Great cities in bad weather: Stockholm and Paris

[Vecais Sakarnis]

Last week I was in trip to Stockholm/Paris (2 days/4 days). The weather was terrible, especially in Stockholm - rain, wind and coldness. But despite of it I loved the city and I concluded that it would be my number one choice (together with Barcelona) where to live in abroad of all the destinations where I have been. Why? Simply - I haven't seen so liveable, cosy, safe and tidy city as Stockholm. It has the best waterfronts and the best suburbs - I even liked them (for example, Sodermalm) more than the city centre which is a bit ugly. Here are my pics from Stockholm, pics from Paris will follow later.

[Vecais Sakarnis]

In Paris, the weather was a bit better, the sun appeared through the clouds some few times at least and I desperately tried to catch these moments. Paris itself is the most royal and grandeur city I have seen, with enormous amount of palaces, churches and other must-see objects - even London can't compete! It's monumental parks and buildings like Louvre, Petit palais, Hotel Des Invalides etc was just mind-blowing, but again - such a shame that I didn't see them in sunny days - then the effect would be much stronger. Paris streetscenes, actually, I didn't like very much - too similar to Marseille where I was in June, although much more renovated, but I disliked mainly one thing: the color similarity. Architecture itself also could be more diverse, but the equal sandy color made the buildings even more indistinguishable and boring. Also Paris suburbs was rather ugly - their commieblocks looks as darkly and deterrently as Riga's - in strong contrast to Stockholm's human-friendly looking commie districts. Largest business district in Europe - La Defense - has some great looking highrises and quite compact overall view and it's definitely better than Frankfurt's and Warsaw's highrise clusters to my mind. Not sure about London though, which has more density.

[Nomels]

Thanks for the pics. Nice.

I've been is Stockholm few times and I liked it and I liked the atmosphere - very international with friendly locals. However from all Scandinavian cities (Kobenhaven, Helsinki, Stockholm, Goteburg, Arhus and Oslo) I liked Oslo the most. Dooo noo why - must be the atmosphere.

Paris is a different storry Too big for my two days visit - must go one more time.

[FREKI]

Great pictures mate - I love those cities too!

[kjetilab]

The effect of dark clouds in the background and sun on the object just makes some of your shots truly amazing! Great Pics. And the nightshots just makes me shiver...

[Keith S G]

i'm a risk taker and to think i walked across (after a night out) from pic 4 to my boat hotel xmas 02! What camera are you using now Vecais?

[Swede]

Great pics. Really sweet night shots, and I like the Eiffel with the stars

One thing tho, Södermalm isn't a suburb, it's part of the inner city. Used to be a suburb 200 years ago, but now all the urbanness at the center of the metro is the inner city. Suburbs = commieblocks and rowhouses in modernist planning.

[Þróndeimr]

Really nice pics, though the weather weren't fantastic.

[Vecais Sakarnis]

Thanks!
@Keith - Nikon D40.
@Swede - Ok, but also some of commieblocks looks very nice in Stockholm, f.e., those which are in opposite side of Sodermalm, over the bridge in direction to south, not far from Globen - they have sloping roofs which make them so great looking. What a simple and great idea, why they don't build such commies elsewhere.

[El_Greco]

Paris looks good in any weather.Great pics mate!

[SimsPlanet2]

Amazing pictures of Stockholm and Paris. I enjoyed to watch them all. I've been to Paris for 3 times (also Disneyland), but haven't seen much of the city, only the places where toerist often go. I need to visit Stockholm soon, great looking city.

[Geborgenheit]

Paris looks superb! I love it.

[Nõgesh]

Thanks for the pics, both of the cities are among my favourites in the world

[Nightsky]

Nice pictures of 2 very beautiful cities!


I really like La Defense, it's like a part of New York or LA in Paris!
The tower to the right (can't remember its name) wasn't there when I was there just a few years back!

[Liwwadden]

Despite the weather you managed to take some nice quality shots. Great! What camera did you use?

[dancle]

Some really nice photos of two very beautiful cities. I just visited Stockholm last week. It's beautiful but I wouldn't recommend it in the winter, it's very cold, a lot better in summer time. It was several years since I've been to Paris, but fortunately I'm going there this summer.

Btw.. I woldn't exactly call södermalm a suburb, Stockholm also has alot of ugly commieblocks, really a lot of them.....

[christos-greece]

Stockholm and Paris are awesome, very nice cities

[Vecais Sakarnis]

Originally Posted by Liwwadden

Despite the weather you managed to take some nice quality shots. Great! What camera did you use?

Nikon d40.

[christos-greece]

I think the weather in Paris is much better from Stockholm... Stockholm is hundred kiliometres away and its northest than Paris...

[Vecais Sakarnis]

Originally Posted by christos-greece

I think the weather in Paris is much better from Stockholm... Stockholm is hundred kiliometres away and its northest than Paris...

Well, in Paris it was at least a bit warmer, but one day almost all day it was raining and I sat in my hotel til afternoon. In overall, in summer, I don't know how sunny is summers in Stockholm, but I think that in Paris is quite often cloudy and raining, it's not that far from London (The world's capital of rain and fog) after all.