#50 Katarina Hissen (or a great view of Stockholm for free)

This was once upon a time a working elevator, but obviously Stockholm city council or whoever is in charge are lazy and it's been broken for a few years. HOWEVER, once you get up there, there's a fantastic view of Gamla Stan and the surrounding area that no visitor to Stockholm should miss.

Woop there it is!

I've been here a few times, just because it's nice and it's free. It's located beside the Slussen Metro station (close to Gamla Stan) and there are two ways up, one is to enter the building it's attached to and take the elevator to the 11th floor, labelled Gondolen (this is a really fancy restaurant, you should probably eat here if you're rich) and then you have to walk up some stairs and you're at the top! Or else, you can walk up lots of stairs built into the wall across the street. It's a tiresome journey but it's worth it!

Not the cleanest, but it's free!

Taken back in snowy January!

 City Hall on left, Gamla Stan on right

 Taken on a bright March evening

And I haven't even mentioned the best part, the entrance/exit at the top is about 5 minutes away from Lisbeth Salanders luxurious apartment at Fiskargatan 9. You exit almost directly beside Sodra Theatre, and then from there simply walk up the steps past the little red brick tower and you'll find it, it's the yellow apartment block with the partial green roof. Exciting for those Stieg Larsson fans out there!

Oh there it is!

So to conclude, Katarina Hissen is quite a popular place for tourists, but I think there are still many people who visit Stockholm and don't know about it, and opt to visit somewhere like the Kaknastornet TV tower instead, which costs 50kr.

Update: There are also other free viewing places, such as Skinnarviksberget, which is near Mariatorget.

#37 First look at Sweden

The first thing I saw in Sweden (at Arlanda Airport)

This is only my fourth full day in Stockholm, but already I've started to get my head around things. Being in Europe, there are so many shops and restaurants that are the same as being home in Ireland, so it's not too difficult to adjust. The language barrier isn't a problem either, most things are only signposted in Swedish, but you can ask anyone for help because almost all the Swedish can speak fluent English! I'm in college so this week we had lots of introductory meetings to attend, but from next week my schedule should be much more free.

It's cold here now, around -7 to -15 on average I think. There are mounds of snow everywhere and every roof and tree top is covered in a thick layer of white snow. The rivers are mostly frozen solid which is really fascinating to look at. It's really pretty, but also too cold to take out your camera every time!

This was a soccer pitch

The first day here I went grocery shopping, and I found something special for all the Millennium Trilogy/Girl with the Dragon Tattoo fans out there: Billys Pan Pizza!!

Mmmmmmmm!

Also, as promised, I took a trip to the worlds largest Ikea! It was also my first Ikea visit, and it was a little overwhelming. Nothing was signposted in English so it was pretty difficult to find our way around, and then most of the things we wanted were in the warehouse rather than around the display floors upstairs. Mostly, it was really difficult to leave, we spent maybe 15 minutes walking aimlessly in the warehouse looking for the exit! We went to the big cafe, but it was still breakfast time so we couldn't try the famous meatballs! They had a Kanelbulle (popular Swedish cinnamon bun) and coffee for 5 krona though, which is super cheap!

Beautiful!

This is half of it, I was too close to fit the whole thing in one picture

So there it is, the first of many posts about this snowy country!