The Remains of Atlantis in Stockholm's Subways

The subways of Europe can be deliciously strange. I'll never forget the first time I traveled down, down, down, seemingly thousands of miles underneath the bulging belly of the Prague city streets into the ancient city's chthonic womb, on a surrealist, nearly infinitely long and steep escalator. I have had a fondness for subterranean subway architecture ever since.

I have never seen Stockholm's subways, but the incredible images over at ueba.net have me eager to book a ticket for a summer holiday.

The Stockholm Tunnelbana has three lines encompassing 110km of track and 100 stations of which 64km and 55 stations are underground. Several of the deep underground stations are cut into solid rock which were left with cave-like ceilings. The builders carved fascinating artistic objects out of the rock. One like the base of a gigantic Greek column (Station Radhuset) resembles the excavated remains of some lost city of Atlantis encased in an ancient lava flow. The Station Kungstradgarden has torsos and lion heads emerging from the rock. Modern murals and statues are liberally used in many other stations.

The bright urban art juxtaposed with the interplaying shadows and the strange elder gods carved into the walls make this look like perhaps the most Lovecraftian subway station in the world.

Stockholm Subway [Ueba.net]