Day Seventy - Jul 30, 2012
Stockholm, Sweden
Daily Didactic
It was a nice, low impact day of tourism. We got up mid morning, had a snack at the cafe next to our hostel "Under Kastenjen" (Under The Chestnut Tree), and headed off in the direction of the Soder (actually Sodermalm) neighborhood just south of Gamlestan (Old Town) where we are staying. We ran into a little "wrong turn" island first and then backtracked to the bridge over to Soder. The area of town is a combination of trendy galleries, trendy restaurants and clubs, and nice (and we are assuming trendy) apartment buildings. We had our eyes on a large park on the far side of the island as a goal. Seemed like a nice day for a park. We bobbed and weaved with acceptable accuracy and eventually came across the large and pleasant Tantolunden park. The park was full of opportunistic sunbathers and the remnants of the weekend's Gay Pride celebration. We ended up on the top of a rocky hill with a nice view of the city north and an "allotment" garden like we had seen in Amersterdam. These "gardens" look more like extremely organized squatter villages. They are made up of a hundred or so small buildings, some are quite nice but none are more than one room large. The shacks are surrounded by teeny plots of land with the most amazing small gardens of mostly flowers. It all makes for a few acres of gorgeous flower gardens with immaculate little shacks mixed in. Locals can rent the shacks at different rates, depending on whether you can visit for the day, overnight, or for short multi-day stays. It's like having a little urban cabin in a huge flower garden. It appears that there is an expectation of gardening and more than a little competition. Seems like a clever idea. We headed back toward Gamlestan, stopping at a giant kebab shop on the way. Not healthy or inspired, but we were starving and kebab is tasty. We got home late afternoon and relaxed for a few hours. In the mid-evening we whipped up some hostel pasta and took a pleasant walk in the moonlight of Stockholm before calling it a beautiful day of Stockholming.
Today's Photos
