Stockholm is a beautiful city spread across 14 islands on Lake Mälaren which joins the Baltic sea in the east of the city. Despite its 700 year old history, which shines through the architecture, Stockholm maintains its image as a fashionable, modern city.
Before your trip
With so many varying activities and sights in Stockholm, it is essential to plan your trip in order to make the most of your time there. This guide will give you a feel for the variety and enable you to tailor your trip to your specific interests. Depending on your activities and the time of year that you visit, you should bring appropriate clothing and footwear. To avoid making unnecessarily long journeys, it would perhaps be a good idea to choose your accommodation depending on the sights you wish to see.
When you arrive in Stockholm
The first thing you should do is purchase a Stockholm Card. This enables you to use all public transport for free and allows free admission to a variety of museums around the city. It is also worth travelling by metro around the city simple to view the transport system dubbed “the world's longest art exhibit” at 110 km long and featuring work from 150 different artists.
Take a walk around Gamla Stan, the original city centre of Stockholm, which despite being thought of previously as the slums of Stockholm, is now a hive of activity filled with cafes, restaurants and an eclectic mix of retro and vintage boutiques which are lined along the charming cobbled streets.
Since Stockholm is surrounded by water, the city boasts some incredible seafood dishes. You should try strömming, the smaller version of herring which is caught in the Baltic sea.
Top 5 things to see and do
Kungliga Slottet - The Royal Palace of Stockholm is definitely worth a visit. It is the world's largest castle which is still used for its original purpose. The palace can be found in the centre of Gamla Stan, in amongst many other museums and galleries. In the summertime you can see the changing of the guard.
The Millennium Tour - If you are a fan of Stieg Larsson's Millenium Trilogy then this is the tour for you. It is organised by the Stockholm City Museum and it takes place in Södermalm, where the fictional characters, and Larsson himself lived. If you do a little research before your trip, you can even find these famous lodgings for free and save yourself a bit of money.
Skyview Stockholm - This experience is not for the faint hearted, as you are lifted 130m in a glass sphere reaching the top of the Ericsson globe. From the top, the view of Stockholm amidst the glittering water and archipelagos is breathtaking.
The Vasa Museum (Vasamuseet) - This maritime museum showcases the enormous Vasa ship, the only seventeenth century ship in the world to be restored back to its original form, after it sank in 1628 in Stockholm on its maiden voyage. It has taken nearly 50 years to restore it, and now the museum has been specially constructed, with the masts on the roof of the museum, to demonstrate how enormous this ship would have been almost 400 years ago.
The Abba Museum - A trip to Stockholm wouldn't be complete without indulging in some ABBAmania would it? The permanent exhibition in the "Swedish Music Hall of Fame" on the island of Djurgården is easily accessible by tram or bus. It showcases the glittering history of how ABBA came about, and some lesser known facts about the Swedish group who rose to fame in 1974.
