Stockholm on a Friday

Since we're travelling during a busy summer season, hostels and other places to stay have been a bit difficult to find on the short notice that we've tried.  We didn't do much planning on purpose and instead decided to rely on on-the-fly planning.  During our 3 days in Stockholm, we're booked in 3 different hostel, but this is not so bad since we're forced to explore different areas of the city.

After cooking a quick breakfast at the hostel, we checked out and headed to our next hostel for Friday night which was in Gamla Stan (the island containing all the oldest sections of Stockholm). We made a quick stop at the train station to purchase our rail tickets for Oslo on Sunday morning.

We arrived at Friday's hostel at around 11, and check in wasn't until 3, but we were able to store our bags in the hostel's luggage storage area until then. So, with lighter loads, we set out to check out the sights.

The first order of business was to consult with a local on the best sights to see...Jennifer took our map over and sat with the helpful gentleman in the picture below.














We continued down the narrow and winding cobblestone streets lined with rows of shops and flats, it was such a beautiful day and the architecture was absolutely striking, so we both took the opportunity to practice taking pictures with the DSLR camera - here are just a few of our favorites:

The couple of main streets and squares were packed with people from all over the world - we stopped a few times to sit & people watch.

After a few hours on Gamla Stan, we decided to cross the bridge over to Sodermalm. One of the first things we did once crossing the bridge was to go up to the observation deck of the Gondolen tower. This is a free lookout point that is a couple hundred feet above the city & provides really great views.

We walked around Sodermalm for a few hours, until around 6 or 7 pm when it started to cool down significantly. We decided to hop back over to the hostel for a few extra layers of clothing  and for a dinner, then we stayed around Gamla Stan for the rest of the evening.

Here's a picture of the "black and bleu pasta" we crafted, inclusive of swedish meatballs...

We grabbed David's backpack, the camera and a bottle of wine. We were still in the mood to take some pictures and to people watch. Dave snapped these shots.

We sat for a while in a square near the waterfront and a few outdoor cafes (outdoor cafes pop up all over the place in the summer months when everyone flocks outside to enjoy the milder temperatures and the long daylight hours). Jennifer practiced taking pictures next (not nearly as good as David is yet, but I'm still working on learning new tricks)

Jen was particularly excited about learning this trick - intentionally causing the background to appear blurry while the foreground of the image is clear - so here is one photo unrelated to our travels other than that she had the time to learn a photography tip while traveling.

As we made our way back to the hostel, we heard delicate string music coming from one of the narrow streets and walked over to find a solo street performer playing a harp. Quite different than the variety of street musicians that we are accustomed to in New Orleans!

Tomorrow, we head a bit north to a new hostel for our last day and night in Stockholm.