Shall We Finish Up Stockholm?

I think we'd better as we have just booked hotel, flights and opera tickets for our next visit there which is in March. Seems like a good idea to finish writing up this trip before we embark on another one. (I do know March is quite  a long way away, but we've been filling in the planner this morning and the year is staring to look busy). 

So, what have I not covered? The marzipan boat

This sails into Stockholm at the end of November and moors up in the major quay area of Strandvagen to sell Christmas marzipan to the good citizens of Stockholm. For those who may not know, marzipan is a huge traditional thing in most Scandinavian countries and often takes the form of a pig. I have no idea why. Oddly enough, for something that has been going on for 28 years or so, there seems to be widespread ignorance of the boat's existence. The receptionist in our hotel looked very blank when we said we were off to find it; he'd never heard of it. It was lovely and we bought stuff, on the downside we got Whammageddoned on there. Annoying as I didn't hear the song anywhere else all December!  

The traditional Swedish dinner or Julbord at the hotel. This was six courses and there were several timeslots. We chose the last one at 8.00pm  which was a mistake in retrospect as gannets had been at the buffet and also the staff were wanting to clear up when we were on about course 4. However there was certainly a huge variety of food and I did enjoy it. I even ate some herring, apple cured, and quite enjoyed it. If we did it again, which we won't because wild horses would not get me back to Stockholm in December again, we'd definitely do it earlier in the evening,  but I did take some pics. 

yes there is some herring in there, honest.

much much food 

and even more 

this was my dessert choice. There's a candied fruit jelly, some traditional rice pudding, a passionfruit flavoured tart, some chocolate covered almonds and I forget what the thing in the blue case was, but it must have been delicious because wall the dessert stuff was. 

No pictures from the opera naturally as it's not allowed, but we saw a very good performance of Rigoletto. As I said to someone, it was a shame the tenor took the whole of Act 1 to warm up and, unless he was taking his calls in character he wasn't nearly as good as he evidently thought he was. The Rigoletto was good; powerful and moving, but the star of the show was undoubtedly the Gilda. It's a role with a  lot of very high notes and not once did I worry she was going to miss one.  Or - even worse - shriek on them. 

There were a few other small things we did that wouldn't be of great general interest, but we did have  a lovely time.