Volume 13 Issue 1 » 77
Sigtuna Viking ship
recalls one horrific legend. Eighty white
stones surrounding windows and doorways
memorialize victims of a 1520 slaughter,
known as the Stockholm Bloodbath. Here,
Danish rulers beheaded dissident nobility,
merchants and priests. One noble’s son,
Gustav Vasa escaped, hid and later returned
to lead a revolt. He was eventually elected
Sweden’s first modern King.
HONOUR
The square’s neo-classical former Stock
Exchange has housed the Nobel Museum
since 2001, 100th anniversary of the Nobel
Prizes. Its exhibits tell the inspiring story
of Alfred Nobel. Inventing dynamite, he
made a fortune and later endowed much of
this wealth to six prestigious prizes. Among
them, the peace prize reflects regret over
wartime use of his explosives, and the
literature prize acknowledges his unfulfilled
ambition to write.
H O S P I TA L I T Y
Relaxing at an outdoor café opposite,
we munch on roasted beet salads, sip
regional beers, and picture early townsfolk
exchanging gossip at the stone well, still a
popular meeting place today.
Proceeding along an elevated walkway,
we encounter a tarnished St. George
fighting a dragon. Locals tell us ‘George’
symbolizes Gustav battling Denmark for
Sweden. The bronze princess stands on an
adjacent pedestal. Back at Palace Square,
we’re just in time to see the changing of
the guard, occurring daily since 1523.
Smartly uniformed in navy blue and white,
the military band parades over Norrbro
Bridge and along the front of the Royal
Palace. Most spectators, including us,
follow the band to the royal courtyard
for a welcoming and rousing thirtyminute concert. Three gold crowns atop
a lofty tower identify red-brick City Hall.
Crossing a bridge onto Kungsholmen
Island, we enter City Hall’s large courtyard
to view an array of statues. Here, Swedish
artists Strindberg, Fröding and Josephson
are portrayed. Inside, the iconic Blue Hall
hosts Nobel Prize banquets. A 10,270-pipe
organ, Scandinavia’s largest, entertains such
gatherings. One floor up, Golden Hall’s
eighteen million tiles conjure a mosaic of
Sweden’s past.
TRUTH
Artwork often appears among the
city’s monumental architecture. One
souvenir shop displays an outside squad
of whimsical trolls. A bicycle is adorned
with a crocheted purple, blue and yellow
banner declaring Bike and Soul, while
a small sculpture called Rag and Bone
is found amid its government buildings.
This blanketed fox and kit represents
the homeless, placed here to remind the
influential about flaws in the welfare
system.