Swedish summer top 10 – part 3

Summer is still lingering on here in Stockholm. Whilst there is a definite nip in the air, especially at night, the days are still filled with sunshine and warmth… my usual topic of conversation revolves around how crap Sweden’s summer is but now I’ve got nothing to say. TSH is happy.

Part 1 and Part 2

7. Riding to work

The fantastic thing about living in such a compact city is that you can actually have the opportunity to ride your bike to work. Stockholm (and Sweden) has a great biking tradition and has cracker infrastructure to match. There is basically a bike path from my front door to work, so the 25 minute ride is pretty safe. And considering I ride so slow that pedestrians pass me by, there is not much chance of anything bad happening. I have discovered however, that people ride their bike the same way they drive their car. Swerving in front of you, applying the brakes hard at the last-minute and the occasional hand gesture for those of us going to slow in the fast lane.

All hats from Swedish brand CTH MINI. http://www.cthericson.se/mini

8. Buying hats.

This summer I made a big discovery, internet shopping from the comfort of my bed. I’ve recently discovered a brilliant Swedish children’s clothing company, Oii Design and now I am obsessed with buying hats. Hats, hats, hats! Hats for everyone! Things that I love about this company? ♥ Consumer friendly and easily navigated website ♥ Not only can you search by category but you can search for items in a wide variety of ranges: Stockholm designers/Danish designers/Stripy/Vintage/Rock and what every other bastard in Sweden is buying ‘popular’ ♥ After you have perused for a few minutes you are offered a pop up chat with a live person who answers you in both Swedish or English ♥ Free delivery on purchases and returns across Sweden ♥ Fast delivery, I kid you not. One afternoon at 4pm I ordered a hat for The Flash and the next day it arrived from the other side of Sweden ♥ On the occasion where I tried to purchase a hat in a certain size, I was very quickly informed by email and a phone call that that size was actually unavailable. Then, when I received my other purchases, we received another surprise hat in a similar print for free ♥Don’t have to sign up or have a log-in to shop ♥ Once you have bought something, all your details just automatically show up in the fields ♥ 30 days return, even on sale items all with free shipping.

View from Gondolan

33 metres of perfection, Gondola restaurant and bar delivers spectacular views over Stockholm. Floating between land and sky, there is a restaurant with modern Swedish fare and a sky bar. The bar area is my favourite. Quelle surprise. With a retro vintage feel, it’s one of my favourite places to take a pre-dinner drink and during the Swedish summer, sunset lasts for hours.

10. Swimming in the city

We haven’t done this as much as we would have liked to this season, but swimming in the city is one of my favourite summer activities. The waterways of Stockholm are not only beautiful to look at but they are also clean enough to swim in. All over the city there are places where you can strip off and just jump right in. My favourite is on Långholmen, but maybe that’s because the cafe there has great cakes.