Stockholm - Old Town and Nobel Museum

Gamla Stan (Old Town) Stockholm

After my hearty breakfast, I walked to Gamla Stan (Old Town.) This is the oldest part of Stockholm, with buildings and cobble-stoned streets from medieval times. 

It was a gloomy day -- grey sky and even a bit of drizzle -- but about 3 C, so that was okay. 

The two photos above are from the main square of the Old Town, and the others, left and below, show the narrow cobble-stoned streets. There were very few cars, mostly pedestrians and a few bicycles.

To get here, I walked on a street with tons of shops -- a lot of the same shops you find anywhere -- and dozens of souvenir shops.

Then suddenly, there is this amazing gated bridge -- and you leave the modern shopping street and enter Gamla Stan.

On the way to Gamla Stan, a young Polish woman stopped me and asked me to take photos of her with this weird dog statue. After I took her photo, she insisted on taking mine!

Stockholm City Hall -- seen from the bridge

This modern Polis van looks like an anachronism among the ancient buildings and cobblestones.

I was headed for the Nobel Museum, and on the way, I stopped in at The German Church -- 1571.

And here is the Nobel Museum, which is in the former stock exchange building, built in the late 1700s:

Inside, hanging from the ceiling, is a cable with a large card for each of the Nobel laureates. The cards continuously move along the cable, giving a good idea of how many people have been awarded the various Nobel prizes. It is quite dark in the museum, so hard to photograph, but here is the cable:

I paid my admission and was told that the English tour was going to begin in a couple of minutes. So I joined the group. It was quite an interesting tour, but Olaf, the guide, had a few annoying habits. I don't know if these things bothered me only because I am an ESL instructor; maybe no one else noticed. First, he used too much stress on stressed syllables. Most of the time he put the emphasis on the right syllable, but occasionally he got it wrong, and that was even more irritating. Secondly, he had to say the word "ceremony" about 25 times during his talk. He mispronounced it every time, saying "sermony" instead. I debated whether to take him aside after the tour and point out the error, but I took the path of least resistance and refrained from doing so. 

We saw the plaster death mask of Alfred Nobel and a real Nobel gold medal.

I was surprised to see a bike on display. This was Amartya Sen's bicycle. He received the Nobel Prize in Economics in 1998 for his research on how to improve conditions for impoverished people in the villages of West Bengal. He cycled from village to village, weighing children to compare the conditions for girl and boy babies. 

I also liked the display about current laureates, which included Malala Yousafzai. 

And of course there is a gift shop. I caved and bought a few things here, including a small tin of gold (chocolate) medals. There were a lot of Asian tourists in the shop with me, and most of them were filling their shopping baskets with these tins. The cheapest tin was about $10, and the larger ones were $25, but I saw the Asians blithely putting 10 to 20 tins in their baskets. 

It seems they keep the museum going.

display wall in the Nobel Museum gift shop