A quick jaunt into the city — An Elegant Sufficiency

We’d decided to go it alone into the city this morning, happy to have the company of friends but with no organised tour.

The shuttle bus took us to the National Museum from where we walked through the Kungsträdgården, where I’ve spend many happy hours reading and watching the world go by.

This time, we were passing right on through and out the other side, behind the Opera House, admiring Jakobskyrka as we went. Again, a deep blue sky provided the perfect backdrop to this lovely old church.

As the street opened up into a square, we stopped for my to get my flag shot, wondering as we did, what the building was beneath the flagpole. We were clearly speaking loudly enough for the gentleman passing us by to hear, for as he went, he said “The Foreign Office”. There we are then!

In spite of all the lovely buildings here in the sunshine this morning, Stockholm is in quite a mess. Not only are there the usual renovation works ongoing, there’s the construction of a new metro line and, most obvious to us this morning, temporary structures here because of the Arts Festival.

And some of these really do get in the way.

From a distance, we could see the City Hall, about which we feel quite envious, for our friends got to see the magnificent interior on their tour yesterday - we have only had a glimpse of it on Michael Portillo’s TV programme!

From here, our aim was to cross the bridge into the old town, Gamla Stan. As we did, we immediately became part of the crowd awaiting the arrive of these “giants” from Catalonia, here as part of a Folk Festival.

We’d seen several groups wearing distinctively coloured T shirts and this provided the answer to who the orange group were!

As they progressed over the bridge from where we’d just come, we continued to go on up the narrow street, joining the hundreds of people already mooching around here.

I don’t think this part of town is ever quiet, but this morning it was particularly full and walking slowly amongst people was not especially enjoyable, especially since the bright sunshine made it difficult to see straight ahead.

The side streets were quieter and shadier too, so we soon took the decision to peel of the main drag and turned right into a different atmosphere altogether.

There was the added bonus of the figure of St George and the Dragon too. It’s a bronze replica of a late 15th century wooden sculpture in the Stockholm Cathedral. Had we looked a litte further in that square, we’d have seen the kneeling princess awaiting rescue, but that will have to wait until next time! 🫠

We made our way further along the narrow streets towards the fresh air of the harbour again and joined the line of people walking along the waterfront - not that we could see it.

Our goal was not so far away as the crow flies, but of course, unless we fancied a swim it was a little further than that.

The shuttle bus would pick us up at the same place it dropped us off earlier, outside the National Museum. I was keen to see the Carl Larsson murals in there, having missed seeing them on a previous visit, so we were glad of fifteen minutes to do that.

Did I take a photo of them?! Sadly not.

Whatever was I thinking?! Thank you, internet for this one, then.