Winter Mix

 Wanted to share some pictures of beautiful winter Stockholm that I took this weekend. Old town Stockholm is filled with charm. Most people living in Stockholm think of it mostly for tourists but I think it holds much more. I agree that the main street of old town -Vasterlanggatan is very touristy and is also very crowded but the rest of old town is quite a gem. Old beautiful houses and buildings, winding cobble stoned streets. As crowed as Vasterlanggatan can be as quiet some of the other long and narrow back streets can be. 

It was a beautiful day where one even could see patches of bright blue sky and a few light snowflakes falling softly to the ground. Beautiful tower of Storkyrkan located close to the town square of old town where the Christmas market was held.

 The bakery shop just by the main town square. It looks like it's taken straight from a winter fairy tale.

Bikes covered with snow just like my own bike. I parked it Friday and since then I have not used it. The last few days have been too cold and now we have a snow blizzard heading towards Stockholm. According to the forecast they expect another couple of inches of snow to be dropped. Even if the temperature rises a bit it still might be very challenging to use the bike. 

 I love the quiet back streets away from the crowded and touristy main street. This is where you find the real soul of the Old town. These are the oldest buildings of Stockholm. I love that they are so colorful. There are several smaller squares. Lot's of small tucked away cozy coffee and tea shops, places to grab a cinnamon bun and a hot cup of coffee. 

 Even the boats have Christmas decorations.

 Leaving old town behind and heading into the city center. This is how they have decorated the fountain area by Sergels torg this year.

I walked for most of the day Saturday and by afternoon I was quite cold and my feet needed some rest as well so I sat down in a nice cozy coffee shop at Rorstrandsgatan and had a cup of tea. I tried a tea with Christmas flavor, spiced with saffron and chili. A great combination that worked well together.

In the US scented candles seem more common than the un-scented ones but here they are not as easily found. Specially if you don't want to pay a small fortune for them. I found some nice ones at Indiska that had a reasonable price tag. The most expensive scented candle I have seen are the ones they are selling at Svenskt Tenn. They are asking for 800 kr for a candle of 300 grams! I think that is totally outrageous. Who pays that amount of money for a candle. Even if you have a good income it still seems wasteful to spend so much on a thing like ONE candle. Well that is my opinion anyway. 

Today we are having a full blown blizzard. For a moment yesterday evening I was considering to take my bike again to work as the temperature was rising but then I changed my mind. So glad I did when I woke up this morning. Strong winds and lots of snow. 40 cm or about 16 inches of snow are expected to come! So I guess I can put my bike away for a while. I am grateful I did decide to buy that bus card yesterday. The temperature is going to drop again and get colder as well in the next couple of days.