Stockholm's Old Town - Sweden Day 1

We made it to Stockholm!

The 6-hour journey from Oslo was well-rewarded with the beauty of this incredible city. Here is a view of Gamla Stan (Old Town) from Kungstradgarden (King's Garden). Stockholm is absolutely gorgeous with all of the canals (that serve as the source of Stockholm's drinking water!) and the bridges that connect Stockholm's fourteen islands.

Gamla Stan is chock full of small alleys like this one where the perfect European-ness of the city is just hugging you from all sides.

Below is a real road/Stockholm's smallest street (about 1 meter wide). Adorable? Yes. Claustrophobic? Absolutely yes.

As you walk around Gamla Stan, you can see the metal rods pictured below in different buildings. Our tour guide was able to date the building by the design of the rod. Very impressive! (I believe this building was built in 1620.)

The small crest above the "2A" sign was put on houses to prove that the owners had paid their fire insurance so that when there was a fire (which seems to have happened all the time in Old Town in the 1600s), the firemen would actually stop at your house to put out the fire. If that emblem wasn't there, they just kept on moving. I'm not sure this was a great system, but it's better than what it developed into. By the 1800s, people would just stand atop church towers and, if they spotted a fire, would yell "fire!" at which point the people who lived in the building were responsible for going to grab buckets of water to put out their own fire. This system doesn't scream efficiency.

\Also, if you're walking around Stockholm, you can see houses and buildings that STILL have rune stones in them. In Denmark we saw rune stones in a museum, in Sweden they're still in their original places!

Most rune stones were erected to commemorate a Viking who went off voyaging and never returned. This one was in honor of a son by his parents, but I'm not sure of the exact wording.

Fun fact! All Swedish kids learn how to read runes in school.

St. George slaying the dragon! The details in the sculpture make it clear that St. George = Sweden and the dragon = Denmark. No one likes Denmark except for Denmark. I'd feel bad for them if it weren't for the following story, entitled: THE STOCKHOLM BLOODBATH.

In the photo below, you can see the square just in front of the Swedish Academy (where the Nobel Prizes are awarded each year). In the close up, you can see three cannonballs lodged in the walls of these two buildings. Here's why...

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In 1520, Swedish leaders offered to make peace with Denmark and invited the Danish King Christian II to have a huge lavish dinner in this square. All the guests arrived and were being oh-so-cordial and friendly. Dinner was served, but just a few bites into the meal (rude!) the Danish king had his guards block all entrances and proceeded to execute 92 members of Swedish nobility (Game of Thrones, anyone?).

One of the leader's (Erik Johansson) had a son named Vasa who was in northern Sweden when he heard news of the massacre. Vasa strapped on his skis and flew all the way down to Stockholm where he set up the canons and fired at these buildings, where the Danish King had set up camp. The cannon fire chased the Danish king out of Stockholm, after which point the king is rumored to have gone mad.

Now, each year there is a skiing competition, the Vasa, that is in honor of the route Vasa took as he skied home to avenge his father.

Speaking of bloodbaths, our tour guide was super personable and (obviously) full of informatoin, so we ended up chatting with her after the tour was over about murder mysteries! I asked her why she thought Sweden's writers were so adept at writing mysteries. Her answer surprised me, but makes perfect sense. She said that because Sweden is so neutral, is never involved in wars, and is generally such a peaceful country, it gives writers the peace of mind, freedom, and space to think about crimes and violence. She also mentioned that mystery writers spend their summers in the beautiful sunlight writing these dark crime novels and then get together in August on an island to share what they've been working on. Now that would be an awesome writers' conference to attend.

Tomorrow we're following the Millenium Series footsteps through Sodermalm. For now, here is a picture of Swedish meatballs in Sweden!