Stockholm

The whimsical buildings on today's tie are not just any old buildings, they are buildings from Stockholm, adorning the official souvenir tie (designed by Lasse Aberg and Lakritz) of the Stockholm Water Festival. The Festival is held every August to celebrate the cleanliness of the water in and around Stockholm (though according to this report, it has been discontinued). The church-like building is actually the Stadshuset (City Hall, top of this page), the townhouse facade is from the Gamla Stan (old town, second photo on the same page), and the round white building is... I don't know what it is, but I think it's the round white building in the center of this photo of the Gamla Stan waterfront. The remaining building is actually a tugboat, the shark fins are sailboats, the sun is the sun, and the ship could be anyone's. I think that covers everything.

Stockholm is also the basis of the city in Hayao Miyazaki's Kiki's Delivery Service, a delightful animated film about a young witch that I have now seen about a zillion times because we have a VHS tape of it and our two-year-old loves it.