In mid-August I visited Stockholm, the self-styled capital of Scandinavia. Northern Europe is really new to me, but my first trip to the region in February, when I visited Copenhagen, taught me that Scandinavia is somewhere deserving of more of my attention. When I pictured Sweden prior to my trip there, I envisaged endless forests, bitterly cold, dark winter nights, beautiful slim, blonde, model-esque inhabitants, the scenes depicted in Stieg Larsson’s Millenium trilogy, and impossibly cool interior design and architecture. Minimalist colours, big open spaces, innovative eco-friendly buildings with sharp angles and a polished look. In Stockholm with Imy a few weeks ago I did find a few of these things (thin, beautiful blue-eyed blondes, both male and female, are left, right and centre, and are my new style icons), but overall the city really surprised me. It didn’t look anything like my preconceptions! Stockholm is a very historic city with elegant 16th-century waterfront architecture, more beautiful than Copenhagen in my opinion. We saw very little of the brand new Scandi architecture I had expected. Which got me wondering why Stockholm doesn’t receive the influx of tourists that descend on similar cities like Paris, Madrid, Munich and Prague. Could it be the higher price tag?
For now I’ll leave you with this great postcard of Gamla Stan (the old town) as seen from the water. Look out for a full write-up of our trip to Stockholm soon. Here’s a spoiler: I think it’s one of my favourite cities ever!!
