STOCKHOLM · SWEDEN
Old town, open water, and the long light.
Stockholm spreads across fourteen islands where Lake Mälaren empties into the Baltic, the medieval lanes of Gamla Stan on one side and thirty thousand archipelago islands on the other. Boat tours, old-town walks, the Vasa and Skansen, Viking day trips and the long northern light.
Only here
Three things that belong to Stockholm alone.
Plenty of cities run boat tours and old-town walks. A whole warship raised from the harbour, the world’s first open-air museum and a medieval core this intact belong to this city and this water.
Raised from the deep
The Vasa
A sixty-four-gun warship that heeled over and sank in the harbour on her maiden voyage in 1628, then lay in the cold brackish water for 333 years. Raised in 1961 almost whole, she is the only intact ship of her century anywhere, towering under one roof on Djurgården.
- 1 Vasa Museum Guided Tour, Including Ticket & Guide
- 2 Stockholm Old Town and the Vasa Museum, a Small Group Walking Tour.
- 3 Stockholm Must See: City Hall, Gamla Stan and Vasa Museum
The first of its kind
Skansen
The world’s first open-air museum, opened on the Djurgården hill in 1891: a whole country gathered onto one ridge, with timbered farmsteads moved here log by log, Nordic bears, wolves and lynx in the woods, and a Christmas market that runs in the snow.
- 1 Stockholm: Skansen Open-Air Museum Admission Ticket
- 2 Stockholm: The Skansen Aquarium Entry Ticket
- 3 Exclusive Grand Stockholm Tour Vasa & Skansen*****
Seven centuries deep
Gamla Stan
One of the largest and best-preserved medieval centres in Europe, a single island of ochre and rust-red facades, runestones set into the walls and lanes barely wider than your shoulders. The royal palace, the narrowest alley in the city, and the square where it all began.
- 1 Walking Tour of Stockholm Old Town
- 2 The Original Stockholm Ghost Walk and Historical Tour – Gamla Stan
- 3 Stockholm: Old Town Walking Tour with Local Guide
Start with the standout
The single most popular thing to do in Stockholm.
More visitors build a Stockholm trip around this one than anything else on the list.
The classics
Stockholm's Most Popular Tours
The archipelago cruises, the old-town walks, the Vasa and Skansen. The days most people come to Stockholm for.
Where to begin
The experiences a Stockholm trip is built around.
The archipelago, the old town, the museums on Djurgården, the day trips into Viking country, and the slow art of fika. The handful of days most trips are planned around, and the best way to do each.
The big day on the water
How to see the archipelago.
Thirty thousand islands fan out east of the city, and how far you go shapes the whole day. Three ways onto the water, depending on the time you have.
The art of the pause
Coffee, a cinnamon bun, and nowhere to be.
Fika is the Swedish institution of stopping for coffee and something sweet, ideally a warm cardamom-scented cinnamon bun, taken slowly and usually with company. Half cafe crawl, half cultural lesson, a fika tour is the easiest way into how Stockholm actually lives.
Read the guide: the best food and fika tours →November to March
When the city turns to ice and blue light.
Through the dark months Stockholm slows into a low blue light that photographers cross the world for. The waterways freeze hard enough to skate, the Christmas markets open in Gamla Stan and at Skansen, and the Nordic ritual of a scalding sauna and a plunge through the ice waits at the water’s edge.
See the winter experiences →Beauty on water
A capital built on fourteen islands.
Stockholm sits where the fresh water of Lake Mälaren pours into the salt of the Baltic, spread across fourteen islands stitched together by more than fifty bridges. A third of the city is water. The oldest way to understand it, and still the best, is from the deck of a boat.
City cruises & boat trips →Viking country
Where Sweden began, an hour from the city.
Lake Mälaren was a Viking highway, and its shores still hold the proof. Birka, the country’s first town and a UNESCO site, sits on an island an hour out by boat. Sigtuna is Sweden’s oldest town, all runestones and a single wooden main street, and the great royal burial mounds of Gamla Uppsala rise just beyond.
- 1 Entrance ticket to The Viking Museum
- 2 Viking History, Runes & Countryside 9h Tour to Sigtuna & Uppsala
- 3 Viking History and Swedish Countryside Tour to Sigtuna & Uppsala
Hot wood, cold water
Sweat it out, then break the ice.
The bastu, the Swedish sauna, is less a luxury than a habit, and the whole point is the contrast: a long sit in dry heat, then straight off the jetty into water cold enough to take your breath. On a floating sauna in the harbour you do it with the city lights on the water and the steam rising off your skin.
See all 3 sauna experiences →By experience
Pick your kind of day in Stockholm.
On the water by cruise or kayak. Through the old town on foot or after dark. The museums of Djurgården, a fika crawl, a Viking day trip, or the long blue afternoons of winter.
Plan it
Three perfect days in Stockholm.
First time in Stockholm? Here is a long weekend that hits the essentials without a wasted hour.
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