Gamla Stan and Drottningholm

On Monday, August 7th, our 25th wedding annivesary, we started the day with Hotel Riddargatan's buffet breakfast: the second-best on the trip.  The best was at Fosshotel Lind in Reykjavik, but we had to pay about $20 per person extra for that, while Riddargatan's breakfast was included.

This turned out to be our best weather day in Stockholm, perfect for another "free" walking tour, of Stockholm's Gamla Stan ("Old Town"), with Rainbow Tours.  The tour started in Gustav Adolf Square, a not-too-long walk from the hotel, on the other side of the Kungsträdgården.

At the center of Gustav Adolf Torg (Square) is an equestrian statue of guess who?  King Gustav II Adolf, better known in the U.S. as Gustavus Adolphus.  A college in Minnesota is named after him.  He was the king who made Sweden into a major European power, intervening in the Thirty Years War to prevent the victory of the Catholic Hapsburgs.  He was also the king who had the Vasa built.

By his statue, with a rainbow umbrella, was our guide, Sebastian, a Mexican who had lived in Stockholm for eight years.  He gave us an interesting introduction to Swedish history and culture while leading us on a ramble thrrough the Gamla Stan, the island that is the oldest part of the city,  Stockholm ("Log Island") is where it is because it is where Lake Mälaren empties into the Baltic.  Interestingly, the lake sometimes freezes in the winter, but the sea doesn't, so the western part of Stockholm will have ice and the eastern part won't.

After figuring how to pay Sebastian (online, on the Rainbow Tours website),we went back to our room, then to the Saluhall, an upscale food hall up the street from the hotel.  There, we had some good open-face sandwiches, in a hurry, because we had to catch a boat on the other side of downtown.

As our anniversary treat, we had decided to attend the opera in the 18th-century theater at Drottningholm Palace, on Lake Mälaren, an hour's ferry ride west of downtown.  We had tickets for the 1:30 ferry.  Earlier, from home, I had bought tickets to that night's 7:00 performance of Henry Purcell's The Faery Queen (an adaptation of Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream), as well as on a bus afterwards to the Central Bus Station.  We walked across downtown to the boat docks on the lake across from City Hall, arriving in time to see our boat come in.  We went aboard and settled in for the hour cruise along the shore of Lake Mälaren.

Drottningholm means "Queen Island," and it was originally the special property of the queen.  Now, it is where the royal family actually lives, rather than in the Royal Palace in the Gamla Stan, which is more an office building than a residence.  We had a lot of time to kill, so we got a snack at the cafe, then wandered the gardens.  I saw one of he king's robot lawnmowers, apparently with the royal seal on it..  In the salon next to the theater, there was a talk about the opera, an hour before the performance.  That would have been interesting, except that it was in Swedish.  After the talk, people lined up outside the theater and were let in.  Our seats were dead center, about three-quarters of the way back.  The music was glorious, the performance very good.  Later, we had no trouble finding the bus in the parking lot, and after walking (for the second time) from the Bus Station to Hotel Riddargatan, we got in after eleven o'clock.  Hungry (not having managed to have a real dinner) we had some nuts from the minibar.