Earlier this year my girlfriend Lindsey and myself flew out to Europe to enjoy a little Scandinavian vacation. We have a tradition that every year on our birthday we fly one another to a destination of our choice, so this year Linds and I decided to fly to Denmark and Sweden. Since we would be leaving in January we thought it would be the perfect opportunity to indulge in some wintertime fun and take in the sights. We decided to spend a week in each city, starting with Copenhagen and ending our trip in Stockholm.

We got into Stockholm late in the evening. Most of the city was already asleep, so we decided to check into our hotel and go grab a bite to eat before resting up for tomorrow’s adventures. We booked our accommodations at Hotel Danmark, a modern boutique hotel located in the city center. After dropping off our bags in the room we headed down the street for a late night bite. We stumbled upon an authentic Danish restaurant that we thought would be perfect to hit the spot and would be a perfect welcome to the country.

Before the trip we saved all of our highest points of interest so that when we arrived we could start out on a good foot and start knocking locations off of our list right away. In the morning we had some breakfast downstairs in the hotel (which was delicious!) and then headed out for the day’s excursions. During our seven days in Copenhagen we visited a variety of beautiful hotels, exquisite restaurants and pastry shops, and toured opulent castles. We walked the narrow, stone cobblestone streets of the city and marveled in the country’s vast history. One of the days we headed to Nyhavn, one of the most popular little parts of Copenhagen. Everyone knows this area for the colorful buildings overlooking the water. From there we took a (very cold) boat tour around the city.

Our second stop on our trip was to the city of Stockholm. One of my good friends from college and previous brides Ellie lives just outside of the city and picked Lindsey and I up from the airport. We headed out to visit one of the country’s castles- Drottningholm. Including Copenhagen, this was our first trip that we ever stepped foot inside of a castle. The words extravagant and palatial don’t even begin to describe what these places look like. After our tour we headed to a nearby restaurant for some tasty Swedish waffles. Later that day we headed into downtown Stockholm where our hotel was- Hotel Drottning Kristina. This base of operations for us was just a stones-throw away from endless restaurants, amazing shopping, and right off the water.

Over the next few days we visited enormous churches, toured design museums, shopped like it was going out of style, and indulged in the best Swedish meatballs I’ve had. We even stopped off at an outdoor zoo which was snow-covered at the time and beautiful to see! We ended our trip with full hearts (and stomachs) and brought back with us some once-in-a-lifetime memories. If you ever have a chance to do a Scandinavian vacation of your own I highly recommend doing so!

Film Lab | Richard Photo Lab

Scandinavian Vacation