Our Ryanair flight to Stockholm-Skavsta Airport was quick and beautiful, flying over the vast archipelago of south-east Sweden. Upon arrival, we were delighted to have another arrival without border-control! Yay! Just one walk by a drug-dog, and we headed to the Flygbussarna we’d prepaid for on their app. It was an almost 2 hour trip through fog and haze to the city-central terminal in Stockholm. Our plans to walk to our Gamla Stan (old town) hotel were foiled by two dead phones. I flagged a cab and he brought us to the main street about a half-block down a cobblestone road from Castle House Inn.
Our hotel is in a cute building, spanning a few floors and backing up to our restaurant choice for the first night (actually, it was our second choice, but our first closed before I could shower and get ready.) My tardiness turned out with a silver lining: we had a delightful meal at Osterlanggatan 17 of two single tacos for myself, and the largest ribs I’ve ever seen for my mother. She had plenty leftover for the morning! The Sell-Out (hendricks-based drink) was delicious, even at 135sek (~9:1USD).
Our server, after us telling her we were staying in the Castle House, she informed us that the hotel and restaurant had an internal passageway. Oh was it! We passed through a rainforest themed staircase, to a moulin rouge-esque room, to our hotel entryway! It was certainly unique and cool!
We settled back into the hotel for the night, and began planning our trip, including the plan to purchase the Stockholm Pass: a card that allows for free entry to many museums and attractions, including the hop-on-hop-off bus and boats (boats, unfortunately, don’t operate in the winter).