Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
museum, a vast open-air museum called Skansen, a technological museum, and much else. Everything was
just stirring to life when I arrived. Kiosk awnings outside Skansen were being cranked into place, chairs
were being set out at little open-air caf￩s, ticket booths readied for the happy crowds that would soon be
arriving.
I pushed on into the depths of the island, warmed by the morning sunshine. Every couple of hundred
yards the road would branch into three or four side roads and whichever one I took would lead through some
new and captivating landscape - a view across the water to the green copper roofs of the downtown, a
statue of some hero named Gustavus or Adolphus or both astride a prancing horse, a wooded dell full of
infant leaves and shafts of golden sunshine. Occasionally I would pass things I wouldn't expect to find in a
public park - a boarding school, the Italian embassy, even some grand and very beautiful wooden houses
on a hill above the harbour.
One of the many wonderful things about European cities is how often they have parks - like Tivoli, the
Bois de Boulogne, the Prater in Vienna - that are more than just parks, that are places where you can not
only go for fresh air and a stroll, but also go for a decent meal or visit an amusement park or explore some
interesting observatory or zoo or museum. Djurg￥rden is possibly the finest of them all. I spent half a day
there, making a lazy circuit of the island, constantly pausing, knuckles on hips, to survey the views, having a
coffee outside Skansen, watching the families arriving, and came away admiring Stockholm all over again.
I walked back into the city to Drottninggatan, and it didn't look half so bad in the spring sunshine. Two
street-sweeping machines were collecting up the Saturday-night litter, which I was heartened to see, though
in fact they were only playing at it because anything that was in a doorway or under a bench or trapped
against a wall or in any of the hundreds of other places where most litter ends up was beyond the reach of
the machines' brushes, so they left behind as much as they gathered up. And people passing by were
already depositing fresh litter in their wake.
I thought I would treat myself to an English newspaper and I needed some tissues for my leaking nose,
but there were no shops open anywhere that I could see. Stockholm must be the deadest city in Europe on
a Sunday. I stopped for coffee at a McDonald's and helped myself to about seventy-five napkins, then
strolled over a low bridge to Skeppsholmen and Kastellholmen, two lovely, sleeping islands in the harbour,
and thence back to Gamla Stan, now magically transformed by the sunshine. The mustard-and ochre-
coloured buildings seemed positively to glow and the deep shadows in the doorways and windows gave
everything a texture and richness it had entirely lacked the day before.
I made a circuit of the colossal royal palace (and I mean colossal - it has 600 rooms), which may be
one of the most boring buildings ever constructed. I don't mean that it is ugly or unpleasant. It is just boring,
featureless, like the buildings children make by cutting window-holes in cardboard boxes. Still, I enjoyed the
sentries, who must be the most engagingly wimpish-looking in the world. Sweden has been at peace for
150 years and remains determinedly unmilitaristic, so I suppose they don't want their soldiers to look too
macho and ferocious; as a result they make them wear a white helmet that looks disarmingly like a bathing
cap, and white spats straight out of Donald Duck. It's very hard not to go up to one of them and say, sotto
voce out of the side of the mouth, 'You know, Lars, you look
quite
ridiculous.'
I walked back down the hill to the waterfront and crossed the Strmbron bridge, stopping midway to
lean on the railing and be hypnotized once again by the view of bridges, islands and water. As I stood there
a raindrop from out of nowhere struck me on the head, and then another and another.
I looked up to see a turmoil of grey clouds rolling in from the west. Within seconds the sky was black
and the rain was in a sudden freefall. People who a moment before had been walking lazily hand in hand in
the mild sunshine were now dashing for cover with newspapers over their heads. I stayed where I was, too
dumbfounded by the fickleness of the Swedish weather to move, staring out over the now grey, rain-studded
water, blowing my nose expansively on McDonald's napkins and thinking in passing that if there were a
market for snot I could be a very wealthy man. At length I gazed up at the unkind sky and took an important
decision.
I was going to Rome.
