Stockholm - April 11, 2017

In all fairness, the weather we experienced this week has not been a friend to Stockholm visitors. We saw evidence showing us this is likely a truly spectacular place in warm weather but we were freezing. We saw the bare hangers for baskets of flowers to come, flower pots wth no life yet, and elaboarte but dry water fountains. Just today the cherry blossoms popped out. We witnessed the plethora of lifeless restaurants having outdoor seating that come to life, out of the blue, when the sun comes out and which we are so thankful that we actually got to enjoy on Sunday. Since Sunday though, these restaurants have not been open. The skies have been gray all day each day until around 5 pm, the air has been chilly but the wind, oh the wind, has been biting, slicing, sneaking through all our layers of clothing like needles and blasting our faces with icy air. What can I say, we have encountered a lot of sorry touring weather.

Let me set the stage, I am feeling much better today, still not 100% and still not strong, but far, far better than yesterday.

Here's what we did today - first, we popped into the city on the subway line at the station, called Kungstradgarden. You must know, Stockholm takes pride in exposing people to art in its public transportation stations. Further education in art is also encouraged on the trains and in the stations. This particular station however, is almost like an art gallery in itself. It was carved from the deep granite way down below the streets and painted and decorated in a way to make one anticipate a King's landing. It is an eye-popper and well worth walking through.

Just outside the station, we emerged at Kungliga Slottet, The Royal Palace, and also just at the base of the Grand Hotel -- still said to be the grandest hotel in the area, it is a five-star. Madonna, Bruce Springstein and Justin Beieber have been recent guests. President Obama and his ontourage were also recent guest in recent days.

We arrived at the Royal Palace just after it opened at 10:00 am. Whoa! The Queen's Palace we saw yesterday is nothing, nothing in comparison. And talk about well-done! We toured the Royal Apartments where we saw among other things jewels and decorations from the era of chillvary and the symbols from various orders of knighthoods. We also saw the wedding dresses and accoutrements of recent royal weddings, including those from the wedding of current Crown Princess Victoria to Daniel Westling in 2010.

Next we visited the Kroner Museum (King's Museum) which allowed us to walk through the elaborately decorated and art-filled outer rooms of the palace created for official purposes. No, these tours do not provide even a simple glimpse into the areas where real, day-to-day royal life takes place, no kitchens, no bathrooms, nothing. No one gets to see anything except those grand rooms built and decorated to impress those who might be there to attend official business, observe ceremonies there or to be received as guests.

Next we saw the Skattkammaren (The Treasury) where we saw crowns and jewels from the 1600's to present. The amazing thing is that over the ages, the elborate design of the crowns has minimal change in design regardless of who sits underr it.

One of the most interesting elements of the Royal Palace visit was the Royal Amory. Here we saw fantastic coaches, sleighs, horse harnesses and dressings and armaments like swords and knights' armor. Some of the most impressive items were the sadles and tac for royal horses. Every item -- the bridles, harnesses, sadlles and were covered in rich quilted, maybe it might be matelassé tapestry made of silks and silver and gold threads. Often museums display replicas of historical artifacts. Thes stuff we saw today was authentic. Imagine how amazing it was for us to lay eyes on 500 year old royal relics and to see brick and mortar laid in the 1200's.

After the Kings Palace we stopped for just a little bite of something to eat to hold us over until later. Instead, we had the whole she-bang. It was a wonderful lunch that except for the Swedish meatballs with ligon berry sauce we had on Sunday, we think this may surely have been the most authentic Swedish food, we have found yet - cabbage & broccoli soup laced with Gorgonzola and roasted pork, carrots and parsnips with "berrrrrr-red" and butter!!

Right across the plaza sat the Nobel Museum. I don't know what we expected, but we really didn't know what to think when we arrved. It was truly nicely done and very interesting . . . a mixture of information way over my head coupled with hands-on, interactive exhibits for grade-schoolers. We like hearing the stories of Alfred Nobel himself and the awards made to Albert Einstein, Tony Marconi, Madam Curie, Barak Obama and our favorite, Bob Dylan.

Ok, at this point we had knocked out one humongous museum and one smaller museum on our check-list. Next we suffered the sharp wind again, walked a few blocks to grab a tram toward the ABBA Museum. I wasn't expecting much at the ABBA Museum, but this is a great venue. Never having been a huge ABBA fan, but admittedly having suffered from having one of their songs stuck in my head many times over the years, we thoroughly enjoyed hearing their personal history, listening to their music and viewing their costumes. All married at one time to each other at one time during their heyday and now all gone their separate ways, these were truly nice people who wrote and sang truly nice songs.

Three important things before we leave Stockholm: First I'd truly like to return here again in warm weather. Second, Stockholm's metro system is amazing. Why can't we have something like this in Atlanta? They have 1.5 million people. We have what? 8 million??? See the photo of the Stockholm Railway Network Map, there are about 24 separate lines - anyone from anywhere can grab a train and go to work, to church or do shopping very inexpensively and get there quickly, very quickly. Third, Stockholm's people are the most genuinely nice, easy to get to know, helpful and interesting people we have ever encountered. Plus they are very pretty.

Finally, one last note. I have posted a big huge freaking error. Can you find it?