Got a late start owing to sleeping in after our late arrival. Here at the Radisson Blu Royal Viking, we did not opt for breakfast-included. Instead we are out on the street choosing among several attractive Kaffebar places. There is a Starbuck's in the Central Station, but both Norway and Sweden have numerous local coffee shops. They all make perfect capuccini, and while the pastries are not quite as scrumptious as those in Denmark, they are very good.
First impressions of Stockholm from walking a few blocks of one major street (Vasagaten): we like it! Somehow the elements of the street scene combine to make it seem friendly. It's clean; auto traffic and street noise is low even on a weekday morning; the buildings are large and impressive, but not overbearing. Looks like the Swedes modeled Paris (later we hear that's literally true) and capped building heights at around 4-5 stories.
So we did the usual thing and went for the HO-HO experience.
It's not easy taking pics from the HO-HO, sitting or standing there's always something in the way. Here are the only two half-way decent shots.
Tourists near the Riksdag (parliament). Half a second earlier you'd'a seen down a long courtyard...
Some plaza in the old town district.
As you can see the sun was very bright. We both got a bit of sunburn from riding on the top of the bus. Bought a bottle of water, drank it. Hopped off and had lunch at a kiosk in the Kungsträdgården (King's garden, a small park in the middle of town, and much easier to say than to spell). Although sitting in the shade was fine, Marian was pretty well fried, and we went back to our air-conditioned hotel for the afternoon.
In planning the trip David had looked for any kind of musical performance one could book in Stockholm, and happened on the "Summer concerts in the Golden Foyer" at the Royal Opera House. There was one of these scheduled for this day, the description had the word "cello" in it, great, sign me up! So at 6 we headed out to take the T-Bana (Tunnel Bana, underground railway, or just Metro) for one stop and then to the Royal Opera.
iPhone copes not too badly with afternoon sun and shadows.
We found our way with a few other people to the Golden Foyer. It's rather fancy.
Two women were sitting front facing the audience, one holding a cello. After finding seats we looked at the program sheet (in Swedish of course). Using the translate app on the iPhone we parsed out the fact that one of the two was a cellist and the other—an actor (skådespelare). Oh dear, this performance is going to involve the spoken word!
Well, the actor was very good, her voice, face, gestures clear and expressive as she told and sang a story that we are sure was gripping and amusing to those who understand Swedish. Here is the description of the event, after Marian typed the original into Google Translate:
Borrowed Love
Borrowed Love is a story of love with poetry and cello. Bach and Hindemith intermingled with calm, Tranströmer, Karl Bergqvist, North Flyckt, Ferlin et al. It is written by Cecilia Nilsson (the actress who performed it) and the music is Elisabeth Hahn Eriksson, cellist in the royal court orchestra.
They met at an international conference on IT + security, but when she looks into his eyes can no security system in the world to save her, she becomes his mistress and between them filled cyberspace of words of love and music.
Kind of sorry we couldn't follow the story, she seemed to be telling it really well. Every paragraph or so, the narrator would stop and the cellist would play for a few seconds to a couple of minutes. This was really interesting; we'd neither of us ever really listened to the sound of a cello. It was surprisingly strong, deep, and expressive.
After the event we wandered around to find supper (at a not wonderful italian place, but at least we sat at a table on the sidewalk and watched a wide variety of people going by) and then strolled around the bridge between the city center and the old town, which sits on a separate island, before going back to the hotel. Something like this:
Evening light on the Rikstag reflected in the canal.
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