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Our fifth day started in the early morning, because our destination was almost 350 km far from Bottnaryd, where we were staying. The journey to Stockholm was supposed to take us more than three hours. However, it seemed shorter because of the company of our friends. Before lunch we got off the bus and our sightseeing tour through the capital city of Sweden could start. The city itself is quite big, it lies on 14 islands by the south-east coast. It is a center of the culture, media, politics and economics with a large amount of inhabitants. We can confirm it with the fact that the streets and sights, that we visited were bursting in the seams.
The city hall, which is placed on the Kungsholmen island, is considered to be the main symbol of the city. We participated in a visit, where we learned plenty information about this building. Its appearance was designed by an architect Ragnar Östberg and was built in years 1911 - 1923. It consists of three connected quadrangular patios and an inside court. It is called the “Blue“ because it had supposed to be blue. The whole city hall is built out of typical red bricks. Eight millions of these bricks were used. Nowadays, Nobel Prize is hosted there.
Stockholm is also a capital messuage of the royal family, whose representational residency is the Stockholm palace placed on Stadsholmen island. It is build in Baroque style and it is one of the largest monarch’s residencies in Europe. We were there just in the right time, so we could see the guard’s shift, accompanied with Bedřich Smetana’s music.
Most of us is connecting our trip to Sweden especially with visits to churches and cathedrals. The Lutheran cathedral Storkyrkan, which means Big church, worths a reminder. It is the oldest ecclesiastic building in the Old City in historical center of Stockholm, near to Stockholm palace. It is more than 700 years old and built in a gothic style. Here are held ecclesiastic ceremonies linked to royal family.
The classic program on school trips is visiting museum and even our trip was not an exception. We walked through the multilevel Vasa museum to which dominated the war flagship from the 16th century. It actually seemed that the whole museum had been built around it.
However, the strongest impression made the way how Swedes celebrate their graduation. They were driving through Stockholm in small trucks, shouting, playing loud music and they were spilling beer on people nearby.
We had even some free time which we used to shopping in souvenir shops in lanes. In the evening we returned to our hotel.