You Are Not Taking A Chance On Stockholm's Springtime Allure

Stockholm, the city that brought us silver screen legend Ingmar Bergman and the splashy ‘70s pop super group ABBA, also has a shine all its own. When the springtime sun sets, warm tones bathe the stone buildings that line the water, and as the sky gradually sets, the lights of the ferry boats replace that of nature.

Although charming, the glow of Sweden's capital and largest city, came as a surprise; I had always pictured the city as gray, clean (of course), and almost unbearably nice. Well, it is nice, but Stockholm's niceness is not hard to bear. It is clean, and that's fine, too. But as with its unexpectedly mellow light, the city of 750,000 people holds a number of surprises.

Stockholm has become more multicultural in recent years, and the influx of newcomers has diversified the city's taste buds. Swedish meatballs and herring are still easily found, but Italian, French, Thai and sushi have arrived, too. It's no foodie destination like New York or Tokyo but Stockholm has an impressive variety of restaurants for a place its size, a size that was once much smaller.

Stockholm grew in concentric circles, expanding outward from the medieval district of Gamla Stan to 13 nearby islands, sprouting new neighborhoods one by one. It then expanded to several dozen more of the 24,000 islands in the Stockholm Archipelago.

I journeyed to Stockholm on the sleek X2000 train from Copenhagen, a five-hour ride, then flew back from Arlanda Airport, 25 miles outside Stockholm, on SAS, Scandinavia's major airline. The land and air combination saved time and afforded a variety of looks at the lakes, forests and farms of the region.