Sweden - Stockholm

The Royal Palace


Finally, on my 3rd trip to Sweden I'm able to make some time to visit inside the Palace.  It's quite an old and nice building. I didn't find it as great as castles in France, but still very worth the visit. Also, something unique I found, is that they have a lot of information about the Knight Orders in Sweden, and how the system worked, including uniforms, weapons, signs, and others. Very interesting.

The Royal Palace, Stockholm

Guard of the palace

Gamla Stan

Army Museum

The most interesting thing I found on this museum is the 3rd floor, describing a good part of the history of Sweden, and giving a pretty good idea of how noblemen, and peasants used to live and think during the different periods.

The museum isn't that big, actually just 2 and 1/2 floor. But I spent a few hours reading the history of the country. This is the most valuable part of the visit.

On the 2nd floor, they have an older Swedish drone plane on exposition.

Drone

City Hall of Stockholm

Sweden - Stockholm

Stockholm Bus & Ship tour:

• The ticket can be purchased at the Tourist Information Office near the Train Station (there are probably other places, but I just tried that one)
• The bus tour is nice, and something that can be done by walking (a lot) or by public transportation at a lower cost, but I didn't have enough time for that this time.
• Be careful, when the Bus finishes the round (after stop 15), it'll take a 40 minutes break. This is enough time to go and visit the outsides of the Royal Palace. But the 40 minutes break could be an unexpected delay on the tour if not waiting for it.
• I didn't have time for the ship tour, but will leave it for the next time. This is probably more worth the cost of the ticket.
• There are a couple hop on hop off companies. I used the green one, which was running about every 40 minutes on Sunday afternoon. There is a red bus company, that seemed to run every 25 or 30 minutes on the same day (the bus stops are close, I could see the other bus more often while waiting for mine). In any case, the audio in the bus was translated into several languages, and  I felt it was informative for such a tour.

Some casual views of Stockholm, taken from the city tour bus:

The Vasa Museum:

The Royal Palace ( Stockholm Palace ) :

The hotel.. Sheraton Stockholm:

This is one of the bests hotels in Stockholm from what I hear from people that travel.  The location is excellent, just a few blocks away from the  central train station (with stop from the airport train, Arlanda Express), and less than 10 minute walk to Gamla Stan.
Very nice gym, with new equipment, and sauna (hint, late at night  use the phone just in fron of the Sauna door to call hotel service and ask for it to get turned on).

Sweden: Gothenburg

Gothenburg

Hotel Riverton

Very nice window view from hotel room

• ~ 1.5 miles walking distance from the train station (it feeled safe walking at night)
• Very nice hotel. Comfortable room. Friendly and helpful help desk.
• Free Wifi included
• Very nice views from the top floor (go up to the hotel/bar).  Food for dinner was excellent.

Room from Hotel Riverton

Oscar Fredrik Church

Skansen Kronan

Sweden: Stockholm

This trip was pretty short and fast. there wasn't much time for visiting the place, but still, I got to see something.

Sweden is a very nice country, with very nice, organized, and clean cities.

Everybody seems to have a very high level of english speaking.

It is very easy to move around this country.   Credit card is accepted everywhere, one can literally spend a week without the need of cash.   The only place I saw cash could have been handy is at the public restrooms in the train station.

Arlanda Express (train from Airport to Stockholm)

Hotel Comfort Inn , Stockholm

• Tiny 1 bedroom/1 bathroom. No closet. Hangers on wall.
• Bed is comfortable
• Room is quite silent.
• Hotel and neighborhood feel very safe.
• Excellent free breakfast.
• Large HD tv , with a couple of channels in english.
• No closet.
• No safe in room, but available at front desk.
• Free WiFi. Need to ask for a password every day (expires in 24 hours)
• Very good location, 3 blocks away from central station.   A stop to the Arlanda Express is accross the street.
• Across Arlanda Express exit

1 Bedroom from Comfort Inn Stockholm

1 Bedroom from Comfort Inn Stockholm

1 Bedroom from Comfort Inn Stockholm

Gamla Stan (old town)

Gamla Stan

Gamla Stan

Royal Palace

Stockholm Central Station

• Train, Metro, and  bus station
• Train ticket can be purchased online, but access to a printer is needed. They can SMS the ticket information, but this only works for local phone numbers. The Ticket teller machines will ask for a PIN in order to validate a credit card purchase, which afaik, I don't have for my international card.... in order to save time, just go and buy from the ticket office  (I didn't look at what time they closed)
• Lockers are available, and the fee can be paid with credit card or currency.
• Restrooms with showers are available, but SEK cash only.

Locker for bags

Stockholm Arlanda Airport:

• There are many paid Internet Wifi providers such as Boingo, Ipass, Tmobile europe. But there is only one way of getting free Wifi, by having a local phone number (they send a password through SMS). They offer sending the SMS to a foreign phone, but I never got it. Guests at Hotels inside the airport will get free Wifi.
• The airport is safe for overnight sleeping until the international departure gate opens at 4:30am. The Lunges are behind the gate, and therefore, closed.
• This airport seems safe for overnight sleep. Lots of people stay and sleep in comfortable couches.
• For dinner, the option that is open until latest is Mcdonals, open until 11:00pm. And they sell beer :-)
• The restrooms are very clean.

(good place to sleep at Arlanda)