Free Museums to visit in Stockholm (Part 3) - Natural History Museum in Stockholm

1 June 2017

I have been to a several museums of natural history during my travels, so a visit to the Natural History Museum (Naturhistoriska riksmuseet) in Stockholm was not high in my list of things to do.

However, since it was near to University of Stockholm, we dropped by for a few hours and I had no regrets! This museum is nice in its own ways, as I would describe in this post.

The museum is located within walking distance from the Universitetet subway station. While visiting this museum, we took the opportunity to also check out the Tunnelbana subway art at the Stadion, Tekniska Högskolan and Universitetet stations.

The museum is housed inside an impressive building. Exhibitions are admission free. Tickets to Cosmonova (Imax Theatre) are 80-110 SEK for adults, 35-50 SEK for children and young people.

The main entrance is on the Ground level with interesting sections such as the Human Journey (showing the evolution of man), Fossils and Evolution (Dinosaurs), Polar Regions and Diversity of Life.

Coming face to face with a prehistoric bird in the Fossils and Evolution (Dinosaurs) section.

I find the display of various species of butterflies on a large wall rather nice and creative.

Display of various species of butterflies on a large wall.

We could compare and contrast different characteristics and beauty of the butterflies. Butterflies are some of the most beautiful insects in the world although as a gardener, I dreaded their caterpillars.

Butterfly with transparent wings. With the “eyes” on the wings, what does it mimic?

Butterfly that mimic an owl!

We walked through the open jaws of a mock baleen whale at the Polar Regions. This section showcases animal and plant life in the extreme climate of the Antarctic and Artic.

This museum also does a great job in showcasing the stuffed animals in their natural surroundings and action poses. It brought the “life” back into these animals. 

Jon Snow’s direwolf from the Game of Thrones?

It also created good photo opportunities for photographers, except for the ceiling and spot lights.

The Upper Level of the museum featured sections such as Life in Water (Sweden’s waterlife), Swedish Nature, Treasures from the Earth’s Interior and The Human Animal.

Like most natural history museums, there are exhibits on minerals in the “Treasures from the Earth’s Interior” section which I don’t find interesting. It would be challenging to make rocks look interesting, so the museum cannot be faulted. 

What was really interesting and unique are the exhibits on Swedish Nature. I particularly like the wolf exhibit showing a pack of wolves and various behaviours of the individuals in the pack as you walked round the circular exhibit.

We could see behaviours like play, aggression, submission, communication or howling and friendliness.

A wolf with a smile like a friendly dog.

Once again, we could see the stuffed animals in their natural surroundings and action poses.

Realistic display of a fox hunting in the snowy landscape.

There is a very realistic display of a fox hunting. A fox could hear its prey hiding in burrows under the snow and uses its body weight and paws to bash through the snow to get its meal. Same technique used by the polar bears to catch seal pups in dens under the Artic ice.

The only moose I saw in Sweden was not in the nature reserve but in the museum.

My wife and I enjoyed the interactive displays in the The Human Animal section where we discover which ways humans are like animals and how we differ. For instance, a dog has 220 million smell cells, while a human has around 5 million. So, don’t complain about a smelly dog again. The dog would find humans smelled 40 times worst!

There were also tests on speed, reaction time, and balancing. We did the fun sound tests where we had to identify sounds, determine the direction of a sound and try to hear different frequencies. I must say that we humans are poor in hearing too. We failed miserably!

As nature lovers, we enjoyed our 2.5 hours visit to the Natural History Museum (Naturhistoriska riksmuseet) in Stockholm.  Quite educational for both adults and children.

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Stockholm in Winter – Trip overview and places visited

My son was successful in his application for International Student Exchange Program with a university in Stockholm. This meant that he would be staying in Stockholm for 6 months from January 2017 to May 2017.  I thought it would be a good opportunity for me and my wife to go with him, partly to help him settle down in the new environment and also partly for us to revisit a city we had lived in for six month, some 30 years ago.

Co-incidentally, my nephew was also successful in his application in the similar program with another university in Stockholm. His parent and sister, knowing that we were planning a trip to Stockholm, also decided to join us. Our travelling group just got bigger and bigger when another niece pleaded with us to let her join.

The students made arrangement for their longer term accommodations separately while the family members, 5 of us in total, managed to book an apartment in the hip Södermalm area through Airbnb. That nicely furnished apartment was our home away from home for the next 10 days.

Since this visit to Stockholm was in January, the coldest time of year in the middle of winter, we did not really plan any fancy excursions. Just a free and easy stay in the city where we would decide the day before, or in the morning, what would be our plan for the day!

There were days where we would just laze around, go for a fika, run some errands to help the boys settled down before their university term starts, or go visit some city sights or museums. These were some of the places visited:

• Gamla Stan (the Old City)
• Riddarholmen
• Skeppsholmen
• Drottninggatan
• Östermalm area
• Vasa Museum

• ABBA Museum

• Kungsträdgården
• IKEA

• Monteliusvägen

• Skinnarviksberget

• Södermalm area

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Stockholm in Winter – Arrival at Arlanda via Finnair and settling down

14 January 2017

We flew to Stockholm via Helsinki using Finnair. We departed from Singapore Changi airport on AY082 at 23:35 hour.  This was my first time on a Finnair flight and I was pleasantly surprised by the nice clean and spacious Airbus A350 plane, reasonable good food and large touch-screen entertainment system.  A useful feature in the entertainment system is a time-table showing the timings of departure, arrival and meal services during the flight. There was also ample leg room for me, who at 1.74m is reasonably tall.

Simulated Northern Light or Aurora light-up on Finnair flight to Helsinki.

There was even a simulated Northern Light or Aurora light-up prior to landing.

Breakfast served on Finnair flight to Helsinki.

Finnair’s (Finland’s Airline) hub is at Helsinki airport. We landed in Helsinki airport at about 6 AM, as scheduled.

After going through passport control, we waited about 30 minutes to board our flight to Stockholm. Helsinki Airport is cool. There were even game machines at the transit waiting area and piped in sounds of singing birds in the toilet!

Game machines at the transit waiting area of Helsinki airport.

The plane to Stockholm was a small one and it was parked on the tarmac. No aero bridge connecting the terminal to the plane. We had to take a shuttle bus from the terminal to board the plane from the tarmac.

We got to experience Finland’s sub-zero winter weather for the first time as we walked on the icy tarmac from the bus to the plane. Although we were not too warmly dressed, the transfer was pretty quick and no one froze to death.  It was actually quite fun for me since walking in sub-zero temperature on a dark and icy tarmac was not something I get to do before.

Full moon over the frozen runway at Arlanda Airport.

It was dawn by the time we arrived at Stockholm’s Arlanda Airport. We took off from Helsinki Airport at 8 AM and arrived in Stockholm at 8 AM! There was an one hour time difference between Finland and Sweden and the flight took one hour.

We bought our Comviq mobile prepaid data-only SIM card from a convenience store inside the airport and went to the Tourist Information Center to collect some maps and brochures of attractions in Stockholm. The SIM cards was easy to install and we had Wi-Fi service within minutes.

As this was a scheduled Arrival Day for International Students on the Exchange program, there were international student guides at Arlanda airport (Terminal 5) to help arriving international students.

Arriving students were able to travel for free from Terminal 5 in Arlanda Airport to Stockholm’s city center using their chartered buses which departs every hour during the Arrival day. There were vacancies on the bus and they offered to give a free ride to accompanying family members as well. Great welcome service!

We have time to grab some food and drinks from a 7-11 store before our bus departs. The bus ride to the Cityterminalen Bus Station took about 30 to 45 minutes.


First glimpse of Stockholm’s frozen lakes and landscape from our bus as we approached Stockholm city.

At the Cityterminalen Bus Station, we went to a Pressbyrån convenience store to buy our SL access card (20 SEK for the card) and load a 7-day Travelcard onto it for 315 SEK.  With a Travelcard, we could travel as much as we liked throughout the Stockholm county for the duration of the card.


Note: Useful tips on how get around with public transport, SL, throughout the Stockholm County can be found here.


Cityterminalen serves as a hub for the bus transportation system in Sweden and is connected by a tunnel to the Stockholm Central Station. From there, we walked to the T-Centralen (central station for Stockholm’s subway called the Tunnelbana) and took the subway train to Alvik Station where the students’ accommodation is located.

The apartment is located within walking distance from the Alvik tunnelbana (T-bana) station but it was not easy to walk on the icy side-walks. The normal flat sidewalks are quite OK. Going up and down the icy slopes that was completely iced up was the most difficult. One of us slipped and fell and injured his hand slightly along the way.



We got the keys from the apartment host, Patrick, and we went through the check-in process smoothly. The rest of the day was spent helping the boys settle into their new home and making a list of items that we need to buy. For some of the items, Patrick was helpful to provide upon our request.

Samuel’s room for the next six months.

Once the boys were settled in, we took the tunnelbana to the Medborgarplatsen Station where our own Airbnb apartment was located. There we met up with the rest of the group who travelled by different flights.

For dinner, we went to the Meatball for the People restaurant in the Södermalm area but the restaurant was fully booked. We made a reservation for the next night and went to pub along Folkungagatan instead.

The pub was well patronised by the weekend crowd and we were shown to a table located in the basement. This pub shows live sports and we were able to watch a live EPL match while having our dinner. While the staff was friendly, the food was not very good. By then, we were too tired to bother anyway.

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Stockholm in Winter – shopping at Drottingatan and dinner in Sodermalm area ( @ Meatball for the People restaurant)

15 January 2017 

This was a relatively relaxing day where our plan was to go shop for some essential items for the boys’ apartment before their academic term starts.

One of Stockholm's most popular streets is Drottninggatan ("Queen Street"). This pedestrian street runs north to south for almost 2 kilo-meters. There are many shops and boutiques along this street. We started near the Hotorget T-bana station.

Bridge over Kungsgatan.

Adidas Flagship store with a large video screen.

 Sunday market at Hötorget (Haymarket), a city square in the center of Stockholm.

We made our way down the Drottninggatan shopping street, had lunch at Pizza Hut and ended up in Clas Ohlson. 



Clas Ohlson at Drottninggatan is a good place to shop for household essentials. There are sections for kitchenware, electrical appliances, gardens, laundry and even bicycle accessories.

We bought a clothes stand plus a few other items and carried it to the boy’s apartment.


We ended the day with dinner at the Meatball for the People restaurant in Sodermalm (we had made reservation on our first day).  We later found out that we can actually made reservations online. The restaurant was not very big, with a couple for large tables for groups in the center and smaller tables along the sides, plus some bar seats. Hence, reservations are recommended.

Once seated, we were offered some appetisers that looked like thin cardboards!



Sweden is famous for their meatballs and definitely a must-try when visiting Sweden. This restaurant specialises in meatballs and we were offered options of lamb or pork meatballs when ordering our main dish.

CLASSIC MEATBALLS for 179 SEK. With choice of meatballs served with the classic accompaniments; cream sauce, potato purée, lingon berries and pickled cucumber.  

DELUXE MEATBALLS for 195 SEK. With choice of meatballs, served with red wine sauce, potato purée, shiitake mushrooms, bacon, spinach and lingon berries.

 

SPAGHETTI for 179 SEK. With choice of meatballs served with their homemade tomato sauce and grated parmesan cheese. 

They even offer take-aways and there was a fridge where we could actually buy the  meatballs to cook our own meals back in our apartment.

Compared to our dinner on our first night in Stockholm, this was way much better! I would not mind coming here again on my next trip.

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