A Weekend in Stockholm

My husband is traveling for the better part of 2 months for work, one of his work trips was to Sweden, I had never been to Sweden and didn't want to go almost 2 months without seeing him, so I asked my boss if I could work remotely from Europe for a ~week. She said yes! We also have a good friend, Karrla, from Portland who is currently living Berlin, who decided she was going to meet us in Stockholm for the weekend. 

Since I only had the weekend free in Stockholm, I didn't do a lot of research on what to do, I figured we would look at Trip Advisor and go from there. The NY Times recently published 36 hours in Stockholm, so we decided to loosely base our weekend around that. 

View from my hotel room

Here is our take on 36+ hours in Stockholm.

I arrived Friday around 1pm and was extremely jet lagged, so a lot of Friday was a blur, luckily Karrla was there to drag me around. After a quick shower at the hotel we walked around Gamla Stan, Stockholm's Old Town and took in all the old buildings and cobbled streets and alleyways.

After a bit of wandering around we decided it was time for a beer, I also had a conference call and needed wifi to use VoIP. We made our way over to the trendy area of Södermalm, the first brewery we tried to go to didn't have a tap room, it was just a production facility. Since it was getting close to time for my conference call we ducked into Brew Dog Södermalm, which isn't a Stockholm brewery but it still good nonetheless. Unfortunately, their wifi wasn't the best and I wasn't able to connect to my conference call. After trying for a bit, I just gave up and enjoyed my beer. 

After we finished our beers we headed over to Urban Deli for dinner, which is part gourmet grocery store and part bar restaurant.  We did not have reservations and it was completely packed, but luckily we were able to get a seat at the bar. I had one of the best chanterelle mushroom dishes I have ever had. The beer selection was ok, so I decided on wine. Given how expensive everything is in Stockholm I went with the house red which was surprisingly decent. 

beer.. finally.

After dinner, we still wanted to have a Swedish beer so we headed over to Omnipollos hatt which was fairly packed, but we were able to get a standing room only table. When we were ordering beers, we were surprised to see they had beer from Hair of the Dog on tap, which is a brewery in Portland which we don't see much outside of Oregon let alone the US. Come to find out Omnipollos did a collaboration with Hair of the Dog earlier in the year. We finished the night with a few rounds of good beer and headed back to the hotel. 

Saturday I had hoped to get up and go on a run, but I was incredibly jetlagged, so I texted Karrla and asked if she wanted to meet at my hotel for the free breakfast. We decided after breakfast to head to Djurgården to visit the Vasa Museum and possibly ABBA The Museum.

the Vasa Ship

The Vasa Museum houses a 17th century almost fully intact warship named Vasa that sank on it's maiden voyage in 1628. My husband went to the museum a few years ago and showed me pictures when he returned and honestly, I wasn't that impressed. That definitely wasn't the case after I saw the ship in person, I was blown away by the size and all the intricate details on the ship. The Vasa Museum should be on the top of everyone's list when visiting Stockholm.

some strange room in the Sprit Museum

After the Vasa Museum we headed to the ABBA Museum but somehow stumbled upon the Sprit Museum. Which is a bizarre museum sponsored by Absolut Vodka. There were several exhibits on drinking, including a drunk simulator, there were a few other exhibits that we couldn't quite figure out what they were about, but it was interesting nonetheless.

we aced it

We made our way over to ABBA The Museum, which had a huge line, so we decided to take a few pictures and browse in the gift store and leave. 

We had lunch at Östermalms Saluhall, which is a huge building with all sorts of different food vendors. A lot of different cheeses, breads and of course fish. You can probably find something to satisfy anyone. Some places have tables or a few counter seats, while other places are take away only. It is a nice place to visit even if you don't plan on eating, but I bet you don't leave without trying something.

Kar(r)la!

After lunch, we decided to walk around, we ended up on Karlavägen which is home to Karla Café. Since I was with Karrla, we decided to have some coffee in Karla Cafe and take silly photos of all the stuff named Karla, even if they were missing an r. 

We had beers at Akkurat before dinner. We really wanted to have traditional Swedish food for dinner, but Karrla and I are vegetarian, which makes it a little difficult. We settled for vegetarian Swedish meatballs at Meatballs for the People. I am not sure how authentic vegetarian Swedish meatballs are, but they were good nonetheless. 

The bridge to Djurgården

Sunday morning I did get up and go on a run, I ran to Djurgården, which is the island with all the museums, but it also has a huge park. I ran over the main bridge onto Djurgården, took a left into the park ran to the very end and crossed over another bridge and headed back to the hotel. It was so nice to run in a green area along the water that I did a variation of this route every day I was in Stockholm.

We decided to get outside of the main city center and headed to Enskedeparkens bageri, which is a super cute bakery in park close to horse stables. They had tables outside with blankets to keep us warm. It was lovely to sit outside and relax and feel somewhat removed from the city.

subway art

Since we we took the subway out, we decided to check out some of the subway art. A handful of the underground stations have been decorated with sculptures, mosaics, paintings. It was interesting, but after about 3 of them we were ready to get above ground again. 

We ended the evening at Omnipollos hatt, this time with pizza and beer.