“Stockholm Syndrome”

I have been meaning to write a blog post on my time in Sweden for a little while now. I visited just over a month ago with my family and it was honestly one of the best holidays I have ever had (hence the title, I know so original!)

The reason we chose Sweden as our destination of choice was because I’m named after Neneh Cherry (one of my parent’s favourite singers), who was born in Stockholm. So naturally, we wanted to discover the culture and lifestyle.

We managed to find a beautiful Airbnb about 15 minutes from central Stockholm – if you want to see where we stayed, have a look here.

Friday 6th July
The day we set off was an early start from Gatwick airport with a classy ‘spoons breakfast which we rushed down before running/fast walking to the plane. We arrived at the apartment late afternoon, after a long morning of travelling.

Saturday 7th July
We always seem to be on holiday for Cameron’s birthday and this year was no exception. However, this year definitely trumps the time we had to run for a tour we were late for in 35°C heat in Rome.

Classic Cameron had a lie in, so mum, dad and I took the opportunity to explore. The three of us took the metro to Farsta Strand which was only a couple of stops from our Airbnb. We had heard that there were a few mini beaches and lakes nearby so walked to Lake Magelungen which had a little walkway across the water and surrounding woodlands.

Hotel C Stockholm is known for its Icebar which we had booked in advance for part of Cameron’s birthday celebrations. You are allocated 45 minutes and a drink of your choice, most of are absolut vodka themed as the bar is owned by the company. Cameron and I went classic Avengers style and had drinks called Thor and Loki. 45 minutes is definitely enough considering how bloody cold it is in there!

I had also booked a table at Feca, an Italian style restaurant that had a large vegan menu as well as accommodating for the non-believers (sorry not sorry). I had the patate con verdura, yes potatoes on pizza sounds strange but it was delicious.

Sunday 8th July
We squeezed in a hell of a lot of tourist attractions, mainly museums and damn the weather was so hot. It’s always great to find out about other country’s history so of course, we visited the Swedish History Museum. Next stop was the Vasa Museum, a famous ship that sunk on its maiden voyage.

I spied another vegan delight in the form of vegan schmegan, a falafel food van. Mum and I went halves and shared the homemade falafel plate and the Nordic museum super vego plate. Absolute food heaven.

Monday 9th July
One of the days I was most excited for, to visit the ABBA museum. Maybe not my brother’s cup of tea but he secretly enjoyed it. There was also a section on famous guitarist so he was somewhat entertained.

We were advised to visit the SoFo, Folkungagatan area because of the vintage and bargain style shops. It was vastly different from Stockholm city centre and had a beautiful church, Sofia kyrka on top of a hill.

Now, vegan discovery 101 was Herman’s restaurant in Fjällgatan. I did a little research on Happy Cow beforehand and this beauty is a 100% vegan buffet and barbeque restaurant. The website says vegetarian but I asked and they assured me everything was vegan. The lasagne was absolute heaven on a plate.

Tuesday 10th July
We visited the old town where the palace is situated and managed to watch the changing of the guard which usually happens between noon and 1pm every day.

We had also booked a boat trip through the local canals that lasted an hour and gave us a little history lesson on the buildings and surrounding areas.

Another lucky vegan find was Ekologiskt Bageri, a vegetarian bakery which just so happened to be all vegan on the day we visited. Feast your eyes on these goodies. I don’t know if this is the official name of the bakery but if you are on the lookout it is located in Gamla Stan.

Next stop, the town hall. Yes it seems a bit random but you can climb up one of the towers there to see across the city and the weather was gorgeous which made it worth the climb.