Stockholm

Cool, interesting, literary

Рождественская ярмарка, Таллинн, Эстония

Also see our

films about Travel :

We will be pleased if you like this article.

It costs you nothing, but a good deed is done :-)

Getting to know Stockholm often starts at Arlanda Airport. We also flew to the capital of Sweden through these air gates. Knowing that the country is not cheap, we took care of a ticket from the airport to the city in advance. Luckily for us, we caught a promotion from Flixbus , where tickets were 2.5 euros one way, which allowed us to get to the very center of Stockholm for a "five". The only small negative was that we had to wait for our bus for a couple of hours, since the flixbuses run here less often than the local (but more expensive) routes.

A gift of French cognac from a flight attendant

It was already dark when we got out in the center and walked towards the Södermalm area, where we booked a cabin in the boat. We have previously had two experiences of living on ships turned into hotels. It was in Bratislava and Prague . We liked both last times very much, so we looked forward to another night on the boat with pleasure. The room turned out to be so tiny that the bed was rather a one-and-a-half rather than a double, but at the same time, the cabin included a shower, toilet and a real porthole 😊😊😊

It was the porthole that gave us the most vivid impressions. The fact is that our boat was parked directly opposite the famous Nobel Town Hall. We photographed this view from the "window" at night, in the morning and in the afternoon. After all, not every day you spend the night with a view of such a world landmark.

Thanks to the view from the room, we did not get enough sleep, but the breakfast pleased us: it was delicious, and included Scandinavian flavors that were unusual for us, such as herring in sweet sauces. In addition, the breakfast was quite plentiful, which is very important when traveling, where you have to walk a lot in big cities.

We ate, packed our things, and finally, photographed our boat for memory.

The wonderful rocky hills of the Södermalm region were waiting for us. Some sources refer to this part of the city as the "bankers' district", hinting at the high value of real estate. Looking at the buildings of Södermalm, it is quite possible to assume that fairly wealthy Stockholm residents live here.

Despite the fact that the name of Stockholm comes from the phrase "city on stilts", Södermalm is located on the hardest stone slabs. An important milestone for the region was the invention of dynamite by Alfred Nobel . Thanks to dynamite, residents were able to align most of their streets, and some were left half-patched to remember what the city looked like before.

Here in Södermalm, the famous Swedish writer Stig Larsson settled his protagonist of the Millennium trilogy, Mikael Blomkvist. The most famous part of the trilogy is the first one called The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. She has already gone through two film adaptations: Scandinavian and Hollywood. In both there is this bridge in the attic where I wait for "when Mikael comes out."

Since we remembered "The Girl with the Tattoo", then in order not to "get up twice", we will tell you about another famous place from this work. We were in it the other day, and it is located in a different area of Stockholm, but also became a cult, thanks to Stig Larsson. Cafe "Mellqvist" is the favorite cafe of the writer, where he made Blomkvist a regular.

By our arrival here, the front part of the cafe was closed due to renovation work, but the catering company itself was working. 😀😀😀

The place is very popular. Crowds of visitors periodically flock here for a cup of coffee. We were able to take a double table, right next to the counter, and after drinking, well, very strong coffee for 2.20 euros, we shot a short video for you from there.

Now, let's continue our morning route. In Södermalm, you can see the oldest preserved houses in Stockholm and visit the most famous Fjellgatan observation deck, which overlooks the museum island of Djurgården. All this will be shown to you during any sightseeing bus tour, so we will not even post photos from there, but on foot we will go to Stockholm City Hall, where the Nobel laureates' banquet is held on December 10 every year. Selfie near the tower is required. 😂😂😂

Locals love to relax on the embankment near the town hall, and for us a walk here was an occasion to see our boat from the other side. 😉

Meat and sausages at the fair in Tallinn

But we didn't have much time, since the flight to Amsterdam was very early, because the tickets are cheap, they are usually cheap because they are inconvenient 🙂🙂🙂

We popped into the nearest minimarket, stocked up on groceries for dinner and breakfast, took a photo of one of the shop windows, and headed to the hotel.

Small shops "Pressbyran" (in the photo behind my back) became a pleasant discovery for us in expensive Stockholm, where we stumbled upon a morning promotion and were able to get a huge coffee for one and a half euros, which was accompanied by a croissant as a gift. 🥐

Coming out of the pedestrian zone, we came across a taxi standing at the side of the road, the driver of which happily shoved us into the car with the words: "Brothers, how I missed our tourists, I will take you at the lowest rate, if only to hear my native speech." In fact, no one planned to listen to us, and on the way he told us that he himself was from somewhere in the Leningrad region, here in Estonia he allegedly has his own taxi company with several cars and at the same time he does not like Estonians. We told him that we were from Ukraine, after a short pause he began to praise the Maidan and the determination of Ukrainians to join the European Union. To our timid questions about the meter not being turned on, he said that the meter broke that afternoon. There was no terminal for card payment in the car either.

When we arrived, the taxi driver gave a long tirade about the wonderful Ukrainians, who are very freedom-loving and therefore, turning a blind eye to the high cost of gasoline in Estonia, he was ready to reduce the fare by half, lowering the price from 30 euros to 15.

We were kind of stunned by such "friendship". It was the third time we took a taxi in Tallinn and the previous one, exactly the same route between the hotel and the old town, we did for 6 euros, paying by card and without listening to "friendly outpourings".

After our remark that this route costs only 6 euros, and even if we add "brotherly love" to it, we did not plan to pay more than 10 euros, hysteria, swearing, shouting and threats began. We discussed among ourselves that it was already evening, and we had to get up at 3 am and decided to pay this "comrade" those 15 euros, so as not to waste time calling the police. The mood, as you understand, was very spoiled.

Lifehack from Tallinn - get into a taxi only when three rules are met:

1. The counter is working

2. There is a terminal for card payment

3. The driver does not speak Russian.

At the hotel, we went to bed and woke up around three in the morning. We went down to the kitchen to drink coffee. The hosts left us a small breakfast, we had a snack and got to the airport for the same 7 euros as yesterday, when we flew to Tallinn. The airport itself was very pleasant. There was history and modernity. History was represented by a canoe, on which the Estonians in the Middle Ages ploughed the rivers, and modernity was depicted with the help of a Maserati, standing on an advertising podium.

Not far from the Institute of Cinematography, there is a complex of Swedish television buildings.

In Ostermalm, there is also the Koknesporet park, on the lawns of which the notorious Swedish king Karl the Twelfth liked to conduct military exercises.

A little further behind the park you can find the office of the Swedish firm "Ericsson". Why did we consider it necessary to mention them in our report? Everything is very simple: it was the local craftsmen who telephoned Kiev in 1893 and Kharkov in 1896. This is the connection between times and states.

Комната для занятия фитнесом в аэропорту Таллинна

Exercise equipment corner at Tallinn airport

The development of Ostermalm is mixed, here you can find both classic high-rise buildings for us and ultra-eco-friendly modern residential complexes.

Here we came across the royal stables of Sweden. They have become for us an example of the ability to combine the traditional and the innovative, which is so attractive in this country.