"Surprise weekend to Stockholm" a Stockholm Travel Page by sue_stone

I was a very spoilt girl this birthday - Alex took me on a surprise weekend to Stockholm, Sweden! I had no idea where we were going until we were at the airport having some lunch before our flight (I even managed to get through check-in without knowing the destination).

We took the day off work on Friday(which was a treat in itself!) as the flight was at 2:15pm. A short 2 hour flight later we arrived in Stockholm. We jumped on the Arlanda Express train from the airport, and 20 minutes later we were in the heart of the city. The sun was still shining, the sky was blue, and better still, our hotel was 50 metres from where the train pulled up!!

We stayed at the Nordic Light Hotel, one of the top 'Design Hotels' in Stockholm, which makes use of light as its method of decoration. It was an excellent hotel - very stylish, we loved it!

After checking in and freshening up, we headed to a nearby restaurant for dinner - it was Belgian cuisine, tasty and always great with a nice Belgian beer. After dinner we headed to a very special bar that was located at our hotel's sister hotel (Nordic Sea). It was the world's first permanent icebar, Absolut Icebar. The interior is kept at around -5°C all year round. The walls, bar and glasses are all made of ice, taken from a river in northern Sweden. It was a great experience! They give you a large furry coat with hood to wear and gloves - which you definitely need when you hold your ice-glass! It is not a large bar - takes a maximum of 30 people at one time but was a great experience. It is pretty cold in there though, so most people, including us, only stay for 1 drink. To warm up we retired to the bar at our hotel for another vodka.

Saturday morning called for a sleep-in and then a visit to the hotel's breakfast buffet. We spent the day strolling around the old town area doing a small amount of site seeing and window shopping, really enjoying the beautiful sunny day and taking photos. We also visited some shopping malls and a fancy department store in the city. That night we headed back to the old town area and enjoyed a traditional meal of Reindeer in Loganberry sauce...and a bottle of Australian red wine ; )

Sunday dawned grey and a further sleep-in was in order. We had a pretty lazy start to the day, enjoying every minute of our stay in the funky hotel. Venturing out, we wandered through the city, visited the Kulturhuset and had a walk by the water. A late lunch was then on the agenda so we headed to another stylish hotel, Berns Hotel, and had a delicious lunch on the terrace over looking a pretty park. After lunch it was time to make our way back to the airport.

We really had an excellent weekend. It was very relaxing and great to be away for a change without the usual long itinerary of sites to visit. Beautiful city, amazing hotel and the BEST company a girl could ask for!!