We had only two days in this charming, magnificent city of Stockholm. Coming there almost at the New Year’s Eve of 2004 we were able to get this special atmosphere of a Christmas fairy-tale in the city. We felt it everywhere we went: strolling along its narrow streets dressed in Christmas ornaments, sitting in warm café places and having hot coffee with amazing pastries, looking through the hotel window at the snowy white square, buying charming Christmas gifts in the small friendly shops, walking in mysterious dark buildings lighted from outside along the old city center.

Stockholm in the evening

Most interesting for us was just to walk around the downtown, mostly in a small island Gamla Stan, especially in the old part of it situated on the island. It has preserved authentic atmosphere of the medieval city with low homes colored in blue, red, pink, yellow, with its narrow wavy streets, with its tinny welcoming shops and restaurants, small town sculptures and cobble stone covering.

Christmas Stockholm

Of course we couldn’t pass the King’s palace, Churches of the old town, the City Parliament Building and other famous sights of the capital city of Sweden.

Snowy Stockholm

We loved Stockholm at night — all lighted up with night lights, Christmas ornaments, warm light coming from the food places and reflections in the water of the Gulf of Finland that surrounds the whole city!

Stockholm at night

There is the whole museums’ island in Stockholm — Djurgarden — where it’s so quite and nice to walk. There are museums devoted to different subjects — History of Sweden “Nordiska”, Biology, old frigate “Vasa”, Fairy-tales by Astrid Lindgren “Junibacken”, National museum “Skansen” in the open air and others.

On Djurgarden island

My favorite one is the Museum of Fairy-tales “Junibacken”, devoted to the famous characters created by the great children’s writer of Sweden Astrid Lindgren. I remember reading her books without a break over night being about 12-14 years old and thinking that I could be a Peppy the Long Stock or at least what fun it would be to be her friend! I still like fairy-tales a lot and before going to Stockholm we read a thick book of Astrid Lindgren’s stories with Sasha reading aloud to each other before going to bed. So it was so desirable for me to visit this very museum and we were not disappointed with it! As we entered the museum we took a train through the world of stories by the famous author. It was fun to see all of the so well-known characters in the settings: Emil from Leneberge, Peppy the Long Stock, Ronny Daughter of the Robber, Carlson who lives at the roof and others. Even though the museum was created in 1970s and is little bit old it’s still cool to come to the place of children where they can do everything they like and to become a child myself in the world of kind fairy-tale. There is my favorite room in this museum where the Peppy’s Villa “Chicken” is reconstructed.

Dasha in the Fairy tails museum

You can visit this place and do anything there — play with all the objects you can find.

Dasha in the Fairy tails museum

You can put on Peppy’s dress and do silly things, you can take pictures with all the characters of the story

Dasha in the Fairy tails museum

ride Peppy’s horse in the yard, go down the play hill from the attic of Peppy’s Villa, learn to do carpentry or to cook, draw with color pencils or get a crêpe of Peppy’s recipe with a cup of hot chocolate. It’s so joyful to be in this museum among small children, to act as a child, to do all the funny things without being afraid that people would judge you, to become a child yourself at least for an hour in this wonderful museum of Childhood.

We walked the whole day in Stockholm that was full of discoveries, filled with emotions and adoration. We had a good night sleep but still felt a little bit tired in the morning so our morning was relaxing and nice. It was one of the best mornings I can think of — we went to have breakfast pretty late and decided not to be in a hurry, to stay there until they’ll ask us to leave (that didn’t happen within two hours we stayed there). We sat near a huge window that gave us an outstanding view on to the street of the downtown of the city. People, cars, busses passed by under the wet snow and we kept sitting in that warm, cozy and relaxing dinning room, drinking coffee with pastries, talking and smiling at each other.

Breakfast in the hotel

One thing that captured our attention especially in the old city was the number of creative signboards. They marked each shop, restaurant or cafeteria in the downtown giving it the middle age flavor, brining a special character to each place, the feeling of care and pride.

Signboard example

Besides Stockholm was a place were we saw so many interesting, very individual looking doors. They were kept in a very good condition, decorated with glass and rote iron work and made an impression of prosperity, well care, stability and loyalty to the old good traditions as all Sweden is.

Door in Stockholm

So for us this trip to Stockholm was not only very restful, nice and knowledgeable but was wrapped with the atmosphere of the best holiday of the year — Christmas and New Year — which gave us the feeling of a kind children story with the good ending that we are participating in that take place in this mysterious, charming, magnificent city of Stockholm.

Stockholm at night