DON’T BE LATE, COME EARLY AND GET YOUR OPPORTUNITY!

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DATES OF OUR UNFORGETTABLE TOUR FROM LARNACA

16- 20 NOVEMBER

21-25 NOVEMBER

26-30 NOVEMBER

Services included in the fee:

• Round-trip flight ticket
• Transportation by luxury vehicles
• Staying at Hotel Frantz and Hotel Sven Vintappare
• Travel with team leader
• All excursions mentioned in the program

Stockholm City Hall

Swedish: Stockholms stadshus, Stadshuset locally) is the seat of Stockholm Municipality in Stockholm, Sweden. It stands on the eastern tip of Kungsholmen island, next to Riddarfjärden’s northern shore and facing the islands of Riddarholmen and Södermalm. It houses offices and conference rooms as well as ceremonial halls. It is the venue of the Nobel Prize banquet and is one of Stockholm’s major tourist attractions.

In 1907, the city council decided to build a new city hall at the former site of Eldkvarn. An architectural design competition was held, which first resulted in the selection of drafts by Ragnar Östberg, Carl Westman, and Ivar Tengbom jointly with Ernst Torulf, and Carl Bergsten.

After a further competition between Westman and Östberg, the latter was assigned the construction of the City Hall, while the former was asked to build Stockholm Court House. Östberg modified his original draft using elements of Westman’s design, including the tower. During construction, Östberg constantly reworked his plans, resulting in the addition of the lantern on top of the tower, and the abandonment of the blue glazed tiles in the Blue Hall. Oskar Asker was employed as construction leader and Paul Toll, of builders Kreuger & Toll, designed the foundations. 

Gamlastan

 Swedish: [ˈɡâmːla ˈstɑːn], “The Old Town”), until 1980 officially Staden mellan broarna (“The Town between the Bridges”), is the old town of Stockholm, Sweden. Gamla stan consists primarily of the island Stadsholmen. Officially, but not colloquially, Gamla stan includes the surrounding islets Riddarholmen, Helgeandsholmen and Strömsborg. It has a population of approximately 3,000.

Gamla Stan has played a prominent role in the history of Swedish architecture, with many of Sweden’s most renowned architects shaping the area; these include figures like Nicodemus Tessin and Carl Hårleman, who worked on the Stockholm Palace, still located in the area.

Other notable buildings in the old town include Tessin’s palace, the Stockholm Stock Exchange Building, Bonde Palace (seat of the Swedish Supreme Court) and the important House of Nobility; the last of these buildings hosted the parliament for many years.

The town dates back to the 13th century, and consists of medieval alleyways, cobbled streets, and archaic architecture. North German architecture has had a strong influence in the Old Town’s construction.

Stortorget is the name of the scenic large square in the centre of Gamla Stan, which is surrounded by old merchants’ houses including the Stockholm Stock Exchange Building. The square was the site of the Stockholm Bloodbath, where Swedish noblemen were massacred by the Danish King Christian II in November, 1520. The following revolt and civil war led to the dissolution of the Kalmar Union and the subsequent election of King Gustav I.

The Södermalm

District covers the island of the same name (formerly called Åsön), which, however, is not fully separated from the peninsula of Södertörn (or the rest of the Swedish mainland), as water to both its north and south does not flow freely but passes through a lock and a man-made waterway.

Södermalm is connected to its surrounding areas by several bridges. It connects to Gamla stan to the north by Slussen, a grid of road and rail and a lock separating the lake Mälaren from the Baltic Sea, to Långholmen to the northwest by one of the city’s larger bridges, Västerbron, to the islet Reimersholme to the west, to Liljeholmen to the southwest by the bridge Liljeholmsbron, to Årsta by Årstabron and Skansbron, to Johanneshov by Johanneshovsbron and Skanstullsbron to the south, and, finally, to Södra Hammarbyhamnen to the east by Danvikstull Bridge.

Administratively, Södermalm is part of Stockholm Municipality. It constitutes, together with Gamla stan and some other districts, from 2007 the administrative district Södermalms stadsdelsområde, often translated as Södermalm borough.

Stockholm Palace or the Royal Palace

(Swedish: Stockholms slott or Kungliga slottet) is the official residence and major royal palace of the Swedish monarch (King Carl XVI Gustaf and Queen Silvia use Drottningholm Palace as their usual residence). Stockholm Palace is on Stadsholmen, in Gamla stan in the capital, Stockholm. It neighbors the Riksdag building. The offices of the King, the other members of the Swedish royal family, and the Royal Court of Sweden are here. The palace is used for representative purposes by the King whilst performing his duties as the head of state.

This royal residence has been in the same location by Norrström in the northern part of Gamla stan in Stockholm since the middle of the 13th century when Tre Kronor Castle was built. In modern times the name relates to the building called Kungliga Slottet. The palace was designed by Nicodemus Tessin the Younger and erected in the same place as the medieval Tre Kronor Castle which was destroyed in a fire on 7 May 1697. Due to the costly Great Northern War which started in 1700, construction of the palace was halted in 1709, and not recommenced until 1727—six years after the end of the war. When Tessin the Younger died in 1728, the palace was completed by Carl Hårleman who also designed a large part of its Rococo interior. The palace was not ready to use until 1754 when King Adolf Frederick and Queen Louisa Ulrika moved in, but some interior work proceeded until the 1770s. No major conversions have been done in the palace since its completion, only some adjustments, new interiors, modernization and redecorating for different regents and their families, coloration of the façades, and addition of the palace museums. The palace is surrounded by the Lejonbacken and the Norrbro to the north, the Logården (known as the Shot Yard in English) and Skeppsbron in the east, the Slottsbacken and the Storkyrkan in the south, and the outer courtyard and Högvaktsterrassen in the northwest.

Sergel’s Square

The site south of the square is taken up by the cultural centre Kulturhuset, which also harbours the Stockholm City Theatre and hides the Bank of Sweden headquarters facing the square Brunkebergstorg behind. The street Klarabergsgatan leads west past the department store Åhléns City and Klara Church to the Klaraberg Viaduct and Kungsholmen. Hamngatan leads east under Malmskillnadsgatan to Kungsträdgården, Norrmalmstorg, and Strandvägen. Together with the underground mall east of the pedestrian plaza and the T-Centralen metro station and other continuous underpasses west thereof, Sergels torg forms part of a continuous underground structure almost a kilometre in length.

Since its creation, Sergels torg has been much criticized for giving priority to cars at the cost of pedestrians. It has, among some quarters, become the main target for criticism of the much debated demolition of the central city district of Klara during the 1950s and 1960s. Nevertheless, it is not dissimilar to but larger than the public space in front of Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris and much like its French counterpart remains the most popular space in Stockholm for meeting friends, for political demonstrations, for a wide range of events, and drug-dealers. This includes the fountain, in which people celebrate major victories by Swedish sports teams.

FOTOGRAFISKA

Is a centre for contemporary photography in the Södermalm district of Stockholm, Sweden that was founded by brothers Jan and Per Broman and opened on 21 May 2010. In March 2021, it merged with NeueHouse and is operated by Yoram Roth and Josh Wyatt under the parent company CultureWorks.

Fotografiska is housed at Stadsgården, in a former customs house in the Art Nouveau style, dating from 1906, and has amenities typical of a museum: exhibit space, bistro, café, bar, conference rooms, museum shop, gallery, and event spaces. As of 2020, it drew more than 500,000 visitors each year. Designed by Ferdinand Boberg, the building is listed as of cultural interest.

DROTTNINGGATAN

The street was laid out in the 1630s and 1640s when the surrounding area was built on a rectilinear grid plan, a significant innovation in Stockholm’s urban environment. It was originally named Stora Konungsgatan (“Great King’s Street”) and was later renamed as Drottninggatan in honour of Queen Christina, who ruled from 1632 to 1654. Its name was paired with that of nearby Regeringsgatan (“Government Street”). This style of naming was relatively novel for Scandinavia, which did not have a tradition of streets named for the king or queen. It was most likely borrowed from Amsterdam or Copenhagen, where groups of streets were given names from the same semantic categories. Thus in Copenhagen’s district of Christianshavn, laid out in 1618, three streets were named Kongens gade (“King’s Street”), Dronninggaden (“Queen’s Street”), and Prinsensgade (“Prince’s Street”).

On 11 December 2010, Drottninggatan was the site of the 2010 Stockholm bombings. Taimour Abdulwahab al-Abdaly, an Iraqi-born Swedish citizen, was killed by one of his own bombs, and two other people were injured. The incident was Sweden’s first suicide bombing. On 7 April 2017, the street was again the site of another terrorist incident, a deadly truck ramming in which five people died and fifteen more were injured. Rakhmat Akilov, an Uzbek citizen, drove a truck through pedestrians and crashed into the Åhlens department store.

KUNGSTRADGARDEN

 (Swedish for “King’s Garden”) is a park in central Stockholm, Sweden. It is colloquially known as Kungsan.

The park’s central location and its outdoor cafés makes it one of the most popular hangouts and meeting places in Stockholm. It also hosts open-air concerts and events in summer, while offering an ice rink during winters. There is also a number of cafés, art galleries and restaurants; for example Galleri Doktor Glas, a name taken from the novel Doctor Glas by Hjalmar Söderberg published in 1905.

The park is divided into four distinct spaces (south to north): the Square of Charles XII; Molin’s Fountain; the Square of Charles XIII and “Fountain of Wolodarski” (which does not have an official name). The park is administered and events in it are organized by the Stockholm Chamber of Commerce.

SKANSEN

   Skansen attracts more than 1.3 million visitors each year. The many exhibits over the 75-acre (300,000 m²) site include a full replica of an average 19th-century town, in which craftsmen in traditional dress such as tanners, shoemakers, silversmiths, bakers, and glass-blowers demonstrate their skills in period surroundings. There is even a small patch of growing tobacco used for the making of cigarettes. There is also an open-air zoo containing a wide range of Scandinavian animals including the brown bear, moose, grey seal, Eurasian lynx, wolf, fox, otter, reindeer, harbor seal, Eurasian eagle owl, great grey owl, wolverine, as well as some non-Scandinavian animals. There are also farmsteads where rare breeds of farm animals can be seen.

In early December the site’s central Bollnäs square is host to a popular Christmas market that has been held since 1903, attracting around 25,000 visitors each weekend. In the summer there are displays of folk dancing and concerts.

VASA MUSEUM

   The Vasa Museum (Swedish: Vasamuseet) is a maritime museum in Stockholm, Sweden. Located on the island of Djurgården, the museum displays the only almost fully intact 17th-century ship that has ever been salvaged, the 64-gun warship Vasa that sank on her maiden voyage in 1628. The Vasa Museum opened in 1990 and, according to the official website, is the most visited museum in Scandinavia. Together with other museums such as the Stockholm Maritime Museum, it belongs to the Swedish National Maritime Museums (SNMM).

Nordiska Museet

   Discover life in the Nordics for the past 500 years at the Nordic Museum, Sweden’s largest museum of cultural history. Situated on the Djurgården island in the center of Stockholm, the magnificent museum building is one of Stockholm’s true landmarks and well worth a visit in itself.

Discover a variety of exhibitions on fashion and textiles, furniture and interiors, china and table settings, folk art, jewelry, photography, trends, and traditions. There is also a separate exhibition about the only indigenous people in Sweden, the Sami. The museum shop offers modern and classical products for old and young, and the restaurant serves traditional Swedish food and snacks.

ABBA The Museum

 Plans for a dedicated to an ABBA exhibition in Stockholm, inspired by the Beatles museum in Liverpool, England, were first announced by founders Ulf Westman and Ewa Wigenheim-Westman in 2006. The exhibition was expected to open in 2008. Organizers estimated it would draw half a million visitors annually. The exhibition was to be located in the former main customs building in Stockholm harbor. After several years of financial issues, the project was abandoned in 2009, and the building was instead set to hold a new contemporary photography exhibition, called Fotografiska.

New plans for a permanent ABBA exhibition were announced on 3 October 2012. The exhibition in Stockholm called “ABBA The Museum”, is the permanent home for the traveling ABBAWORLD exhibit that toured Europe and Australia in 2009–2011, and houses stage costumes donated by the band members. Several interactive audio and video stations allow visitors to perform the band’s music. The exhibition is located in a building near the Gröna Lund theme park on the island of Djurgården.

Djurgården  or Kungliga

Djurgården (Swedish for ‘The [Royal] Game Park’), is an island in central Stockholm, Sweden. Djurgården is home to historical buildings and monuments, museums, galleries, the amusement park Gröna Lund, the open-air museum Skansen, the small residential area Djurgårdsstaden, yacht harbours, and extensive stretches of forest and meadows. It is one of the Stockholmers’ favorite recreation areas and tourist destinations alike, attracting over 10 million visitors per year, of which some 5 million come to visit the museums and amusement parks. The island belongs to the National City Park founded in 1995. Since the 15th century, the Swedish monarch has owned or held the right of disposition of Royal Djurgården. Today, this right is exercised by the Royal Djurgården Administration which is a part of the Royal Court of Sweden.

Sjöcafeet

Stockholm Public Library

 (Swedish: Stockholms stadsbibliotek or Stadsbiblioteket) is a library building in Stockholm, Sweden, designed by Swedish architect Gunnar Asplund, and one of the city’s most notable structures. The name is today used for both the main library itself as well as the municipal library system of Stockholm.

Discussed by a committee of which Asplund himself was a member from 1918, a design scheme was proposed in 1922, and construction began in 1924. Partly inspired by the Barrière Saint-Martin (Rotonde de la Villette) by Claude Nicolas Ledoux, Asplund abandoned earlier ideas for a dome in favor of a rotunda whose tall cylinder gives the exterior some monumentality. In the course of its planning, he reduced elements of the classical order to their most abstract geometrical forms, for the most part eliminating architectural decor. Stockholm Public Library was Sweden’s first public library to apply the principle of open shelves where visitors could access books without the need to ask library staff for assistance, a concept Asplund studied in the United States during the construction of the library. All the furnishings in all the rooms were designed for their specific positions and purposes.

Vaxholm

Vaxholm is a city, urban area and the seat of Vaxholm Municipality, Stockholm County, Sweden. It occupies the islands of Vaxön and Kullö in the Stockholm archipelago. The name Vaxholm comes from Vaxholm Fortress, which was constructed in 1549 on the adjacent islet of Vaxholmen.

For historical reasons it has always been referred to as a city, despite the small number of inhabitants, which as of 2020 total was 6,151. Vaxholm Municipality prefers to use the designation Vaxholms stad (City of Vaxholm) for its whole territory, including 64 islets in the Stockholm archipelago, a somewhat confusing usage.

Vaxholm is situated on an island but is linked to the Swedish mainland by a series of road bridges, and a bus service connects the town to Stockholm city. The Waxholmsbolaget and other ferry lines also provide boat services to central Stockholm and many of the other islands of the Stockholm archipelago, using a mixture of classic steamers and modern fast passenger ferries.

The Vaxholmsleden car ferry connects Vaxholm to the island of Rindö across the Kodjupet strait. The Kastellet ferry, an electrically powered cable ferry provides passenger access to Vaxholm Fortress on its islet in the middle of the Kodjupet.

Drottningholm Palace

   The Drottningholm Palace (Swedish: Drottningholms slott) is the private residence of the Swedish royal family. Drottningholm is near the capital Stockholm. Built on the island Lovön (in Ekerö Municipality of Stockholm County), it is one of Sweden’s Royal Palaces. It was originally built in the late 17th century, and it served as a regular summer residence of the Swedish royal court for most of the 18th century. Apart from being the private residence of the Swedish royal family, the palace is a popular tourist attraction.

Gröna Lund, or Grönan

Is an amusement park in Stockholm, Sweden. Located on the seaward side of Djurgården Island, it is relatively small compared to other amusement parks, mainly because of its central location, which limits expansion. The 3.8 ha (9.4 acres) amusement park has over 30 attractions and is a popular venue for concerts in the summer. It was founded in 1883 by James Schultheiss.

Gröna Lund’s roots are in the 1880s, making it Sweden’s oldest amusement park. However, the area has been used for similar purposes since the early 18th century. In 1883, a German by the name of Jacob Schultheiss rented the area to erect “carousels and other amusements”. Until 2001, descendants of Schultheiss ran Gröna Lund. Before the amusement park came into being, Gröna Lund was the name of a small park.

Millesgården

Millesgarden is an art museum and sculpture garden, located on the island of Lidingö in Stockholm, Sweden. It is located in the grounds of the former home of sculptor Carl Milles (1875–1955) and his wife, the artist Olga Milles (1874–1967). Millesgården consists of three main parts: the artist’s former home, an art gallery, and a sculpture park.

In 1906, the artist couple Carl and Olga Milles bought a plot on Lidingö. The house was designed by architect Karl M. Bengtson (1878-1935) and inaugurated in 1908. Later renovations and extensions were done in collaboration with Milles’s brother architect Evert Milles (1885-1960). They planned to build a home associated with art. At Millesgården the works are mainly by Carl Milles. At the entrance of the middle terrace is a sculpture garden and another sculpture workshop, Lilla Ateljén. This was the primary residence of Carl and Olga Milles until 1931. In 1936, Millesgården was transformed into a foundation which was handed over as a gift to the Swedish people.