Gamlastan - a walk to The Past!

This is our starting point for the tours as it represents the centre of Stockholm, surrounded by important buildings such as the Royal Opera House, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Danish Embassy.

Gustav Adolf Vasa is the grandson of Gustav Vasa, the king of put an end to the Kalmar Union in 1523. Gustav Adolf is the only Swedish king with the title of “The Great” for his military success, he fought in the Thirty Years War where he gave his life.

The 5th picture you see is the same spot but from 1960s and the 6th pictures is around 1940s.

Stockholm is considered to be founded on 1252, as the oldest reference existing is a letter written by Biger Jarl, mentioning Stockholmia. Last picture.

Now you are standing on the Parliament island, and you must have right in front of you the building itself, so to your left is the Royal a palace and to the right is the starting point. Behind the ministry you can see a smaller house with a black rooftop and a cream coloured facade, this is the Prime Minister’s House!
Underneath the Parliament itself there was supposed to be a car parking, but some archaeological findings made the decision change... and now we have a lovely museum with part of the original protective wall of Gamlastan!!

When you look through the Parliament towards T-Centralen, you see the street Drottningatan.

The Coin square, also known for a fighting place, but don’t think about violence! Here is where Greta and Fridays for Future stand and fight for our climate rights. If you are lucky, you might see Greta here on a Friday, say hi, be nice =).
From here you can also see in the distance the City Hall, with three crowns on top! Remember that the three crowns is the national symbol! And now we will be going inside of Gamlastan itself. Can you see those lions standing in the way? They were put here to avoid cars or trucks from hurting pedestrians, after an attack on 2017. They put lions representing nobility and the royalty, but hey, you are in sweden, so there are also lionesses.

It might be a bit difficult to find this secret square. So many thousands walk around the previous street, which is the most famous. But not many see this square attractive. And why would anybody? It seems very empty!
Well actually this place, used to be where politicians gathered to discuss laws and the designed of the square made it very easy for the voice to be heard, but right now they already have the parliament’s microphones. So right now, what is this place?

Here is where the congressman and congresswoman actually live if they are not from Stockholm. Imagine a political living in Kiruna, and then you have to commute? For this, they can have their accommodation here in these apartments! Its like a Lappis for politicians!

The second image is a painting of the tower of Storkyrka from the next street.

Riddarholmen is the island of Nobility. Stockholm was founded by Birger Jarl on 1252. Before this, the lake Mälaren was the entrance and way for all the trade to happen in the viking villages. Sigtuna is the oldest capital of sweden, and from here they will move to Uppsala. Later, they will create Stockholm when they realised that a defence was needed in case of attacks. A wall was built around Gamlastan, made of pillars of wood. And the name “Stockholm” means Island of Stock=wood in German. Birger Jarl was one of the lords around the lake, and we have his statue and square in Riddarholmen.
Riddarholmen is where all the nobility and the royal family established their houses… or palaces. There will be a monastery here built on 1340 which later will be transformed into the Church we see now.

The church is now where most of the royal family of sweden has been buried, except for Queen Kristina, she is buried in the Vatican for some… reasons… 
The church was burnt in 18th century and they rebuilt the tower in black iron, and that part of the church which seems quite new from the rest is where Charles X, XI and XII are buried.

The other building you see is the Riddarhuset, the House of Nobility. Here the Nobility gathered to enjoy some drinks... just casually.

Stora Nygatan is one of the major streets in Gamlastan, is where we find the most swedes around, as all the bars are in this street! And the other parts of Gamlastan might be more dedicated for tourism. Most of this places are quite old and the restaurants or cafés will have original basements, cave-like which are very very old. There is something very interesting when you reach the pub The Liffey, because just above the door you can see that original statue of the Valkyrie with the sword. And right next to it we find the traditional candy shop where they cook the candies! If you are lucky you might see the process, and get to try some free samples!

If we keep going a bit more, we can see Slussen in front and Södermalm. Slussen has been the dock for 500 years, the ships going into the Mälaren had to go through here, and every century there has been a renovation. These last pictures are the view from Sodermalm of Gamlastan and Slussen. The last picture is a mock up, of how Slussen could be solved, by putting an octopus for all the different traffic!

This is the Iron Square. Iron was always an important character in the Swedish life, and Germans were invited to sweden to help craft the iron. That is one of the reasons for such good relations between sweden and Germany, and some of the language reasons. In this square you might be able to see some buildings which have fake windows! During 1640s the highest peak of population happened to be 7500 people, and so many of them were German. The Swedish royal family decided to put a tax on their houses, because they had too many people living there, so the tax was on the windows. Of course the germans did not want to pay this tax, therefore many houses blocked their windows. Centuries later, Gamlastan was very very ugly, because many houses did not have windows. Thus, the city hall painted fake windows!!

Another details is the statue that you see at the door of the building. This man is Evert Taube, one of the most famous musicians of the 20th century. In fact he is the one who appears in the 50SEK papers!

Coming back to the germans, there was specifically one German whose name was Mårten Trotzigs, who was so powerful and rich than when he passed away, he had to have some recognition. The situation here was that he had no title of Nobility, or of the church, he was just a normal man who did very good business. Therefore the king did not want to give this man, a square, a street, a statue….. and they gave him the narrowest alley in the city!!
Now you have to go upstairs and then turn a bit to the left!

When you walk this street from the narrow alley, you can see different things around you. First you have the statue of a horse and a child, its because the stables of Gamlastan were just in front of the horse, and the child is because that is the last school in Gamlastan!
You can also see some marks on the walls, like some iron shapes. These are structure holders that were put to hold the beams and the building together. Many fires happened through cold winters, and they needed some reinforcements. Depending on how much money the owner had, these iron bars were a bit more beautiful because they could pay the blacksmiths.

There is also a weird symbol just above the arch door, like some short of shield right…? What could this be?

Then we keep walking and we will go around the German Church, given to the German community for them to have their ceremonies and masses. On top of it, we can see a golden rooster, the representation of the French Royalty! And also, instead of some gargoyles like a normal church, there are dragons…

When walking this street we should look at our back, because we would have one of the most beautiful views! And then we keep going to the next spot, and what is the feeling you get walking the street? It doesn’t look much as a touristy area right? This area is more residential, and full of culture.

Then we reach a big tree and its café, the Under Kstanjen. It is one of our favourite spots for the Fika, and we might be inside having it right now!
It is a beautiful spot indeed, and sometimes when the sun hits through the buildings, its gorgeous. If you can see the building number 5, you can also see that symbol that we saw before! Remember? That shield on the door? Well these symbols are the Fira insurance! Owners would pay a lot of money to the firefighters to have their house secured first, and depending on your social status, there are different shapes and designs.

The little store that we have next to it, is a Traditional christmas shop, almost everything is hand crafted! It is worth it to enter and pay a visit =)

Now we finally see this statue! One of the best ones!
Remember that the German Church had dragons in the tower? Well its because of this statue. It is representing the Battle of Brunkeberg, in 1471, when Christian I attacked stockholm in the name of the Kalmar Union. Sten Sture, the Swedish general won the battle because he was a great military leader, and he successfully saved sweden! That is the reason of the statue, Saint George who is Sten Sture, killing the dragon who is….Denmark, saving the princess which is Sweden.
But this is not the original statue, because that one is in Storkyrka, if you can, go after this tour and visit it! Here you will find the original statue which is from 1489! That is impressive…. And its made of marble, gold, wood, and animal bones….

The royal Palace… so many things we could say about this magnificent place. Maybe the first thing you should know is that it is not the original one, because the Tree Koronor palace was burnt down on 1697. It was a disaster, everything was burnt except for one object… only this object survived this fire…….. and it is a bible…. Written by the Devil…. The third image is a painting which shows Charles XII taking her grandmother Hedvig Eleonora out of the horrible fire.

Anyhow, the palace is quite amazing, it has many museums inside and we could be here for hours! Something interesting is the man that you see riding the horse! Can you see the shape of the hat? That is the Napoleon hat style, and this man was one of his generals…
Sweden lost their king in the beginning of 1800s, exactly when Napoleon was being so… successful lets say. Sweden did not want him to conquer the north, and out of fear, they offered Napoleon´s general, Jean Baptiste Bernandotte, the crown of sweden. He accepted, and was therefore crowns as Chalres XIV King of Sweden, and right now, Victoria is still a family member of the Bernandotte.

We finally come to Stortorget, the most famous place in Gamlastan!!
Here we have the Nobel museum, about the prizes and Alfred Nobel life.

But the most interesting building is the famous red building that everybody takes picture of, but not everybody know its meaning…
Remember the Kalmar Union? This unification of Denmark, Norway and Sweden started by the Danish on 1397… there was a battle we just saw, in 1471!
Well, sweden was still without King, and the Kalmar Union was still in power, but on the year 1520, the 5th of November, Christian the II son of Christian I, came to Stockholm invited by Gustav Trolle (Bishop). Christian II was crowned king of Sweden!!

Something strange happened, when after the coronation, Gustav Trolle told Christian that many nobles living in Gamlastan were not in favour of him being a king…. And he should do something about them. Well, good old Christian decided to execute them, one by one.
This execution took place on the 8th of November, and not 5 or 10 people were executed…. But 83 PEOPLE!!!
This massacre is known as Stockholm bloodbath, and nowadays it also is referred to the Red Wedding of Game of Thrones (If you know what I mean…)
From now on, Christian II is known as the tyrant!

He killed everybody that was important in stockholm, except for one person…. This person spent some years thought the north, gathering armies to kick christian out of the country. This person will succeed on 1523, around in June he enters Stockholm with an army and defeats Crhsitan!!!
Everybody was like: yay!

And then they all looked at this man, and crowned him king of sweden, as he was the only one able to defeat the Danes! And who is going to be this great man, the most important king of sweden????

Gustav Vasa!!!
This is how Gustav Vasa gets to power, and from now, the Vasa dynasty will rule Sweden for more than a hundred years =)
The first thing that Gustav does is commemorate the Stockholm Bloodbath with a red building (blood) and the 93 white stones.

The last picture is how in 1980s a representation took place, and everybody in Gamlastan had to participate in this amazing experience!

If you have come this far with the tour, I hope you liked it. And if you could take a picture, and maybe post it on social media, do so!!

Rainbow Tours Stockholm Team,
Thank you!