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Modern Stockholm lies immediately to the north of Gamla Stan. It's split into two distinct sections: the central Norrmalm and the classier, residential streets of Ostermalm to the east - though there's not much apart from a couple of specialist museums to draw you here. On the waterfront, at the foot of Norrbro, is Gustav Adolfs Torg , more a traffic island than a square, with the eighteenth-century Opera House its proudest and most notable building. It was at a masked ball here in 1792 that King Gustav III was shot by one Captain Ankarstrom; you'll find Gustav's ball costume, as well as the assassin's pistols and mask, displayed in the palace armoury in Gamla Stan. Gustav's statue marks the centre of the square, where, apart from the views, the only affordable entertainment is to rent a fishing rod and try and land a fish in the Strommen , which flows through the centre of the city - a right Stockholmers have enjoyed since the seventeenth century. Just off the square, at Fredsgatan 2, the Medelhavsmuseet is devoted to Mediterranean and Near Eastern antiquities (Tues 11am-8pm, Wed-Fri 11am-4pm, Sat & Sun 11am-5pm; 50kr; T-Kungstradgarden), with an enormous display showing just about every aspect of Egyptian life up to the Christian era. The huge Cypriot collections - the largest outside the island itself - depict life through a period spanning 6000 years. North of here Klarabergsgatan leads to the Klara Kyrka (Mon-Fri 10am-6pm, Sat 10am-7pm, Sun 8.30am-6pm), typical of Stockholm's hidden churches, hemmed in by buildings on all sides and with a light and flowery eighteenth-century painted interior and an impressive golden pulpit. Back towards the water, Norrmalm's eastern boundary is marked by Kungstradgarden , the most fashionable and central of the city's numerous parks - once a royal kitchen garden and now Stockholm's main meeting place, especially in summer when there's almost always something going on. On the opposite side of Norrmalm in Ostermalm is the Historiska Museet (Tues-Sun 11am-5pm, open late on Thurs in winter; 60kr; T-Karlaplan). Ground-floor highlights include a Stone Age household and a mass of Viking weapons, coins and boats, while upstairs there's a worthy collection of medieval church art and architecture, evocatively housed in massive vaulted rooms, including some rare reassembled bits of stave churches uncovered on the Baltic island of Gotland.
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