As we had anticipated, we took some 5 days in Stockholm, taking advantage of some seriously cheap Ryanair flights.

So what are our suggestions to fellow travellers to the Swedish capital city? Here they come.

Money

Bear in mind, Stockholm is overall more expensive than London, thus likely more expensive than anywhere you are. But if you are a bit careful, you might be able to avoid splashing your cash. The two most expensive things you will notice are drinks and accommodation: 11£ for a pint and a half of lager is clearly a bit too much, in the same way about £60 for a room in the city hostel. But, while you will need a place to stay, you can surely do without a few pints for a couple of days, can’t you?

Food

We did our homework and studied beforehand the best places to go and have proper Swedish food. We basically only left 2 meals to chance in the 4 days, and got fairly lucky, too. Our suggestion is, no matter where you are staying, do check out the City Backpackers hostel suggestions page for your stay. Their tips are awesome overall, not only for the food, but what we enjoyed the most was:

• Tennstopet, the oldest pub in Stockholm, with very good value for money and “local” atmosphere
• Pelikan, apparently the best meatballs in town. Meatballs are indeed awesome but heavy as hell! They come in portions of 4 and they are about 4 times larger than the Ikea meatballs, so keep this in mind!
• Östermalms korvspecialist, amazing sausages booth, fantastic for a meal on the go. Strömming is another booth where they mostly do fried herring sandwiches, which we strongly recommend.

We also happened to have lunch at the restaurant within the Nordiska Museet, which is a good option if you wish to spend your  morning in Skansen as it’s very close.

Museums

There’s plenty of things to see in Stockholm, and a good selection of museums, too. The most popular tourist attraction is Skansen: bit of a park, bit of a museum, bit of a zoo. Originally intended as a open-air museum to showcase life in Sweden pre-industrial era, it is also home to several Scandinavian animals, such as moose, bears, reindeer and many others.

The Nordiska Museet, on Djugarden, is the museum of Swedish cultural history. It is well worth a visit on the way back from Skansen and it has a nice restaurant. Exhibitions include interior design and trends throughout the centuries, as well as fantastic samples of Nordic textiles.

On Gamla Stan (the Old Town) you have the Nobel Museet, which showcases the history of Alfred Nobel and the prize that he set in his will. They seem to regularly have pretty good temporary exhibitions too: we got to see one about Galileo’s telescope, in its 400th “birthday”, which is on until January 17th.

There’s also the Historiska Museet, of course, which has very rich exhibitions on Scandinavian prehistories, the Viking period, textiles and golden artefacts.

Public transport

Buses and the Metro work very smoothly and are an affordable and reliable way to get around town. I’m not sure whether they run overnight or till a certain hour but I highly recommend them. Bear in mind Stockholm is not a huge city: the city centre is perfectly walkable and mostly flat, so keep this option in mind, if you want to save some cash (although prices are reasonable).

The overall feeling

Stockholm is a beautiful city. I think it could give different impressions depending on when you visit in the year, specially considering the daylight: we visited in late November, and at about 3pm it started getting dark, and eventually got dark by 4.30pm. But, even in the morning, the sun is never high so it always seemed like it was setting… Weird…

And, last but not least, a big thanks to Melina who suggested Chokladkoppen, on Stortorget.

Not quite literally, he performed under the roof. We were under the rain.

We previously anticipated that after TweetCamp we headed towards Hampstead in the late afternoon. Weather forecasts weren’t great and in fact we were greeted by pouring rain as soon as we arrived at Archway Underground station (bear in mind that we left Richmond with the sun warmly shining). For a little while we thoughht about not even going to Kenwood, given the open air concerto n a field and the rain. But, we had no way of actually knowing if they were going to cancel the show or not, so we ran to the bus stop and got to Kenwood House.

Kenwood House (on a sunny day though)

The gig was te first of the English Heritage Picnic Concerts 2009, and saw Ray Davies backed by the Crouch End Festival Chorus. The CEFC backed Davies in 2007 already during the Proms at the Roundhouse (we’ve already talked about the venue), and they recently came out with a record, The Kinks Choral Collection (spotify link), with 15 classic Kinks and Davies’s songs supported by the choir. The record has had mixed reviews so far, most of them not being very enthusiastic about the actual added value provided by the choir. One sure thing is that the live is better than the record itself, but, still, it was not mind-blowing. Davies is in very good form, and the backing band too, but, maybe because of the distance from the stage, maybe because the sound system was not the best ever, I was not impresse by the chorus anyway. A far more accurate review of the gig itself can be found here.

Here’s the video for Waterloo Sunset. You can find a playlist with the videos I took on YouTube.

What we really enjoyed was the whole situation, the whole surroundings. People came very well organised: we saw all sorts of picnic covers, food boxes, wine coolers, flutes, salad (obviously with proper salad bowls and dressings). When the rain started to come down heavy, no one seemed bothered: put the poncho on, open the brolly, and that’s it. In Italy people would have run away within seconds. Even the part of the audience sitting on the deck chairs (getting soaking wet, of course) stayed there.

[flickr-gallery mode="photoset" photoset="72157620680937317"]

We weren’t able to carry much to the picnic concert, mainly ’cause we were at TweetCamp before it (and it was a pretty long journey, Brick Lane to Hampstead via Richmond…), but next time we’ll make sure we get the wine and the food in proper picnic style.

We have few little things coming up in the next months or so, so we’ll keep you updated!

Kenwood House how we would have liked to see it courtesy of _mubblegum_ on Flickr

We hope you had a wonderful start of the Summer and Father’s Day weekend!

As for ourselves, I can say it was very good! The weekend started early: on Thursday night we were invited to a private screening of “Up” at the Disney studios in Hammersmith, but more on the topic will follow and I’m not going to disclose anything!

Theatralia (thanks to mansikka on flickr)

After that we headed straight away to the Riverside Studios, just by Hammersmith Bridge, for the first of a series of three nights called “Tunes in June” (I would love to link to it, but they removed the info from their website…). The first night saw a performance by the curator of the event, Sardinian jazz singer and fellow expatriate to London Filomena Campus, and her band. The performance was very intense: Filomena has some spectacular singing abilities (the technique, the passion…), which can be appreciated both while performing “regular” songs and while improvising. She opened the second half of the show with a duet with guest singer Cleveland Watkiss: they improvised for 10 minutes during which they even got to “play tennis” with their voices… Maybe a bit to early for Wimbledon, but truly amazing.

Another guest of the night was flamenco guitarist Antonio Forcione, who headlined the Friday night at the Studios alongside Adriano Adewale, which we were unfortunately not able to attend (due to @apertiweat secret commitments!). The Saturday’s show was a different performance altogether. It was, infact, an evening curated by Filomena in which music, words, video projections and even smells, were all improvised. The Theatralia multimedia event featured Evan Parker at the saxophone, and also some “surprises” from the audience. The performance was followed by a ceremony to celebrate the Summer Solstice, with flowers thrown into the Thames.

We would like to thank Gareth from NameMusic for te chance to discover this truly amazing artist, and our friends Laura and Giovanni for the Saturday’s evening!

Living away from home surely has its positive sides. One of these is the fact that if you like music, and you DO like music, and you move to London chances are you will go and see some gigs. The truth is that you will have lots of choices, lots of bands to see, lots of places to go and so little time.

Obviously music taste is different for each and every one of us, and different venues host different gigs, but these are the ones that, historically speaking, you can’t afford to miss

1 – 100 Club

100 Oxford Street, W1

Maximo Park @ 100 Club - Courtesy of aguichard on Flickr

Originally a restaurant, it has been a venue for live jazz music since 1942. In 1964 it changed its name into 100 Club, and hosted the best Blues, R&B and Beat acts around. If The Who and The Kinks don’t ring any bells to you, well, I’m sorry.

The 100 Club hosted the first punk festival. 1976, 20th and 21st of September. Monday and Tuesday, of course. Sex Pistols, The Clash, The Damned, Siouxie and the Banshees and others. It all began here.

Since May 1980 the 100 Club has hosted Northern Soul allnighters, still running nowadays.

And then the buzz of Indie in the mid 90′s. Oasis, Kula Shaker, Cornershop, Muse, OceanColourScene…

Need any more?

Who we went to see

The Trojans, gaelic ska band lead by the great Gaz Mayall

2 – Brixton Academy

211 Stockwell Road, SW9

Paul Weller sold out at the academy last winter

It used to be a cinema and a theatre, and you clearly recognise that from the leaning towards the stage of the floor and from the layout of the seats in the upper area. The arch and the interior are still like they were originally in the late 1920′s. Scenographically speaking, it’s probably the best live venue in the UK.

Bob Dylan and The Clash both played 5 consecutive nights at the Academy. The Specials are set to play 5 nights for their reunion (but without Jimmy Dammers is a bit like The Jam reuniting without Paul Weller) in May this year.

Who we went to see

In 2005 we saw Shout Out Louds and The Magic Numbers, in 2008 Paul Weller

3 – Hope and Anchor

207 Upper Street, N1

Basement at the Hope and Anchor - courtesy of _maracuja on Flickr

Difficult to imagine late 70′s music without the Hope and Anchor. This pub in Islington, main spot of the pub rock London scene, hosted gigs from Madness, The Damned, Joy Division, U2, The Stranglers, just to name a few.

Given the size of the basement, it’s crazy to think about it full of people seeing The Specials…

Who we went to see

A band of friends of friends of ours called The Words. They were opening act fore some other random Killers-sound-alike bands

4 – Royal Albert Hall

Kensington Gore, SW7

Noel Gallagher Live 2 the RAH - Courtesy of mattandsally on Flickr

Opened by Queen Victoria in 1871, for the hole history I’ll leave it to Wikipedia. The Royal Albert Hall has been hosting the Proms since 1941, and an impressive line up of superstars played here. Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, ABBA, Ocean Colour Scene + Paul Weller + Oasis, Morrissey, The Who.

It’s simply breathtaking.

Who we went to see

Madness as part of the Teenage Cancer Trust concerts in 2008

5 – Roundhouse

Chalk Farm Road, NW1

The interiors of the Roundhouse - Courtesy of etcher on Flickr

The building was originally built in 1846 to repair steam engines, but its uses changed often in its history. It started to be used as a live venue in 1964, and hosted shows by Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd, among others.

What I personally like about it is the round (of course) shape and the feeling that yes, one could be using that space for all sorts of different things but it keeps on giving you the idea that no, you really can’t do anything else than playing music.

Who we went to see

Los Van Van this year. It was fine at the beginning, then it got boring and we left…

How about you?

What are your favourite venues for live music in London? I know we are missing many, the Jazz Cafe and the Hammersmith Apollo among others, but we haven’t had the chance to visit them yet.