On the trail of ABBA and Pippi Longstocking (Stockholm 5)

Sabrina Leuenberger, Direct Sales & Services Manager Scandinavia & Finland

Kära Vänner

Having covered shopping, eating, coffee-drinking and getting around Stockholm, let’s talk about the city’s nightlife. For most occasions, such as concerts and parties where you can express your own version of ABBA’s “Dancing Queen”, Södermalm is the island to be on.

When it comes to music, Sweden has produced an impressive series of successful artists, from ABBA and Roxette to The Hives and The Cardigans and newer artists such as Robyn and the Shout Out Louds. You are sure to find something to suit your taste in music.

But before Swedes go out to the hip places in Stockholm, they meet up at a friend’s place for drinks and getting ready.

A lot of places that host concerts and parties also have a restaurant or bar on location, such as the Debasers. Debaser Medis, located on Söder’s Medborgarplatsen, is well known for its concert hall and bar. This venue enjoys a reputation as THE concert place for the urban crowd, as a lot of good indie and rock bands have performed there. Its sister club, Debaser Slussen (photo below on the right-hand side), hosts concerts for the same style of music but also includes a vibrant party feeling.

On the trail of ABBA and Pippi Longstocking (Stockholm 4)

Sabrina Leuenberger, Direct Sales & Services Manager Scandinavia & Finland

Hej allihopa!

Have you booked your flight to Stockholm yet? Good, if you have, and in case you haven’t, maybe my next tips will convince you to go to SWISS.COM and book your city-trip to beautiful Stockholm.

Here are my Top 9 things to do:

Getting an overview
Enjoy the view from the top of Katarina Elevator (Katarinahissen), originally constructed in 1881 to connect Södermalm and Slussen (the lock area).

Walk the line
Take a walk through Gamla Stan (photo below on the right-hand side), the Old Town, and have a coffee and Kanelbullar (delicious Swedish pastry) on Stor Torget. Enjoy Gamla Stan’s romantic scene filled with fantastic architecture, from colorful old buildings to little antique shops.

On the trail of ABBA and Pippi Longstocking (Stockholm 3)

Sabrina Leuenberger, Direct Sales & Services Manager Scandinavia & Finland

Tjena!

Shopping can make you hungry, can’t it? So here are my favourites for a coffee break during the day along with a couple of palate-please places to go in the evening in one’s newly bought dress.

Café 60 (photo on the left-hand side) is a small, cozy café located at Sveavägen 60. The menu offers a wide variety of salads, warm dishes and sandwiches (known in Swedish as smörgåsar, which is often confused with the Danish word smörrebröd), and an abundance of sweet goodies. The hard part is choosing.

If I am on Söder, I like to go to a café called Muggen (which means “mug” in English). It enjoys a very prominent location on Götgatan that makes it great for people-watching and spotting the hip crowd of SoFo while you savour a delicious Muggen salad and a coffee.

Seat auction for good cause

Christian Lüdi, Social Media Marketing

On Friday, 10 December, Ramon Koller, Project Manager Modifications, delivered a pair of Business Class seats to Bern where they will be auctioned off to raise funds for the “Jeder Rappen zählt” project (Every Penny Counts).

Click here to get to the auction

Before being donated, the seat combination underwent a few technical modifications in the workshop in order to be suitable for a place in someone’s home. This work involved replacing the reading lamps and sealing off the openings for the inflight screen and handset. After the auction, we will transport the seat pair free of charge to the residence of the winning bidder. In addition, a number of cabin crew members have volunteered to man the telephones in the Happy Days charity phone-a-thon on 18 December.

The “Jeder Rappen zählt” project is a charity campaign organised by Swiss Solidarity in partnership with Swiss Television and Radio DRS, with the support of numerous prominent individuals and businesses. This year, fundraising takes place December 13-18 for the benefit of children victimised by war. The fundraising drive will include a series of auctions and a spectacular music event in the square in front of the parliament building in Bern.

On the trail of ABBA and Pippi Longstocking (Stockholm 2)

Sabrina Leuenberger, Direct Sales & Services Manager Scandinavia & Finland

Hej och välkommen tillbaka!

It would be very easy to become a shopaholic here in Stockholm, the most stylish city in Scandinavia. The city is a huge playground for enthusiastic shoppers, and not only since H & M was founded here. It’s hard to narrow it down to just a couple of tips as there are many outstanding brands, shops and places to see. Well, let’s head for the “playground” and see.

Stockholm’s inner-city is built on four main islands - Kungsholmen, Norrmalm, Östermalm and Södermalm – each one with loads of shops where you can find all kind of things. This report will focus on the “posh” islands and the “fancy” island.

Östermalm and Norrmalm or “the posh islands”
It’s “dangerous” to live on Norrmalm, at least with regard to one’s wallet. It’s quite easy to set off with the intention of doing a bit of window-shopping around the city only to find yourself heading home with a shopping bag full of new clothes. In any case, all the major brands are found here, from Marc Jacobs to Gucci and many more. Fortunately, there are also plenty of brands that cater to a medium-range budget. The place to go is around Biblioteksgatan. This street is full of nice shops such as Urban Outfitters, Replay, Whyred, Filippa K., Mathilde and Face Stockholm. At Smålandsgatan 20, a side street, is where SOLO is located, where you can find a huge assortment of jeans and nice dresses. Stureplan and Sergelstorg (two squares in the city centre) are home to big malls like NK, Galleria, Sturegallerian and Åhlens. All are worth exploring, especially NK, which is a Swedish institution.

On the trail of ABBA and Pippi Longstocking (Stockholm 1)

Sabrina Leuenberger, Direct Sales & Services Manager Scandinavia & Finland

With my last name, there is no denying where I am originally from. I moved a couple of month ago from Zurich to Stockholm to work for SWISS in its local branch office. And I have already fallen for this city. As of 17 December the capital of Sweden becomes even more accessible from Switzerland. SWISS will then operate three daily flights between Zurich and Stockholm. And I would therefore like to tell you how much this city in northern Europe has to offer (in case you don’t already know…).
So before I get to the interesting part of guiding you through Stockholm with nearly-local tips, I’d like to start by clearing up some of the most widely spread preconceptions and clichés about the country and its inhabitants.

Number 1: cold and darkness
If a country is located between the 55th and the 69th degree of latitude, it is inevitable that the weather will not be Mediterranean. It is true that winters can be very cold but if you come from Switzerland, for instance, it is definitely not a huge difference. The darkness on the other hand can drive up your coffee consumption; at least that that’s what happened in my case. The average coffee consumption in the Nordics is around 400mg/day, which is double the amount of other European countries (Germany is at 200mg/day). So you might consider packing some warm clothes and dropping into one of the nice and cosy coffee shops I’m going to tell you about in another blog entry.

The Bellamy Brothers & Gölä in the air

Interview: Manuela Gretener
Photos: Universal Music

The American country music legends the Bellamy Brothers and the Swiss megastar rocker Gölä have teamed-up in the studio to produce the ultimate album: “The Bellamy Brothers & Gölä – The Greatest Hits Sessions”, which features re-recordings of both acts’ greatest hits. For SWISS they have produced an exclusive music channel with a selection of own compositions as well as personal favourite songs. Discover what the Bellamy Brothers think about Gölä, travelling and their special relationship with Switzerland.

Bellamy Brothers, you’ve sold over 70 million albums; which song are you most proud of?
“Old Hippie”, because we can relate to that one the most when we look at our lives.