Last day in Stockholm and Scandinavia

We started out the day with a hearty breakfast at the hotel.  I love the Scandinavian cooked salmon as part of the daily breakfast (Good thing they aren't pulling Santa’s Sleigh).  I was also thrilled because Stockholm serves tea!  It was difficult to find a cup of tea in Oslo, and impossible in Copenhagen.  I should have remembered the many strong coffee breaks when visiting my favorite Finnish-American relatives in Kaleva, Michigan.  

We dressed very warmly before we headed out for our 10AM tour of City Hall.  What a beautiful city!  Very pedestrian friendly, with convenient walkways and crosswalks. 

Stockholm City Hall

Grand Hall (Nobel Dinners)

It was great to have a tour of the Stockholm city hall as we learned so much.  A couple of the things that stood out were:
There are nine parties represented in the city council, one of which is a new feminist party.  Although the building is fairly new, built in the early 1900s, they found it important to keep with with historical architecture to the extent of having someone wear down the bricks in the center courtyard.  I believe it took them a year to do so as there are over 8 million bricks. The building was also representative of many different countries, i.e. Italian marble floors, Greek designs on the walls of the City Council Chamber, and French Tapestries.

The Nobel dinner for all of the winners is held in the center courtyard and the dancing takes places in this incredible room decorated with 18 million gold mosaic tiles.

I also found it interesting that the City Council regulates the schools in Stockholm, not the country of Sweden.  

Glockenspiel!!!!

Room for dining when distinguished
guests are invited to the country.

Reception Hall

The tour guide also told us that the organ pipes were the second largest in Scandinavia, but they had moved the organ to the first level because it was too loud for the organist (Charles you'll appreciate this).  They use modern technology, bluetooth, to connect to the pipes (don't ask any more questions on how this works, because we  won't be able to answer them).  

We continued on to find Tram #7.  We had a much easier time than we did locating bus #30 in Oslo.  Bought our tickets (like natives) and moved right along.  

Vasa Museum

The Vasa and Nordic museums were at the same stop (Thanks Dave for the recommendation).  The Vasa museum was packed.  The Vasa was a ship built in 1628 and was supposed to be the pride of the Swedish Navy, but because the King insisted on making it 172 ft tall and only 16 ft wide a gust of wind blew it over and sank it just 10 minutes into its maiden voyage. Sweden later pulled the ship out of the harbor and put it on display.  Just as we were thinking how clever it was of Stockholm to turn a failed voyage into a major tourist attraction, we saw that Rick Steves had said essentially the same thing in his Stockholm book.  

Nordic Museum

The Nordic museum wasn't quite as popular today, although we really enjoyed the opportunity to learn about Swedish history and see some of the folk art.  We were also interested to learn about the Sami, a group native to Scandinavia.  It was facinating to see how they herd reindeer and manage to survive in such a cold climate. And of course we stopped by the rooms with jewelry and fashion.

The Scandinavian grandfather clocks were lovely.  Good thing they didn't have any in the gift shop, or we would have had to buy and extra ticket on the plane.

This Christmas tree was decorated in a traditional winter white Swedish style popular around the turn of the 20th century.

Mom didn't quite have the energy level that I did today so we headed back to the hotel for a short rest before dinner.  Rather than rest, we decided to start packing our bags for tomorrow's flight.  We fit everything in just so and zipped up our suitcases.  

City Hall

We walked by Parliament all lit up at night, which was beautiful, on our way to Tradition, a traditional (in case you couldn't guess) Swedish restaurant.  The food was fantastic.  I had potato dumplings with pork and lingonberries and Mom had potato dumplings with mushrooms, snow pea pods and root vegetables.

Old Town

Potato Dumplings

Opera House

After we got back to the room we decided to head down for a quick dessert and cup of tea.  In her haste to pull out her flat shoes from her suitcase, Mom accidentally opened her suitcase upside down and dumped her nicely packed things onto the bed.  After a delicious dessert we spent the rest of the night repacking.

Heading home tomorrow!