as we hobbled along the cobbliest medieval street ever on Sodermalm to the realization that the smoothest rock in our bathroom sink at the Hotel Skeppsholmen must have been cinderella-ed over and elevated to high design status...
*****
from the gustavian nook in the 18th century mansion converted recently into the Hotel Hellstens Malmgard where the blood red walls of our room hosted a life size portrait of a lovely swedish queen whose royal spectre hovered benignly around all night...
to the artsy installations of the latest designer pieces in the anterooms of the Hotel Skeppsholmen where, in the dappled twilight, the ghosts of naval officers past boldly followed guests to their rooms...
*****
and a short walk away near the waterfront, stands a most distinguished WC - faced in marble and with a bronze door handle, it evokes a mildly ghoulish mausoleum more than a contemporary public facility...
*****
from the barest of simple white bulbs on the most traditional oxblood stained batten board wall of an older dwelling...
to the gravity defying lamps in the window of a latest to the minute design shop...
*****
to the elegant exuberance of a two-pink-toned spray of heather in a raw concrete planter,
the Swedes delight in their design sense like nobody's business [and hence everyman/woman/child's compulsion to the democratic aesthetic of IKEA the world over!]
*****
royal sardines and lusty tea for our culinary indulgence...
