Let me show you my home town!

Stockholm is probably one of the most beautiful towns in the world...
It has become a modern and international town, changing in just the last decades. Stockholm is vivid and living. The outdoor cafées in the summertime are popular places to sit and watch people. Nightlife satisfies almost any taste. The city is number one in the world regarding IT-companies.


But still there's this special air of the old town - Stockholm is almost a millenium old. Not far from the pulse down town Stockholm, you find yourself in the Old Town, the first Stockholm.
In Gamla Stan (Old Town)you almost can hear people from centuries ago whisper as you stroll in the narrow and dark alleys...
Tyska Kyrkan (German Church) One of the alleys

Stockholm in the 18th century

The town is built on 22 islands just where the Baltic Sea and the huge lake Malaren meets, so this is a town with lots of water. The good thing, except for making the town such a wonderful place to see and experience, is that you can swim in it...
No wonder Stockholm is called "Venice of the North".


I've managed to get a small but nice appartement on one of the small islands very close to Downtown Stockholm.
It takes me like 15 minutes to go to the absolute City with all the stores, companies, people in a hurry and heavy traffic. And night life, for that matters...

And as a bachelor with no intentions of getting a family the size of my flat is quite enough...
My parents bought me a small appartement in the part of town called Södermalm. The house was built in the 1850th. There were tile floors and big windows and like 3 meters to the ceiling. The appartement was very well planned; it had kitchen, one room, bathroom and a hall.

I liked that appartement very much. There were only two disadvantages.
Most of all: it was too small - only 25 square meters. It effectively killed every attempt of having a more serious relationship. I have this need of sometimes being alone, spending time for myself. That's completely impossible in a small appartement.
The second disadvantage was both advantage and disadvantage. The appartement was located on ground floor.
It was an advantage when friends stood outside and knocked on my window intead of ringing on the door. It was an advantage when complete strangers asked how to find a certain address or a glass of water - that was only fun.
Going through the window also was how two burglars decided to enter my appartement. To make a quite exciting story short - they weren't prepared to be attacked by a naked guy with a police stick and fled the same way they'd come. That time, having an appartement on the ground floor definitively was a disadvantage...
This took place some time ago.
Since 1990 I have an appartement in the Inner Archipelago of Stockholm - Reimersholme.
It's a small island in the center of Stockholm.

Amazingly few have heard of it. If I say Långholmen or Hornstull, many more Stockholmers know which part of the town I'm talking about.
Reimersholme is first mentioned in the 14th century. It then was an island without any inhabitants, used only by the mightiest man in Sweden at the time for his cattle in the summertime. This small island was civilised 200 years ago, which we celebrated with a big Island Party.

The first person to build a house and live here was Anders Reimers. He was an important man in Stockholm at the time. He lived in Old Town, which at the time was a crowded and stinking place. Like many other rich people he built a mansion just outside the city to be able to raise his family in a better environment. The mansion still stands and is today used as kindergarten.
There were industries on the island. The last one moved in the 1970s. Most famous is Vin&Sprit, the manufacturer of (among lots of other products) Absolut Vodka.
The first modern appartement houses were built here 1944. The area with houses where I live was the first to be built.
Today the island is a green paradise. We are about 5000 people living here. Living on an island makes the "We-feeling" very strong.
Interested to see how I live? Let me take you on a small guided virtual tour around my appartement and the close surroundings...

The nice place where I live doesn't stop me from visiting the beautiful
archipelago
of Stockholm in the summer time.
Old, former steamboats, take you away from the city. It's a wonderful boat ride, where you can see some of the 100.000 islands. Some of the islands are quite big with summer houses or even small villages, others are nothing more than a rock just bearly coming out of the water.

Three hours later you're as far out you can come and you have the open sea in front of you. Next land in the Baltic Sea will be Aland.
You easily find a desert island, where you can enjoy the complete solitude. All you hear is the waves on the cliff and the seagulls.
It's a perfect place if you want to relax on your own, or with a good friend, a tent and some food.
During the day you lay in the sun, swim in the quite warm water and just have a nice day.

Sitting by the fireside late in the evening and enjoying first the sunset then the starry nigth and complete silence is something I would like everyone to experience.
The summer of -97 was one of these great summers when me and a (straight) friend went to the island of Finnhamn, three hours away from Stockholm. You can see some pics from that weekend holiday if you click here!

Come with me and listen to sounds of the forest!


Even almost in the city you might find places of complete solitude. Stockholm is a city with lots of green areas. Over the years the town has expanded. New modern areas has grown up, former separate small towns have almost disappeared into one big Stockholm.
But in the big green areas in the city you still might find remainings of what used to be houses from the time when this was the outskirt of the town. It's many years since someone really lived here, sometimes not more than the foundation is left.

If we are lucky, we stumble onto an old, long abandoned garden. There's not much left of the house. You might see where is stood, an old stone wall. The house itself is nothing but a ruin. But the trees and bushes still gives lots of fruits and berries, and the flowers are as beautiful as ever as if they just are waiting for old times to come back...
There is so much I would like to show you. There are so many special places you would never read about in the tourist folders but are close to magic. I sure would like to show them, but it would take too much space.
But if you come to Stockholm and have some time when you want to experience my fantastic and beautiful town, you're welcome to visit me!
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Update made 14 december 1999.
All pictures copyright Johan Steenhoff Eriksen