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13 reasons to savor 'Capital of Scandinavia'

Swedes are hardly braggarts, so it must have caught their neighbors in Norway and Denmark off guard when they decided to brand Stockholm as "the Capital of Scandinavia."

But, really, why not? Stockholm, as its Web site points out, has the most multinational corporations, the largest stock market and, not incidentally, the most visitors.

I'm hardly unbiased in this matter - my heritage is 100 percent Swedish and there's a Nobel Prize in my family - but there are hundreds of reasons to savor Stockholm. Here are a baker's dozen of them:

The weather

Stockholm is cool, but it's not that cool. Thanks to the warming effects of the Gulf Stream, February is the only month when the temperature dips much below freezing. And Nobel laureates get their prizes in December, which speaks well of that month's weather.

Absolut Icebar

If you do crave cool, check out the year-round Absolut Icebar Stockholm. Sponsored by the Vodka company, the Stockholm bar is an offshoot of the Icehotel in Jukkasjärvi, a village in northern Sweden. Both hotel and the growing number of ice bars are fashioned entirely from ice made from the water of the river Torne, some of Europe's purest. Before you enter the bar, the staff packs you in parkas.

Water

Stockholm is built on 14 islands where Lake Mälaren flows out into the Baltic Sea. The islands are strung together by little bridges. Stretching out into the Baltic is an archipelago of over 24,000 more islands, mostly uninhabited. Wherever you go in Stockholm, you're surrounded by water and, in the warmer months, by people eating in waterfront cafes. It's actually possible to fish and swim in the waterways in the heart of the city. You can fish all day on one side of a bridge and at nighttime go to the opera on the other.

Ease with English

Everybody speaks English. Studying English is compulsory from the third grade on, although some schools begin even earlier. Television programs in English are never dubbed into Swedish, so "Law & Order" is a learning experience, too. All this means that lots of Swedes speak better English than you do, which is intimidating - but it also means that when perusing a menu in a Swedish restaurant you needn't know that hummer is lobster or that nötkött is beef, because in even the most non-touristy establishments the waitstaff will explain it all to you. On the matter of food, try the reindeer; the herring; lingonberries, which are to Sweden what blueberries are to the state of Maine; and, of course, load up on the succulent fresh fish.

CIean and pristine

As plusses go, cleanliness might sound a bit of a bore, but after traveling to particularly filthy cities in other parts of the world it's a relief to arrive in one that is immaculate.

And authentic. While Sweden was a bellicose power in the 17th century, going to war and taking over its neighbors, it remained neutral in the wars of the 20th century, which meant it didn't get bombed. So the architecture remained untouched.

Fewer crowds

The city's population of just around 750,000 - the same as San Francisco with half again as much room to spread out - means no jostling in the streets. If you're tired of elbowing people while choking on dust in the world's more crowded metropolises, try Stockholm.

And if airports have become nightmares to navigate, try taking a domestic flight out of Arlanda. I checked into the city's airport, checked baggage and went through security, all in five minutes. Seriously.

In sum, when you arrive home from Stockholm, you won't need a vacation from your vacation.

Vasa Museum

The Vasa Museum houses a ship with a story every bit as dramatic as the Titanic's.

King Gustav Adolf meant the Vasa to play a major role in his navy. But on her maiden voyage in 1628, she capsized and sank to the bottom of Stockholm's harbor, less than a mile offshore, possibly because there wasn't enough ballast at the bottom of the ship to support its enormous height.

The museum tells the story of the Vasa's rescue 333 years later, long after people had given up trying to locate her. In the 1950s a tenacious marine expert, Anders Franzen, began the search anew. Using a homemade core sampler, Franzen found a bit of black oak and knew he'd also found the Vasa, lying in silt.

The timing of Franzen's discovery was fortunate: Had the Vasa been located much earlier, the conservation techniques necessary to resurrect her wouldn't have existed. Today, she is the world's only preserved 17th century wooden ship, adorned with over 700 carvings.

You can't go onboard, but you can discover the Vasa through several stories of ramps that surround it, and there is a fascinating half-hour documentary film about the boat's rescue, offered in several different languages.

The Royal Palace

With 608 rooms, it's not exactly "cozy," a favorite English word in Sweden. It's atypically grandiose - and somewhat grubby until a scrub-down a decade ago.

A previous palace on the site burned down in 1697 with only one fatality - a man outside who was hit by a flying book while people in the building were trying to save the royal library by hurling volumes out the window.

The current gargantuan palace is in the Italian Baroque style. In addition to a throne room and state apartments, where distinguished foreign guests are still put up, the palace houses attractions including a treasury with the state regalia - crowns, scepters, keys and swords used at royal weddings, christenings, and funerals. The Royal Palace looms at the edge of Gamla Stan - Stockholm's old town, which has cobbled streets and narrow buildings painted ochre. Here are cafes, shops specializing in hand-knitted clothing, marine antiques and glass.

Drottningholm

Speaking of palaces, a 40-minute ferry boat ride from downtown Stockholm is this fairy tale world, tucked into dense woodland. You see the palace from the water first, and also see its reflection in the glassy lake. The lines of formal pyramidal topiary leading down to the water look like green soldiers.

This gracious 17th century building is the opposite of the Royal Palace in Stockholm: This one is cozy, at least as palaces go. It's like a mini-Versailles that doesn't drag on forever. No wonder that, since 1981, it has been the official home of the royal family.

Drottningholm is heated with Sweden's typical cylindrical tile stoves in the corners of the rooms. The rooms themselves are filled with Baroque ceiling paintings, brocaded walls, parquet floors, rock crystal chandeliers and separate suites of rooms for the king and queen, who had very little privacy. "Le Grand Levée" was the ceremony in which gentlemen courtiers attended the king as he washed and dressed, whether or not his royal highness was a morning person who felt like having company at that hour.

The palace's outbuildings are exquisite fantasies. There's a Guards' Tent, billowing out at the bottom and adorned with tassels, fringe and braid, as a Turkish military tent made of fabric would be. Only here, it's all carved out of wood. There's a Chinese Pavilion, pink, gold and green, and about as authentic as the Chinese dance in "The Nutcracker." Inside is a dumbwaiter so large that an entire table could be lowered on it. In the downstairs kitchen the table was set and laid with food before it was hoisted back up to the royals. The idea was that servants never saw what was going on upstairs.

Best of all Drottningholm's outbuildings is the Slottsteater, one of the very few wooden theaters surviving from the 18th century. Other than electric lights, which flicker to mimic candles, the theater is completely as it was in the 1700's, down to sound effects including thunder, created backstage by rattling a box filled with stones. Period opera and ballet are still performed here.

The low-key monarchy

Since 1873, when there was a rumble of democracy in the air, Sweden's monarchs haven't been crowned at their coronations, which are modest affairs in comparison with those of other realms. To avoid the uppity attitude of some of their predecessors, they just stand beside the crown, which rests on a table.

Sweden's royal family, currently led by King Carl XVI Gustaf and Spanish-born Queen Silvia, has also avoided the tabloid headlines of the Windsors. The family averages an approval rate of 60 to 65 percent because, my guide says, "They're well-behaved. No scandals."

! Södermalm

The trendiest island in the city, Södermalm is a massive stretch of granite made accessible by Alfred Nobel's invention of dynamite to blow a tunnel leading to it.

The island specializes in pottery, shops carrying chic designer wear and restaurants including one called Garlic & Shots, where the guiding principals are that everyone needs a shot of garlic every day, and that every dish is improved by the pungent flavor, ice cream included.

Stockholm City Hall

Nobel laureates dine in splendor every year at Stockholm City Hall. Constructed between 1911 and 1923, it is in the National Romantic style, which is an eclectic mix of Italian Renaissance, Moorish and Byzantine. The large inner courtyard is based on open ones in Italy, only it's sensibly covered over because of the climate.

The stone busts in the councilor's chambers aren't likenesses of former city councilors. Here Swedish egalitarianism kicks in: They're images of - and homages to - the master craftsmen who built the building. Faux medieval touches include tiny narrow windows, the kind used in fortresses to shoot arrows at the enemy. A lofty wooden ceiling in one room suggests Viking days, while The Golden Hall is covered with over 18 million tiny golden tiles.

Art and architecture

To choose a last reason is a toughie, because there's lots more to say about Stockholm, its rich array of over 75 museums, for instance.

My favorites are the National Museum, which includes the pioneering 20th century decorative arts that were dubbed "Swedish Modern" and influenced the entire world; and the splendid Architecture Museum, with its intricate models of Swedish buildings from medieval times to today.

One don't-miss will take you much less time than a whole museum: While walking around Gamla Stan, drop into the Storkyrkan ("The Great Church"), Stockholm's 700-year-old cathedral, where the decor includes a magnificent sculpture of St. George and the dragon. Created by Bernt Notke and unveiled in 1489, it is a fine example of Late Gothic art. Notke's materials skew the story, though. St. George is conventionally carved in oak. The dragon, however, is composed entirely of elk horns, which give the animal a mythic presence.

It's hard to tell which side to root for. But it is one reason I have no problem rooting for Stockholm as my favorite capital.


If you go Where to stay

The Grand Hotel, S. Blasieholmshamnen . Where Nobel laureates are put up, it's grand and within easy walking distance from almost everything you'd want to see in Stockholm. Rack rates start at $550 per night (try online discounters for lower rates.)

Source:http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?

This post was written by: beemagnet77

BeeMagnet is a professional graphic designer, web designer and business man with really strong passion that specializes in marketing strategy. Usually hangs out in Twitter has recently launched a blog dedicated to home design inspiration for designers, bride, photographers and artists called HomeBase