Sunday in Autumn, Stockholm

Donald on an enormous tree "stump" outside the American Embassy.

This past Sunday we wanted to go to the one large museum we haven’t gone to yet (well, actually, there are a number of large museums we haven’t gone to yet in Stockholm, but this was one we really, really wanted to go to): the Nordisk (Norse) Museum, out on Djurgarden. The Nordisk Museum is basically 5 floors of Scandinavian history and culture, and is much too large to actually do in any real way, but we wanted to see some of it, at least. However, there was a Chocolate Festival happening at the museum, and the line to get in was HOURS long. So we instead took a couple-of-hours walk around Djurgarten and into the large park across the water, joining the literally thousands of Stockholmers out enjoying the cold, dry, sunny weather. The water was sparkly, the many embassies located in the park were gorgeous (and often unidentifiable), (THIS IS THE AMERICAN EMBASSY), the walk was long and exhausting and wonderful. So once again we ended the day completely whipped, as if we had been out all day in winter.

Stockholm in the fall is beautiful. It may usually be beautiful in summer, too, but our summer was so rainy that it was hard to really enjoy it fully. The weather turned gorgeous while we were in Eastern Europe, with a polar front descending on Scandinavia and turning the weather cold and dry. It is raining today, but the sun and cold weather (highs in the 30s to about 40 F) return tomorrow or the day after. I think this is my favorite city: clean and open, full of water and sky and air and beautiful architecture (yes, there is also modern “functional” architecture, but I tend to avoid those streets so I don’t have to see those buildings) and parks and cafes. Most cities I have been to are noisy, dirty, and crowded feeling. I imagine that maybe Seattle is like this? Brisbane is, but on a much smaller scale. New York,Chicago, Paris, San Francisco, Prague, Krakow, Florence, London, Dublin, Atlanta, ....: none of them have the same sort of open-air feel that Stockholm does, at the same time that it offers everything a city needs to. I have heard that the Australian cities in general share this outdoorsy feel. I'd be happy to find out for myself!

This is actually why I chose to NOT go to Venice or Rome for our one free vacation week in late November: after reading online about those cities, for all their glories, I am just not up for a week of dirty, loud, crowded, smelly city. Some other time.