Thurs May 1, 2025
Hi Folks! Happy May Day! It’s actually a holiday here in Sweden but lots of things were still open. And that didn’t stop us from having another fun day in Stockholm! We did a lot of walking, a bunch of people watching, a little bit of shopping, watched several May Day parades, listened to some live jazz (good but not the Silver Note!), and ate an authentic Swedish meal (that you can actually get in the states!) but more on that later.
We did two official Rick Steves walks (love that guy!). Our first one was all thru the Old Town. Now we had walked thru part of that area yesterday but he pointed out places we would have never found. Like this little statue (the tiniest public statue in Stockholm out of 600) called Iron Boy that depicts a boy sitting on his bed gazing at the moon.
After that walk we did his “Modern City Walk” which started in this beautiful spot called “The King’s Garden” (Kungstradgarden in Swedish) and is considered Stockholm’s living room. Given it was a holiday lots of families were out with their kids and they had a stage with live music. This walk also took us thru the high end shopping area (we didn’t shop there!) as well as a town square that had this large Orpheus statue.
After those walks we watched two separate May Day parades that weren’t the marching band type parades but more demonstration type parades. I think they were mostly political type parades and one even had a sign that was not too nice to the USA! Now who wouldn’t love our sweet little country???? Lol
By that time we were very tired from walking all day and very hungry so we decided we’d eat some good (and cheap!) Swedish food. So where else would we go but the IKEA restaurant in their store! Don’t laugh until you’ve tried their Swedish meatballs with mashed potatoes, gravy, peas and lingonberry jam! Amazingly delicious and all for 6 bucks! Can’t beat it!!
We then found this jazz club (thanks again to Rick Steves) and listened to some jazz. After that we were beat and walked back to the hotel. We got there just in time to catch this beautiful sunset from our hotel room. Stockholm really is stunning!
We have one more day tomorrow until we work our way back homeward. Hope everyone had a great Thursday!
The Wandering Italian 