Take Stock and make it your holm

I have been in Stockholm for 3 weeks now and can offer a selection of top tips:

1. Do buy Ekologiska Mjölk (free range milk), don't buy Ekologiska Filmjölk (free range soured milk). One tastes nice on your cornflakes, one definitely doesn't.

2. Don't go on the Historical Canal Tour (120 SEK per adult) unless you want to hear all about blocks of flats, obscure manufacturing industry and road building. The random soundtrack is quite amusing for a while, but that's about it.

3. Do go to Vasamuseet. The boat is amazing in itself but the associated exhibitions are very informative and the layout is user-friendly.

4. Don't book tickets to watch the Ancient Greece show at the Cosmonova. It's a trite, cliche-laden, clunking piece of tourist board propaganda.

5. Do go to Historiska Museet to see some Scandinavian history. The Prehistories and Vikings sections are especially good, whilst I was less bothered about mediaeval church artefacts or the room full of gold (helpfully called Goldrummet).

6. Go to the Skansen "Aquarium" and enjoy all the monkeys, marmosets and lemurs. Quite a lot of them roam free whilst you walk through their cage, which is pretty goddamn groovy. If you want to see a more aquatic aquarium, Vattenmuseet (down the road) is a better bet as it has sharks and starfish and conger eels and clownfish.

7. The public transport system is very good, except when you have to sit around for an age waiting for a number 70 bus to not turn up. For the T-Bana, buy books of 10 single tickets (180 SEK per book) unless you're going to visit lots of museums too, in which case buy a Stockholmcard. They cost 270 SEK for 24 hours, 420 for 48 hours and 540 for 72 hours.

8. Save your plastic bottles and cans and take them to the recycling points inside various food stores and supermarkets. After you've fed them into the machine you get a voucher for money off your shopping bill. I wonder if it might be a scam by the drinks companies to make you buy more of their products.

I'm sure I have lots of other top tips but I can't think of them at the moment. I shall return again soon...

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