Diary of an adventure to Eastern Europe.. Part 11 City Hall, The Royal Palace and Flea Market Stockholm, Sweden

Our next stop... The City Hall of Sweden...

The City Hall of Stockholm is one of the most beautiful and well known buildings in the world. It is also known for its hospitality, its unique treasures, grand ballroom and the yearly magnificent Nobel Banquet.

The Golden Hall ..

This Golden Hall is named for the 18 million pieces of gold mosaic and glass covering its walls. This large banquet hall can accommodate up to 700 people. This is where the Nobel Peace Prize Banquet is held every December. The mosaic figures on the walls represent important events in Sweden and the world.

The Golden Hall has many historically themed mosaics. The famous one is of Queen Christina of Sweden. Christina became queen of Sweden in 1632 at a very young age, but abdicated the throne in 1654 and moved to Rome. This mosaic shows her meeting the Pope with her crown in hand.

This is the table setting they use in their Nobel Peace Prize Banquet. According to our tour guide if you would like to sample the menu they serve that evening you can make a reservation here at the City Hall and they will cook the same food for you .... the price???? ..... 1500 EUROS per person!!!!


We went to the courtyard to take some souvenir shots and these are what I liked.

Then we proceeded to the Flea market...

Our last stop ..... The Royal Palace....

We went to the Royal Palace but they would not let us bring our cameras and cellphones inside the palace. We had to leave our  cameras and cellphones on the bus. We had to check-in our coats before entering the palace and..... they ushered us to a room where they gave us plastic like shoe socks to put on our shoes--- their reason for doing this was... they did not like us dirty the floors of the palace. As you enter the main lobby you will have to pass a metal scanner too.

Last agenda for the day.... we headed for the pier to go on an overnight cruise aboard Silja Serenade for Helsinki......

Diary of an adventure to Eastern Europe.. Part 10 Skansen Open Air Museum Stockholm , Sweden

Our next stop.....Skansen Open Air Museum

The Skansen Open Air Museum is another branch of the Nordic Museum. The founder of the museum is Arthur Hazelius. It was built in 1891. Hazelius was concerned in saving something from the old Sweden before the development of industry had gone too far in changing the country. The old buildings were brought together here include a church and a manor house, Lapp dwellings , a summer grazing station, smallholder's cottages and farm houses.

Over the years they were able to restore 150 old buildings of historical interest.

Here are some of the houses I saw:

The old post office building..

This is what they call " appointment cottage ". Since swedish people now live in apartment buildings in the city they long for a place in the country side. So they apply for an " appointment cottage " which they can rent in the countryside and go on weekends to plant crops and flowers. Usually these cottages are awarded to them. The cottage itself is only 15 square meters enough to hide the farm equipment, seeds for planting, and a small bed.

Their city hall..

Their Church ...

We watched a demonstration of their glass blowing. It was very interesting to see how they are still using the old style method in glass-blowing.

After the Skansen Open Air Museum tour we had lunch at a chinese restaurant named " BAMBOO ". I was hoping to take some photos of the food but we were all famished and I was not able to take any. I would recommend the mushrooms with oyster sauce, and their deep fried fish. In tours like this... usually one of our  meals.... chinese food is served... and from all the chinese food I have tasted in this trip... I liked this restaurant the best.  If you happen to go to Stockholm and are longing for asian cuisine... try the Bamboo Restaurant. The staff of the restaurant are very friendly.

After lunch ... the next part of the tour was the City Hall and the Flea Market...

Diary of an adventure to Eastern Europe.. Part 9 VASA GALLEON MUSEUM Stockholm, Sweden

Stockholm was built on 14 islands and another 24,000 just around the corner. Wherever you go you will always get a glimpse of water. One thing nice with this city is that the people here are friendly and they speak english unlike the other cities ( Copenhagen and Oslo ).... It is the only capital in the world with legally protected national park within the city borders. The modern shopping district keep you busy after sightseeing, while the relaxed atmosphere and stunningly clean streets only add to your holiday mood.

a view of the Old Town of Stockholm.

The most expensive hotel in Stockholm.... The Grand Hotel.

View of  Stockholm

our next stop...... THE VASA GALLEON MUSEUM -

The world's oldest restored warship, VASA ( pronounced WASA ), is on exhibit at its new museum on the island of Djurgarden. It capsized moments into her maiden voyage in 1628 and was salvaged 333 years later from the sea floor. This museum is one of the most popular sights in Scandinavia.

We entered 3 heavy lined doors in the museum... Our tour guide said they did this to keep the temperature ( 18 degrees F ) steady all the time and another observation I made was it was very dark inside... there were bulbs but the bulbs had to be 50 watts only. A lot of my group had a hard time trying to capture an image of the ship.

Some shots of the galleon..

These were some of the decorations salvaged from the galleon.

On to our next stop.... Skansen Open Air Museum.

Diary of an adventure to Eastern Europe.. Part 8 Stockholm, Sweden

Our wake up call today was at 4:30 am. It was so cold ( I left the window in our room opened before I went to sleep last night )..... According to the news on television the temperature was registering at 7 degrees..... I had to get dressed and drag my suitcase down to the lobby and have a quick breakfast ( the hotel was kind enough to prepare breakfast -- on goodie bags for the group). Our bus left at 6:00 am for the train station.

Got to the train station... had to carry my luggage ( no porters available that early in the morning )... to the platform and wait for the train that was scheduled to arrive at 7:00 am .... We all had 20 minutes to get our suitcases into the train. The plan was.... the MEN will help the women put their suitcase on the train.... but... when the train came.... we all found out we were standing in the wrong platform.... we all had to run and try to board as fast as we can.... The train never waits for anyone ... it always leaves on time.... and that day it did leave on time... Thank God ... we were all able to get in .... ON TIME!!

The train would have short stops on each station either to let passengers down and pick up passengers... ( we were disembarking on the last STOP ).....so... on one of the many stops .... my 2 friends Mike and James jumped down to take a cigarette break.... The stop was so short... ( about 4 minutes )... They nearly got left behind....it was good Mike had his foot on the door.... and when the doors started to close.... he pulled James into the train again...

I took shots of the countryside... most of the group went back to sleep.

after 6 hours.... we reached Stockholm.

We were met by our tourist guide ( this time there was a porter that helped us with our suitcases )... and we were off to lunch and then a tour around the city.

Here are some sights we saw on our way to lunch.

The World Trade Center

The National Museum.