What to expect when visiting Stockholm, and why it's a fantastic place to explore!
What more could you want?! Stockholm has bright coloured buildings, forcing you to stop every at corner to admire the new set of patternless colours painted down each and every impeccably well maintained street. There are a few modern buildings, but my eyes let those blend to background, and the tight packed low-rise multi-coloured old-style buildings pop-out and demand to be noticed!
Top 5 to do in Stockholm:
1. Free Walking Tour
There are 2 companies that offer free walking tours in Stockholm. I had a great experience with the first one, but also heard good things about the second one.
They have 3 different tours – Old City, City Tour, and Soder Tour. They offer these tours in English, Spanish and German. They usually have tours at 10:00am, 1:00pm, 3:30pm, and 5:30pm – with some extra ones on the weekend. Check their website for the most up to date schedule.
Old City Tour
I loved this one! It was great to learn the history of the kings of Sweden, as well as about the older buildings and some of their unique aspects. The tour is all around the island of Gamla Stan, which is also fun to explore on your own.
Söder Tour
I my mind, Södermalm is like the Brooklyn to the Manhattan city center of Stockholm. It has more hip, and offers many happening bars, thrift stores, and yes even a vegan Swedish meatball shop! This tour talks about the history of area as a slum, ancient witch trials, and then ends with a beautiful view of the city!
City Tour
Great for learning more about the parliament building, the royal family, and more recent history of Stockholm. Yes – they even talk about ‘Stockholm Syndrome’ and how that phrase came to be.
How these tours work:
Just check their website (Free Tour Stockholm) and meet the group at the designated meeting point, no reservation necessary! Then at the end of the tour, the guide will ask you for a tip. This a great way for you to decide how much you enjoyed the tour, and what you think would be reasonable compensation for it. Generally they ask for only bills, no coins, and some guides might even have a mobile debit/credit card machine for tips.
The second company, I know less about – but here is there website to check out!
2. ABBA Museum
The slogan for the ABBA Museum is “Walk in. Dance out.” and no slogan has ever been more true!!! This wildly fun and interactive museum is a MUST SEE if your visiting Stockholm. What if you are not a self-proclaimed ABBA fan-atic?! No problem. As long as you love music, fun, and generally letting loose and allowing your inner pop star out you will love the experience here!
Museum is a loose term, as the history of the iconic band is definitely secondary to the interactive displays. You are given a ticket with a barcode when you walk in, and this is your key to recording your own ABBA music videos, stage performances, recordings, dance characters, and MUCH more! All of the amazing, and fantastically embarrassing, videos, images, and recordings are then saved on their website where you use your barcode to watch and download them up to a month later. What a fantastic incorporation of technology and interactive experiences!!!
Michaychay’s tip: Go with your friends, and leave yourself at least 2 hours to thoroughly enjoy the experience! It will definitely be something you laugh about for the many years to come!
3. Walk Along the Water
Stockholm is incredibly walk-able, and has so many amazing bridges and paths along its many waterways. Walking along Stradvägen, gives you an awesome view of the Old City (Gamla Stan) and Museum Island (Djurgarden).
There are also many boats docked along this path, some with plaques explaining their original purposes and how they ended up in Stockholm.
4. Take a Boat
There are many tour boats that run throughout the Greater Stockholm area, however if you travel to Stockholm in April (as I did) most, if not all of them, are not running yet! But don’t fret, if your 10 out of 10 is to ride boat in Stockholm there is still another option!
With your regular public transit fee, ferries between … are included! Yes, for the price of a public bus ride (31 SEK) you can also take a boat between islands!
The ride between Södermalm and Djurgarden is short, but definitely worth it! A great way to see the city from a different perspective!
5. Vasa Museum
The Vasa Museum is definitely much more of the museum than the ABBA ‘Museum’, and you won’t be dancing out… but what an incredible feat of ingenuity that this intact 17th century boat represents! This boat sunk just off the coast of Stockholm 333 years ago, and then was pulled out in one miraculous piece and is now on display on Museum Island (Djurgarden).
Give yourself plenty of time to explore this museum as there are 5 floors, with many side exhibits that you will want to fully explore! The museum also offers Free Audio Commentary in many languages, so make sure you each bring your own headphones – or you will be walking around attached by the ears, with your one smart friend who remembered to bring her headphones, like I was!
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