Stockholm is the capital of Sweden, and it’s a city made up of 14 islands all connected to together with bridges.
Gamla Stan is the old town part of the city, where the Royal Palace and medieval Storkyrkan cathedral can be found. The Royal Palace is still the official residence of the Swedish Royalty and if you go at 12:15 pm any day you can see the 40 min changing of the guard ceremony. See my post here about our experience watching the changing of the guard!
Even though it was January and the temperature was quite cold, we bundled up to venture out and explore the city. Our only goals for the day were to walk around Gamla Stan and visit the Vasa Museum, otherwise we wanted to just wander around and see what we found!
At one point, we found ourselves on Skeppsholmen and walked around the entire island before realizing there is only one bridge on and off. That was okay though, it was pretty cool to see the boats tied up with sheets of ice on the water surrounding them.
We were in no hurry and were just having a fun time walking down whatever street struck our fancy.
After standing out in the cold for an hour watching the changing of the guard, we were ready to find somewhere warm to thaw our toes and Chris remembered a cool underground bar nearby when he had visited Stockholm with his family. The bar is called Misteln (Mistletoe) and it was an awesome stop!
That night as we were walking back to the hostel we found a large fountain turned skating rink! They were blasting music from speakers and a relatively large group was out on the ice. We rented some skates and joined the party!
Our watches told us we had walked about 20km that day but it was well worth it! I look forward to going back to Stockholm one day and spending more time there!
The next morning, we headed up to Uppsala for a day trip!