So many of the beautiful churches and government buildings in Stockholm are partially hidden from view by scaffolding. We were a bit disappointed and didn’t bother taking pics of construction sites. As we were leaving Sweden we realized construction here is “a thing.” We thought we were back in Shanghai in the late 1990s with cranes visible in every direction.

The structure wrapped in white above is St. Nicholas Church, Storkykran, the Stockholm Cathedral, the mother church of the Church of Sweden, Svenska Kyrkan. It’s the oldest church in Gamla Stan and one of Michael’s top targets for church of the day. (Next time…)

The Swedish Parliament House, the Royal Palace, lots of popular tourist spots are also obscured by cranes, scaffolding, plastic wrap, “sorry for our mess” signs, etc. The only thing we didn’t see was bamboo scaffolding.

Apparently we’re not the only ones who have noticed and perhaps complained about this construction activity. It was actually planned before COVID, but the lower tourist turnout over the last year and a half ended up being good timing. The goal is that “Sweden’s capital soon will have a global city status.” We thought it already did have that status.

Outside our hotel we saw plastic tubing going in for heating a very wide sidewalk. Stockholm’s temperatures can drop to the high 20s (°F) from November through February, with a couple of inches of snow spread across up to 10 days a month.

This is along the Vasagatan, named for King Gustave Vasa, considered the founder of modern Sweden, ruling for nearly 40 years in the 1500s. It’s a busy commercial street and connects the rail and metro station to the Old Town, Gamla Stan.

One Stockholm travel site we checked said, “Autumn, from September to November, is cool and quite rainy as early as in September.” Fortunately for us, every day of our visit was sunny, warm but not hot, and beautiful.

We didn’t take too many other photos of construction since we we wanted to see the UNobstructed buildings, but after the fact we realized the level of work was quite impressive. We will have to come back in five years to see Stockholm after all the construction is completed!

Visited in September 2021