stories from the dining car: Stockholm and Copenhagen

Coming into Stockholm on the ferry was great. It doesn’t come into the central harbour but it goes through the islands around stockholm. At some points the channel was so narrow it felt like we could almost touch the houses either side.

We arrived around 10 in the morning and managed to navigate the metro system and find our way to our hostel. The place we stayed was actually an old tall ship that had been built in stockholm then sailed around the world as a trade ship. Our cabin was pretty cramped but we’re getting fairly used to that so wasn’t a problem.

The masts of our hostel

Our hostel from the other side of the harbour

Breakfast on the deck

In front of our hostel

Day 1 was spent trying to find a supermarket – and more importantly a bottle shop. Due to a small misunderstanding between me and swedish google we managed to find ourselves in the national head office of bottle shops trying to buy wine off a very confused receptionist. After explaining our predicament and discussing the world cup for about 45 minutes we were sent on our way with a map and a smile.

That night was spent up on deck of our boat eating our home cooked pasta and pesto and drinking our hard earned wine.

Day 2 started with a canal cruise with a commentary that mainly just boasted about how much better Sweden is than the rest of the world. To be fair that had some valid points but I think its time they let go of ABBA. The rest of the day was spent just wandering around. The old part of town at sunset was the highlight.

Palace at sunset

The next day it was onto the train and off to beautiful Copenhagen. Personally I liked everything about Copenhagen from the buildings to the fresh crepes filled with nutella and strawberries. The hotel we stayed in was located on nyhaven – I can’t explain how nice it was – you’ll just have to see the photos (all 150 of them) – but it was really nice.

Ben headed out to the supermarket to find something for lunch the next day (but came home with a bottle of wine, a 6 pack of beer and a packet of assorted cheese flavoured snacks) and I stayed in doing all our washing in the bathroom sink – obviously a pretty wild Saturday night. I have to say I’ll never take a washing machine for granted again.

Foot tan

Palace at sunset

Once again first thing in the morning we started with a canal/harbour tour. Lots of people told me before we got to Copenhagen to be prepared for a dissapointment when seeing the statue of the little mermaid – but I honestly had no idea just how disappointing it would be. The little mermaid was not even there – apparently she’s gone to China for the expo. They had replaced her with a photo but somehow it wasn’t quite the same. The rest of the tour made up for it though.

View from our window in Copenhagen

Nyhaven street at sunset

Boat tour of Copenhagen harbour

That night we splashed out and went out for dinner near our hotel. Ben was adventurous and tried the herring, I did not.

Most of our time in Copenhagen was spent just wandering around and seeing the sites.
In Copenhagen it is perfectly legal to just walk around the streets drinking and everyone seemed to make the most of this. Our street seemed to be a bit of a hotspot for outdoor drinking and a spot on the side of the canal was hot property. Our last night was spent drinking cider and eating takeaway pizza on the street next to the water. I think it was our favourite meal so far (maybe because of the cider).