Saturday 9.18.2010

Our City Day

Our B&B offers a with-or-without breakfast price so we opted for the "with" yesterday to have a chance to chat with our hostess and get the lay of the land, and we will again on Monday to share some stories. In between we are foraging for ourselves. Yesterday we bought the makings of your basic Euro breakfast of meat, cheese, bread and juice, and this morning are loading up for another day of hiking around the city.

There is a bus stop a half block from our apartment so we catch the #73 bus into Gamla Stan near the Royal Palace. At this time of year the official changing of the palace guard takes place only a couple times a week and this is one of them. We are a half-hour early but the folks are starting to line up so we grab a spot near the ropes down front. The whole thing is fun in a militaristic sort of way with the Swedish Army Marching Band and a bunch of Marines weaving in and out and back and forth with a bunch of hollering and twirling of weapons. It winds down with a medley of patriotic band numbers and finally everyone marching out of the square. The whole thing takes about a half hour, and while it isn’t Buckingham Palace we are pleased we are there.

We have our Rick Steves walking tour of the Old City with us so we wander around for an hour peeking into churches and old shops with special notice of the building details that have been there for close to a thousand years. The old city squares are very entertaining and loaded with visitors on a Saturday lunch hour. Just as we reach the last sight on our tour it starts to rain hard and the little cobbled streets turn into raging rivers splashing over shoe tops and scattering the crowds. We duck into a little grocery store for shelter and after about 15-minutes decide that this isn’t going to stop. We find a pizza joint a couple doors down and snag a window table for a pizza and beer lunch.

When we finish eating the rain has let up a bit so we cross through Parliament into the "New" City, which is the real downtown commercial area. We are on a pedestrian mall (Drottninggatan) lined with shops and crammed with people in spite of the weather. The main square in the center of the mall is lined with all of the politicians making their final plea for votes in the election tomorrow. Each party has their little EZ Up tent and we go from the Feminist Party pink, to the Communist red, the Christian Democratic blue, the Conservative white and guess which party is "Green." The place is loaded with film crews, cops and energetic political supporters. Okay, maybe the commies are a little lonely and dour.

We find our way to a corner of the square to visit Ahlen’s Department Store, the Swedish version of Macy’s. (There is an orange tent in front where the politicians are passing out carrots.) Ahlens covers a square block and a big one at that. Even if it is massive, Mary finds no "sale" signs so she is completely uninterested in the million items on display.

We roam around a bit more in what is now a drizzle, find the main train station, and a couple old churches, but mostly just absorb the sights and sounds of the city. We catch the subway (Tunnel Bana) back to a Sodermalm station a few blocks from our apartment, grab a 4-pack of beer and some crackers and hunker down for the evening with our left-over pizza, cheese and crackers. We have an early wake-up tomorrow so with the rain outside this is a good night for a Chevy Chase vacation movie on TV.

Weather Today: Clouds and rain, high of 55, low of 43.