houses, often painted in beautiful shades of red, and enclosed by some amazing forests.

Gamla Stan

After a short bus tour through the city center, we spent most of our time in port walking around the Gamla Stan (the picture is a view of that area from the port), the island on which Stockholm was founded in the 13th century.

Our guide noted that some of the buildings on the narrow streets dated back to the 1600 and 1700’s and that people were still living in them.

Contrast that with historic cities like Washington DC in the US where we take buildings a fraction of that age and preserve them as museums instead of making them a natural part of the community.

Anyway, at the time we were visiting Stockholm, two big events were in progress.

First of all it was graduation day for their high school students.  That fact was hard to miss due to the many panel trucks cruising around town carrying groups of kids celebrating at the top of their lungs.

The guide reluctantly agreed that some of the celebrating might have been fueled by alcohol.  I’d call it a sure bet, although none of the kids we saw were particularly obnoxious, just loud.

More importantly, the city was preparing for Love Stockholm 2010, a two-week festival that culminates on June 19 with the wedding of Crown Princess Victoria to a commoner who she met when he was a trainer at her gym (I gather the royal parents were not amused – at first :-).

Unfortunately, the official celebration started a few days after we left, but all the preparation around the city made it look like the Swedes would be having one great party.

And then it was time to leave.  As with most stops on the travel sampler plate that was this cruise, our time in Stockholm was far too brief.  But it’s definitely another on my list of places I’d like to return to and explore in more depth.

Next port of call: Helsinki, Finland.

And a small collection of additional photos I took in Stockholm are in this set on my Flickr page.

Copenhagen

The itinerary for our big trip included a bunch of cities we’ve wanted to visit for many years, including the capital of Denmark from which our cruise sailed.

We decided to fly in a day early to have a little time to see the city, and maybe it was the fact that we were jet lagged after an eight hour flight in SAS cattle car class or that the weather was cold and rainy, but I was somewhat underwhelmed by the city.

Radhuset

Which is not to say we didn’t enjoy the short time we had to explore the streets of the city, although in hindsight, we probably should have booked some kind of tour to get a better overview of the whole area (and get out of the shopping district).

Anyway, based on our random exploring, one of the most striking features of Copenhagen for me was all the bicycles.  There were plenty of cars on the streets, of course, but it seemed as if the numbers of cyclists almost matched them.

I’ve also never seen a city that is so accommodating to travelers on two wheels. Every major road had a wide, well-defined lane for bikes, there was plenty of parking for them, and drivers and cyclists seem to respect each other.

It was also interesting that very few of the parked bikes seemed to be locked and that almost none of the cyclists wore helmets.

Something else about this part of the world that became apparent quickly was that we were in for an abundance of daylight hours.

The picture above of the Radhuset, town hall in Danish, a huge building that dominates the area in which we were staying (despite Tivioli Gardens being across the street), was taken at 8:40 in the evening.

With the clouds breaking for a short time, daylight would be sticking around for about another 90 minutes.

Combine that with a six hour time zone change and our internal clocks were totally screwed up.

So, lots of new experiences in just the first 36 hours and next we’re off to Stockholm, Sweden.

However, I think I’d like to come back another time and give Copenhagen another chance.

If you’d like to see more pictures from our time in Copenhagen, visit my Flickr photostream.