I visited Stockholm for an afternoon, three years ago, to give a presentation at the Fujifilm Nordic office. I had an hour in between activities to walk around.
Before I set foot in Stockholm, the only things I knew about the city were
- It’s the capital of Sweden
- Fujifilm Nordic is headquartered there (and yes, we visited with the great folks who look after us photographically)
I had no idea about anything else, beyond a few photos I’d seen on Instagram. I figured it would be something like Copenhagen, just bigger and more…. well, Swedish, whatever that meant.
Then I had a glimpse of it during that hour in 2015. I was flabbergasted. All those islands and bridges and graceful spires rising from the water… it was the most beautiful city I’d ever set eyes on. I’m a sucker for old architecture – especially castles. Stockholm looks like the setting of a fantasy novel (am fan of the genre, if you couldn’t tell), in my not-so-humble opinion. But I didn’t grow up or live in an ancient European city, so it’s all novel and crazy good to me.
I wanted to spend more time there. Couldn’t stop thinking about it. But it would be three years before I went back again. In April this year, in keeping with celebrating our birthdays in a new place, Flemming and I went to Stockholm together for a few days.
I was all interested to see if he thought it was as wonderful as I did, seeing how he lived in an old European city of his own, dotted with castles (and is immune to them, so finds my castle-besottedness endlessly amusing). From all reports he was/is as impressed as I was.
Friends were full of suggestions for what to do in Stockholm. The only must-do-attraction-like thing we did was spend a day at Fotografiska, the Swedish Museum of Photography. We’re photographers. It’s a no brainer. And had a fika with fellow X-Photographers Knut Koivisto and Mia Galde at its exquisite rooftop restaurant-cafe-studio. Otherwise we simply wandered around the city for days, as photographers are wont to do – from downtown Stockholm, to Gamla Stan (we found Science Fiction Bokhandeln, where I want to move in), to Södermalm and back again. A gorgeous succession of drizzly, foggy and sunny days (all of them very cold!) meant there were always pictures to be taken. Lots and lots of pictures.
Not entirely sure why I’ve warmed the tone on all my pictures so much. Stockholm seems to feel that way to me, all gilded and heavenly. Talk about rose tinted eh?
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