Even tough fall is not the best moment to visit Northern Europe, we had decided to go to Stockholm at the beginning of October. It was a very short weekend, but still it was worth going there!

Below you can find guide on the top destinations and food as well as our itinerary for visiting Stockholm.

Why you should go to Stockholm?

Stockholm is a unique city where water is as important as the land. It is located on the 14 islands and water is imminent part of the city life. This city is full of history and you can still see reminiscences of Swedish empire old glory in the beautiful buildings located all over the old city. And the most important – you can eat famous Swedish meatballs!

Top destinations in Stockholm

• Gamla stan – historic old city full of very characteristic houses in different colours. Worth walking there for few hours and feel the atmosphere. And if you want you can even go to the roofs and enjoy city from the different angle!

• Fotografiska muzeum – one of the most famous museums of photography in the world. And after visiting I can understand why – 3 floors of exhibition give you a lot food for thought on the current world, society and problems we all face as a humanity.

• Vasa museum – I may be mistaken but I think there is no other museum like this in the world. It has inside the whole XVII century ship that was renovated after lifting from the bottom of the nearby bay where it sinked in 1628.

Best things to eat

We really didn’t have time to try a lot of Swedish cousine (for example amazing “Sandwhich” cakes), but things we did try were all really good:

• Meatballs. For me it was almost the main reason to visit Stockholm. Meatballs seem like an easy dish, but in reality you can immediately feel the difference between good and bad meatballs when you try them. And in Stockholm you can find many good ones. In our case we ate them at Gästabud restaurant and I can admit these were the best meatballs I ate in my entire life!
• Fish soup. I am not so much into fish soups as I believe that it is just a way of recycling food, not really separate dish. But after trying such soup in Stockholm, I have changed my mind. We ate at Kajsas Fisk restaurant, which is located in Hötorgshallen Food Hall. I think the secret is that this restaurant is fully focused on this one dish. There is quite some line to get it, but fortunately it goes rather fast.
• Fika. I was trying to find proper translation for this Swedish phenomena, but I guess the closest is “five o’clock tea” in UK. Except that it’s not at five, but around noon and it is not tea, but coffee. Fika is a social custom to take a break and get coffee with some sweets or sandwiches in the group of friends or co-workers. It’s so adopted that even workplaces have dedicated “Fikas” for employees during the day.
• Cinnamon rolls. In my opinion Fika is the best when there is a cinnamon roll involved. Swedish rolls have something special that makes them very tasty. I didn’t figure out what is that exactly, but I think it’s because they have  less sugar than the rolls in the other countries.

Few interesting information about Stockholm

As I wrote above, Stockholm is a city in which water is as important as land – city is spread over many island and boats are normal way of transportation. Water in the city is divided into two parts – salt baltic sea on one side and fresh water lake Lake Mälaren on the other side. Water in the lake is of such quality that it is possible to drink water directly (which I don’t really encourage people to do as still tap water is probably cleaner). Lake Mälaren is very big and it is stretched quite deep towards land masses of Sweden. Such position makes Stockholm the  gate of Sweden from the east. This, together with many trading privileges was a main source of Stockholm economical power and development over centuries.

In XVII century Stockholm as a capital of strong Swedish empire became one of the most important cities in the Baltic sea area. During this time population of the city multiplied more than fivefold! Reminiscence of this time you can still see in the rich buildings all over the city. After Sweden lost in the Great Northern War with Russia, Stockholm lost his position in the Baltic region, which has been never regain to the same level as in the past.

Nevertheless the fact that the time of the strongest power and influence has passed, Stockholm nowadays is still highly developed city with strong economy and multinational society. Big portion of development is coming from innovations. Stockholm is home for some of the most famous startups such as for example Spotify or Klarna. Additionally, Stockholm is the main place for multinational corporations to set up their local headquarters serving Nordic markets.

Practical information

• When to visit. The best moment to go is summer. Days are long and full of sun, temperature is bearable and you can enjoy many of the city’s parks. Other seasons are not so good for visiting as there will be not a lot of light, it may rain and probably it will be cold. But on the other hand – if you can’t go in the summer, spring and autumn will still be fine (at least they were fine for us).
• How many days. Based on our experience 2-3 full days are absolutely okey for Stockholm. If you have 3rd day then in addition to our itinerary you can also try to take longer cruise with the boat and visit Stockholm archipelago full of the small islands.
• Currency. Sweden use their own currency different than Euro. But to be honest you don’t have to worry so much about it as you will probably not use cash during the whole trip – Sweden is a country with one of the most developed card payment system in the world. To be honest over few days I haven’t used cash at all.
• Getting around. Traveling around is very convenient by the public transport. The best idea is to get the 24 or 72 hours card that allows you travel unlimited amount of times within this time period.
• Hotel. We slept in a quite unique place – hotel on the boat. We had mixed feelings with the hotel – first day we got really small room that was absolutely not according to the pictures gave us during the booking. We made a little quarrel and for the next day we were moved to the proper cabin. This room was really nice and we enjoyed it a lot. Because of the problems with the first night I cannot fully recommend this hotel, but if you still want to risk here is the link: Rygerfjord hotel.
• Airport transportation. The most efficient way to get to the city is to take fast train Arlanda Express. You can buy tickets here: www.arlandaexpress.se. It’s quite expensive, but very fast (in 20 minutes you can be in the city centre).

Itinerary

Friday: landing in Stockholm in the late evening.
Saturday: Vasa museum, Café Saturnus – cinnamon rolls, Fish soup at Hötorgshallen Food Hall, Gamla Stan, Rooftop tour, Meatballs at Gästabud, Fotografiska museum.
Sunday: Stockholms Stadshus, Short boat trip, Metro Stations tour, going to the airport and coming back to Amsterdam.

Saturday

Vasa warship was supposed to be one of the flagships for Swedish navy. King gave a lot of funds for it, but also had demands – make it taller, make it narrower so it looks more majestic, etc. Thanks to this the ship looked really amazing. But the problem was that despite looking amazing, it was not really designed well and it sinked close to Stockholm shore during its first sail in 1628. More than 300 years later ship was lifted from the bottom of the sea and completely renovated, which is engineering miracle if you compare pictures when ship was on the sea bottom and when it was fully restored. Some amazing and innovative techniques were used to get this effect. Fortunately, thanks to that nowadays everyone can see the ship himself in the Vasa museum. I must admit that this museum is unique in the scale of world and it makes great impression. For sure one of the highlights of the visit in Stockholm!

Café Saturnus – cinnamon rolls
After visiting Vasa museum we decided to do small Fika. Fortunately we were close to  the very popular place with quite okey cinnamon rolls. If you will be around – take a bite! Here is the link to the place: Café Saturnus.

Fish soup at Kajsas Fisk (in the Hötorgshallen Food Hall)
After Fika we walked a little bit around the city and checked a some of the newer area full of small shops. Afterwards we went for super delicious Fish soup in the Hötorgshallen Food Hall. I strongly encourage everyone to go there and try it on their own! It’s really delicious!

Gamla Stan (#99 on the 500 list of ultimate traveller)
Gamla Stan is the oldest district of Stockholm and the place where city was founded. It is one of the best preserved medieval cities in Europe and one of the highlights of every trip. I really enjoyed the architecture and atmosphere, especially because thankfully war never destroyed this place. The best way to visit it is just to walk around and check also the side streets. Amount of time you should spend in this area is up to you, but I would try at least to see it during the day and during the night.

Rooftop tour
This is one of the “hidden gems” of Stockholm. One of the companies created special structure on the top of the court building and now organises tours for tourists. During  the trip you will be able to walk on the top of the building and admire Stockholm from absolutely different angle than the rest of people. It is safe to do this tour, but if you are afraid of heights then probably you should skip it. For us it was rather okey, but there were some moments when it was a little bit scary to move without handrails (but you are always secured with the climbing rope). I highly recommend this trip and you can book it here: www.takvandring.com/en/ You can only book it in advance, there is no ticket office for this one!

Meatballs at Gästabud
As stated above, the best meatballs in a very cozy, elegant restaurant. Generally it’s quite expensive, but fortunately it’s not the case for meatballs. I think normally you would need to reserve table upfront, but we went there before 18:00, so there were still plenty of empty tables. Link is here: Gästabud restaurant. The other famous restaurant with meatballs is “Meatballs for people”, unfortunately we didn’t have a chance to check it out as it was too crowded when we went there the next day.

Fotografiska museum
As I mentioned above – one of the most famous museum of photography in the world. If you have even slight interest in photography then this place is must-visit place for you. Just go there. Period.

Sunday

Stockholms Stadshus
Stockholm city hall is the place where the Nobel ceremonies are hosted. It has quite interesting architecture and one of the last rooms of the tour was really weird – full of real gold tiles on the wall constituting Roman style mosaics telling the history of Sweden through pictures.

You cannot book tickets for this tour upfront, you just have to appear at the spot. Tours are almost every hour between 10:00 and 15:00, but it’s good to check in advance hours here:  city hall tours.

Short boat trip
Initially we didn’t have this in our planning, but due to the really sunny weather we decided to take a chance and we quickly booked a boat. It turned out to be a very good decision as we got possibility to see how full of nature is the area around Stockholm. Especially as it was autumn, the colours were stunning.

I don’t think there is a big difference between companies organising cruises, so just pick one of them. We took 50 minutes tour and I think it was optimal. Unless you want to really go to the Stockholm archipelago, but then you need to reserve much more time for it.

Metro Stations tour
The last attraction in Stockholm was the tour around metro stations. Stockholm is very famous for its metro stations which serves not only utilitarian purpose of helping people to commute, but they are also art masterpieces. They look like rainbows, entry to hell or kings palace. It’s really refreshing to see that metro station does not have to be boring. For me it was one of the highlights of the trip!

On the Internet there are many lists advising which stations to see. For me the best ones I found were the following:

• Stadion Station which looks like rainbow
• Solna Centrum Station which looks like red forest
• Kungsträdgården Station which looks like King’s garden / palace
• T-Centralen Station with more contemporary art feeling