Royal Palace Stockholm

Oh Sweden! Spring and temps in the 70s F happened a week ago but now I'm reminded of where I am. Overcast, rainy, and highs in the 50s for the weekend calls for a bit of inside tourism to inside places. Will the temps edge above 70F before leaving next month? We'll see.

Nearly 2 years later and I've finally visited the Royal Palace (Kungliga Slottet). It's not far or difficult to get to in Gamla Stan but it's just one of those things I hadn't gotten around to doing. The ticket includes 4 museums consisting of the Royal Apartments, Treasury (no pics allowed), Tre Kronor Museum, and Gustav III's Museum of Antiquities. There's also an awesome armory museum as a seperate ticket with royal coaches that I've blogged about before which is definitely worth a visit. The palace building doesn't look like much other than a boring big building. It's really too bad the Tre Kronor or Three Crowns castle burned down because that looked much more interesting from the model of it.

Automatic mowing in the garden. The antiquities museum is small but there's a nice view of the garden from the windows in there.

Tre Kronor Castle

If you go in the entrance for the Apartments and Treasury you can pop in the chapel on the right for free.

The Royal Apartments aren't lived in anymore but they do hold various official functions in some of the rooms including the receiving of credentials from foreign ambassadors.

new ambassador credentials received here

Another few pics of the changing of the guard but I've posted more in a previous blog post.

The Treasury has crowns, jewels, and other regal royal junk but they don't allow pictures in the vault so you'll just have to imagine it or come to Stockholm to see them for yourself. The Tre Kornor Museum is worth a stroll through the basement to see the history of what was here before it burned down. It's part of the overall palace ticket so go ahead and walk through it. I didn't take many pics because it's a somewhat dark environment.

Gustav III's Museum of Antiquities is one of the oldest public museums in Europe. It hasn't changed a bit since it opened in 1794. It's kind of small so you're not missing much if you skip it, but it's also a part of the ticket so go ahead and check it out.

We also walked around Gamla Stan a little and happened upon a ceremony in the main square for the end of a very long hike. Dalkarlsvägen is a system of trails and roads from the upper Dalarna down to Stockholm. Migrant laborers made seasonal hikes twice a year from the 1500s to the early 1900s as an important part of the Dalarna economy. Many people commemorate this with a 12 day hike of their own over 400 kilometers from Lake Siljan. The closing ceremony has traditional dress and flags along with a band. You just never know what kind of interesting things you'll stumble upon in Stockholm...