On the Road is a weekday feature spotlighting reader photo submissions.
From the exotic to the familiar, whether you’re traveling or in your own backyard, we would love to see the world through your eyes.
Gin & Tonic
Some pics from our visit to Stockholm in the spring a couple of years ago. This was the first few days of 2+ weeks in Sweden and Norway, so I’ll probably add more.
Shot all sorts of spires and ornamental architecture – this was on the old City Hall; I like the Viking ship.
The Riddarsholmkyrkan (Riddarsholm Church) is the burial place of almost all of Sweden’s monarchs, and one of the oldest buildings in Stockholm. This is one of the Gustavs – don’t ask me which one.
The original spire of the Riddarsholmkyrkan was struck by lightning and destroyed in 1835, so it was replaced by one of cast iron.
Grab shot, walking through Gamla Stan (old town) where we ducked into an antiquarian shop and my dear wife purely by chance found a long out-of-print copy of an American book I’d been looking for on and off for some time. Serendipity.
One for some of the old geezers here. There’s a subculture in Sweden and Norway that loves, loves, loves the old Detroit iron.
If there is one absolute must-see here, it’s the Vasa Museum. This is from the outside (obvs.)
You can get a snack before going in.
The Vasa was the epitome of the shipbuilding art in 17th Century Sweden. Unfortunately, it was poorly designed, and on its maiden voyage it foundered and sank about a kilometer out in the harbor. It lay there in the mud for over 300 years, well-preserved by the cold water, until it was re-discovered in the late 1950’s and a project was undertaken to raise it. This took place from 1959 to 1961. Over the next two decades it was restored, and in the late 1980’s the museum was built. Photographs do not do this justice – it is a spectacular sight, and an absolutely monumental project to think about.
raven
I can’t say what grandma Ingeborg would say about the Svenskas!
satby
Stockholm, on the bucket list!
Laura Too
Very cool, thanks!
pb3550
Loved that I had to scroll down the pics. The iron spire on the church was stunning against the sky, & then anchored in the brick of the building. Loved the Vasa, and, scrolling down, the person at the bottom showed how huge it was. Thanks.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
I was in Sweden in the summer of 2019. Toured the Stockholm town hall which, honestly, is more spectacular than the US Capital building, even before the recent damage. Our itinerary didn’t make a ton of sense mostly because we were trying to hook up with my uncle on my dad’s side for part of the trip, and he is, to put it mildly, unreliable when it comes to sticking to schedules. Anyway, after we all booked our flights into Stockholm he decided to alter his schedule and fly in a week later than us. So for the first week we went up to Lake Siljan (stayed in Mora but toured other towns – Ratvik and Leksand – for a few days.
Then we drove down the Frikkan lakes to Rotneros and then to the little town of Bengstfors. The reason we wound up there is my dad is in the Swedish American Heritage Society and one of his friends in his “pod” knew someone who owned a cabin in the woods near Bengstfors, so we organized our itinerary so we could rent the place out for a couple days. No regrets, it’s a scenic area, but I got the impression that it’s not an area that draws many international tourists. We ran into a guy on our last day there who saw my Grand Teton NP ballcap and said he’d been there so we got to talking and he was like “how the heck did you guys wind up in this little corner of Sweden?”
Anyway, from there we drove down to Lidkoping and stayed there for a couple days and saw Lako Slatt, the local castle. Then it was back to Stockholm to meet my uncle. We stayed there a week. It’s a great city, spectacularly beautiful, clean, safe, with great sites to see. After that for the last couple days we headed back to the Vadstena, which is a small town on the second largest lake in Sweden, to decompress and relax. Very scenic too. Everywhere we went except Stockholm and Bengstfors – Lidkoping, Vadstena, Lake Siljan area – we saw a classic car gatherings featuring mostly immaculately restored American cars. The Pontiac Bonneville from the late 50s or early 60s seems particularly popular there but there were plenty of others, mostly from that era, all over Sweden.
WaterGirl
Love the first pic with the viking ship. And the car! How things change…
I see that no one has mentioned the hot dog. That’s all I will say.
arrieve
Stockholm! One of the most beautiful cities I’ve ever seen. Someday I want to see more of Sweden, maybe stay on one of the little islands in the archipelago….
If we’re doing Scandinavia theme, I did a cruise of the fjords several years ago — finally crossed that one off the bucket list.
Old School
@WaterGirl: I was wondering what made it French.
JanieM
They’re all beautiful and enticing, but I especially love the cast iron spire and the blue spire-like thingie in the first picture. The Vasa story sounds a bit Titanic-ish, or maybe I should say vice versa. Another place on the “someday, if only….” list.
Origuy
I was in Sweden in 1984 or 85. I was there in Uppsala for business but my co-workers and I had a lot of free time. We saw the Vasa before the museum was built, still in the location where they where doing the restoration. Saw quite a bit of the old town; we had a Swedish support analyst as our guide. Uppsala is a nice place to see, too. We saw a performance of the Messiah in the 13th century cathedral.
I made the mistake of putting my prints in an album with those awful magnetic pages that cause the prints to fade. Anyone know how to recover those?
way2blue
Thanks for the glimpse of Stockholm—looking forward to more. We were to visit Stockholm last May (my husband’s Mormor is from Stockholm), then head to one of the islands in the archipelago. Postponed for now… I did visit Malmö with my son a few years ago—day trip by train from Copenhagen. But that barely counts. Although when the train stopped at the border, border control came on and escorted a Mediterranean-looking family (no papers?) off the train. So that was a shock—the beginning of the end of Schengen open borders.
Yutsano
HEJA SVERIGE!!!
daverave
The missus and I spent several days in Stockholm five years ago on a Sweden/Norway adventure. We loved the city and it felt like we walked ALL of the streets and saw all of the spires. As an architect, I particularly enjoyed looking at the City Hall as it is one of those transitional buildings in architectural history bridging into the modern. Took many photos. We also took a tour boat out into the archipelago.
From there we flew up north for some backpacking in Abisko National Park and the Arctic Circle latitudes. Needless to say it was frigid but the autumnal tundra color was breathtaking. Then we rented a car and headed out to Norway’s Lofoten Islands… spectacular, and had a few nights of aurora borealis sightings. The most amazing thing was how quickly day light was lost from the middle of September to the middle of October at those latitudes. I think we lost about four hours of daylight while we were there.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
@daverave: We were there in early to mid July and it seemed like it never got truly dark, even down in Stockholm.
What Have the Romans Ever Done for Us?
The thing that struck me most about the place though was the complete lack of any signs of abject poverty whatsoever, or even signs of people struggling to make ends meet in any way. Aside from the immaculately restored classic American automobiles, all the cars on the road were in great condition – not a hint of rust, not a broken down jalopy in sight. The housing stock was in equally good repair. We didn’t see any people that looked homeless except in one park in Stockholm and they didn’t really look full on homeless, just guys who spend their days getting buzzed in a park but had a place to lay their heads at night. Quite frankly, based on that experience, the ills of socialism are greatly exaggerated.
We even had a run in with the socialized medical system – my mom fell on the front steps of the cabin we rented in Bengstfors and cut her head (lots of blood! but no serious damage it turned out) – we took her to the local health clinic, were in and out in 20 minutes, the health care provider spoke perfect, though accented, English, and it cost $100 even though we weren’t covered by the system. Get a wound cleaned and closed anywhere in the States with insurance it it’s likely to be that much out of pocket. They chose the dumbass approach to dealing with Covid, and honestly I will never cease to be amazed that a country so functional would make such a dumb decision, but aside from that (and the weather other than summertime) it’s a wonderful place to be.
daverave
We did see some down and out looking women with kids half-heartedly asking for money at the entrances to grocery stores in the city we flew into up around the Arctic Circle, a place called Kiruna. They appeared to be of Middle Eastern descent. Sweden does take in their fair share of refugees from what I recall.