What to do in Stockholm for Christmas and New Year’s Eve

Stockholm is told to be boring and lonely during Christmas holidays. We can assure you this description is far from real. In addition to strolling down the wonderful Gamla Stan (the city center), drinking hot wine at Christmas markets  and having a boat cruise through Stockholm archipelago, we managed to:

- Have a gorgeous cross-country-sky day just a few tram stops south of Stockholm city center . Step out at Björkhagen (green line to Skarpnäck) and enjoy the 10+ kms tracks to Hellasgarden

- Take a train to visit Uppsala, 40 minutes north of Stockholm.

- Pay a 2 hours long visit to Skansen, the Scandinavian open air museum on Djurgarden (bus line 69)

- On the way back, stop at Vasa Museum (also on Djurgarden) for at least one hour and a half. Experience this unique visit to the magnificent re-born Vasa ship.

- Last but not least, go for excellent guided tours at Stockholm City Hall (where the Nobel Price dinner takes place every 10th of December), at the Royal Palace and at the Thielska Gallery, this one exposing masterpieces of Scandinavian painters such as Munch and Liljefors.

Enjoy all our picture sets in these flickr.com collection!

From Stockholm to Vaxholm: cruising Stockholm frozen archipelago on Christmas day

How could we experience Swedish traditional food and Stockholm outskirts at the same time? We booked on stromma.se the Christmas brunch Stockholm archipelago winter cruise – of course!

That choice was indeed a very good one. We cruised three hours long on the frozen sea (pity the sound of breaking ice under our boat was not recorded) while eating fish, and fish … and fish   – to finally reach the ancient town of Vaxholm.

Swans flying on such an enchanting panorama made the day unforgettable.

Check out our pictures here!

An official survey on the number of pedestrians in the streets of Stockholm on Christmas Eve

We accurately designed this survey by comparing the results from two independent replicas and by calculating the overlap significance discarding multiple encounters. The total result was 24 in a time window of 122 minutes, i.e. 1 person each 5 minutes. Here are the pictures from this first time survey in Stockholm.

God Jul from the Queen of Scandinavia!

From “Downtown Switzerland” to the “Queen of Scandinavia” the step was easy.

Glögg instead of Glühwein, fluffy snow instead of annoying rain and just a chilly -20°C instead of your boring spring temperatures in South Europe, my friends If we survive it, we will add new pictures to these new ones (click here to open our flickr.com set) from a freezing, but wonderful Stockholm!

BUON NATALE!

… e Buon Natale.

So this is Christmas
and what have you done another year over
a new one just begun
and so this Xmas
I hope you have fun
the near and the dear one
the old and the young.
A merry merry Christmas
and happy New Year
let’s hope it’s a good one
without any fear.
And, so this is Christmas
for weak and for strong
for rich and the poor ones
the road is so long
and so happy Christmas
for black and for white
for the yellow and red ones
let’s stop all the fight.
A merry merry Christmas
and happy New Year
let’s hope it’s a good one
without any fear.
And, so this is Christmas
and what have we done
another year over
a new one just begun
and, so happy Christmas
we hope we have fun
the near and the dear one
the old and the young.
A merry merry Christmas
and happy New Year
let’s hope it’s a good one
without any fear.

Snow is not just a problem in Europe: enjoy the white Xmas!

Except for Italy, Germany, France, Belgium, Netherlands and England … snow is still the joyful white side of Christmas – at least HERE where I am. Give a look to my pictures shot in the city of birches at Lat N 63°48′ Long E 20°17′ Altitude 7 …

 

Disegni: La Metamorfosi

Lo so, si tratta di turpiloquio e vilipendio del Presidente del Consiglio. Ma ogni volta che esce una nuova puntata della Metamorfosi di Disegni ringrazio il Signore che Berlusconi sia ancora Presidente – tanto cosa ci si puo’ aspettare di cosi’ innovativo da Fini, Rutelli, Bersani e Casini e Vendola e di Pietro?

E forza Italiaaaa, che siete tantissimiiii…

…almeno 3 in piu’ di noi Il popolo l’unse, l’unge e l’ungera‘ … per sempre.

Find the sexy intruder!

Click on the post picture and find the sexy intruder! Hint: the dress of the intruder is black and white! Click here to see in detail each picture and easily solve the puzzle!

Genève avec la neige, December 2010

The lake of Geneva , quite a lot of snow and blue sky. We had three working/holiday days in the French part of Switzerland. Geneva is a nice city, but we found somehow disturbing the quite huge amount of gipsies asking for money on the streets (yeah, call me racist, but I find them disturbing anyway), the garbage everywhere (but it could have been caused by the snow emergency), the illegal games run in down town (it was disgusting to see the 3-boxes game played on Pont du Mont-Blanc – !!! – ) and the huge roadworks in the city centre.

We are probably for ever spoiled by the always perfect looking Zurich …

Check our pictures here!