Saturday in Stockholm - by Jenni

Pro tip: if caffeine keeps you awake in the US, it will also keep you awake in Sweden. Not much sleep for me last night, thanks to yesterday's fika. Yawn.

We took a midmorning train from Kristinehamn and arrived at our Stockholm hotel about 2:00 PM. My sister-in-law warned us that everything shuts down in Stockholm the day after Midsommer, and she was (of course) correct. The restaurant in the hotel was closed; luckily, a decent pub was open down the street and we finally ate lunch there. All of our tempers were frayed. Food helped, at least for a while.

We headed back downtown to see the waterfront. By that time, the rain had stopped and the clouds were moving out to sea. 

I don't think it could be any prettier. Oh, wait. Maybe just one thing:

There. That's better.

We wanted to see some of the Stockholm archipelago from the water and we planned to take the hop on/hop off tour, similar to the BatoBus in Paris, but we missed the boat. Literally. I considered and rejected the ferry to one of the near islands - I forgot my scopolamine patch and there was that storm that just went out to sea - so we settled on a tour of the canals and bridges. It was lovely, and Emma enjoyed the British accent on the English-language audioguide. 

Family selfie by the sea.

Dinner plans were undone by the closed-for-Midsommer signs, so we ate at a forgettable wanna-be French cafe and saved the evening with ice cream before getting back on the Metro and returning to the hotel.

In Stockholm, the Metro stations often have specially commissioned artwork. The stop by the hardor was fascinating.

All sorts of statuary and bits of columns made to look like Classical ruins, with Roman numerals carved into the walls. A little Googling tells me that the pieces are remnants of buildings that were torn down during redevelopment of Stockholm in the 1950s and 60s, and that the station was moved several blocks away from its orginal location due to the Elm Conflict of 1971. I'll let you read about that on your own.

Yawn. No fika today, so I hope to sleep better tonight and avoid the fatigue-and-anxiety induced temper tantrum that disrupted dinner (I was the tantrumer, not Emma). If we have time and energy we may do a bit more Stockholm sightseeing before we head back to Paris tomorrow afternoon. Emma's looking forward to resuming French breakfasts.

Godnatt.