Stockholm – city of thousand museums, hundreds of canals and closed cathedrals

The good thing about insomnia is that I got to catch up on editing a few more images from our Scandinavian trip, which seems like it was years ago:)  And since I am wide awake I figured that I might as well continue with our travel tales so here goes…

After Norway we flew to Stockholm, which I fell in love with.   This city has so many things going for it – beautiful setting among many canals, amazing architecture, great restaurants, DELICOUS desserts – what else can you ask for?!  Besides, Astrid Lindgren is one of my favorite children writers – I grew up loving stories of Pippi Longstockings and Karlsson so visiting the city I read about in my childhood was definitely an added bonus.

We stayed in Gamla Stan – ‘old town’, which we thought was the most charming section of the city. We loved exploring narrow alley ways and cobblestone streets and hanging out in small cafes that this area has plenty of.  The weather was a bit cool but all cafes with al fresco area have fleece blankets on the chairs – so that you can wrap yourself and feel nice and toasty – such a great idea!

Stockholm is a city of tons of museums – if you can think of any type of museum chances are that Stockholm’s got it!  They have museums for everything – children, sunken battle ships, and even tobacco and pipe museum!   We went to the Photography museum for the It’s a Photographer’s Life exhibit by Annie Leibovits – coincidentally enough it was organized by the Brooklyn Museum!   The exhibit was wonderful and I savored every minute of it –  I was under its influence for the rest of the day.

We also went to check a beautiful cathedral close to our hotel.  Wanted to go inside only to find the door locked – on a SUNDAY morning nonetheless.  Later on we read in our guidebook that this particular cathedral closes ‘for the winter’ and they used the term ‘winter’ quite loosely – it goes from mid September till April or May!  As you can see, Victor tried really hard to get in:)

We spent the rest of our time exploring different parts of Stockholm and enjoying beautiful views.  We even had a ‘star encounter’ – saw Garry Kasparov in the restaurant where we had lunch.  I must admit that I was a bit start struck and for the rest of the day kept telling Victor how amazing it was to see one of the smartest men in the world who, like me, is half Armenian and half Jewish .. coincidence ?  I think not:)

Victor and I have a long running tradition of taking a self portrait on all our trips and this time was no exception – I absolutely love this one!

Pictures from Copenhagen will be up soon – I promise!