GamlaStan
The obvious place to begin any visit to Stockholm is Gamla Stan, which is also known as the Old Town. This is the island in the centre of the city, which serves as a stepping stone from Norrmalm to the north and Södermalm to the south. There's much to love here, and also much to avoid.
The first thing to strike you is that Gamla Stan has charm in abundance. With its narrow cobbled streets flanked by ancient buildings in shades of sage green, mustard yellow and red, it's easily the most photographed part of town. There are lots of little alleyways just waiting to be explored, and you'll stumble across cafés (a few of them good) and places to stop for an ice-cream in the summer. Unfortunately also plentiful are the ghastly souvenir shops, selling T-shirts emblazoned with images of moose and slogans such as ‘Take a liking to a Viking’, no end of bad restaurants and hordes of tourists who clog the narrow arteries of the Old Town like packs of slow-witted elk.
The good news is that most of these problems can easily be avoided. For starters, avoid Västerlånggatan, the main tourist street, in favour of those running parallel with it. If you want to stay in the Old Town, there are several wonderful hotels including a trio of nautical-themed properties (the Victory, the Lord Nelson and the Lady Hamilton), the First Hotel Reisen and the Rica. For dinner, Le Rouge feels like a bit of fin de siècle Paris transported to Stockholm, while Frantzén/Lindeberg is where you come to experience the cutting edge of modern Nordic cuisine.
Dominating the island is the Royal Palace, the official residence of the Swedish Royal Family, which is made up of King Carl XVI Gustav, Queen Silvia, Crown Princess Victoria, Prince Carl Philip and Princess Madeleine. Don't expect to spot the royals, as they now live at Drottningholm Palace outside the city and only use this palace for official functions. But the changing of the guard still takes place each day and you can also tour the palace or visit the excellent museums located beneath it. Other attractions include the Tyska Kyrkan (German church) and the Nobel Museum.
Be sure to cross on to Riddarholmen, the small island that's attached to Gamla Stan on its western side. You'll recognize it by the church, which has a distinctive spire made of wrought iron. For many centuries this church was the burial place of Swedish monarchs, though now they not only live outside the city centre, but get buried outside it too. From Riddarholmen you can take in some of the best views of Stadshuset. The large white yacht permanently moored on its quayside is now a floating hotel and restaurant but it dates from the 1920s. It was given as an 18th birthday present to Barbara Hutton, the Woolworth heiress, who later married Cary Grant.
Norrmalm
Norrmalm can be thought of as the city's business and shopping centre. Vasastan (or Vasastaden to use its full name) is a more residential area located to its north and west side. The boundary between the two of them is a blurry one, but taken together they include plenty of great stores, bars and restaurants.
Here you'll find the city's most exclusive department store, NK, as well as its more affordable competitor Åhléns. There's also the Opera House (right), which includes several places to eat and drink, and Hötorget, the outdoor market beside Konserthuset, which sells flowers and vegetables Monday to Saturday and then hosts a (not particularly good) flea market on Sundays. Drottninggatan is Stockholm's equivalent of Oxford Street: always bustling, usually depressing and best avoided.
When, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, Stockholm was seized with a madness for modernizing, Norrmalm was one of the areas that suffered the most. Things could have been worse, of course. One plan called for Gamla Stan to be been flattened in order to provide convenient parking for the rest of the city. Thankfully this was avoided but many old buildings were lost. Some made way for Kulturhuset (below), a vast cultural centre that is loved and loathed in equal measure.
You'll arrive in this part of town if you take the Arlanda Express from the airport to the city. Close to the Central Station is the Nordic Light hotel, one of the most quintessentially Scandinavian hotels in town.
From Norrmalm/Vasastan there are several bridges over to Kungsholmen, another of the main islands that make up the city. Until relatively recently, if tourists went to Kungsholmen at all it was just to visit Stadshuset (City Hall). Having toured the building and seen the room in which the Nobel banquet takes place, they would have crossed back to the Norrmalm/Vasastan. Now, though, Kungsholmen is worth exploring for its own sake. Although still largely residential, it has several attractive restaurants and a new found sense of confidence. If you can't decide what you'd like to eat, go to Scheelegatan, one of the best restaurant rows in the city. Here you can bounce from bar to bar until you decide which of the many restaurants you want to visit. Also on Scheelegatan is the First Hotel Amaranten, which is fairly priced and ideally located for easy access to the Central Station.
In the summer, Rålambshovsparken is the perfect place for a picnic (you could pick up some food at the nearby Muffin Bakery) and there are also plenty of places to go for a swim. Considering how close Kungsholmen is to the city centre, it would be a shame to visit the city and not to cross over to one of its most up-and-coming areas.
Ostermalm
Östermalm is to Stockholm what the Upper East Side is to Manhattan or Mayfair to London. In other words, it's the posh bit where the old money lives.
The area is known for having some of the city's most expensive apartments. Living in Östermalm carries a certain cachet the other residents of Stockholm sometimes mock (and possibly envy). For younger Swedes there's even an Östermalm look, an unofficial uniform which over recent years has involved narrow Acne jeans, large J. Lindeberg belts, slim-fitting Filippa K shirts and elaborately arranged hairstyles that must take hours to get right. The girls are similarly style-conscious.
It's in Östermalm that you'll find some of the most exclusive shops, such as Svenskt Tenn, Sweden's most famous interior design store, and Modernity, the best place to buy Scandinavian furniture dating from the middle of the 20th century. Birger Jarlsgatan is crammed with international designer names – Versace, Gucci and their competitors. Here you'll also find the town's finest food market, Saluhall, as well as many fashionable bars and cafés. New venues regularly open (and close) alongside proven classics like Prinsen, Riche and Sturehof, which have been providing traditional Swedish food to the city's elite for more than a century.
Stureplan, a triangular plaza flanked by Birger Jarlsgatan and Sturegatan, is the axis around which all Stockholm nightlife seems to revolve. Many evenings begin beneath The Mushroom, a concrete structure in the middle of Stureplan that resembles a large fungus and is a popular meeting place. Standing on Stureplan you are just steps away from some of the town's coolest clubs, bars and restaurants. Östermalm is where you're most likely to run into models, pop stars, actors, footballers and junior members of the Royal Family enjoying a night out.
For visitors to the city, Östermalm has several excellent hotels, including the Diplomat and Esplanade, which stand side-by-side overlooking the water on the city's most desirable stretch of real estate, Strandvägen. Then, of course, on the border of Norrmalm but with an Östermalm attitude, stands the Grand Hotel, which is where Nobel laureates check in when they come to get their medals and their 10 million kronor prize (around $1.5 million, e1 million or £795,000) from the King.
Östermalm is handy for visiting the National Museum, Nordic Museum and the Museum of Modern Art, which between them span several centuries of Swedish art, design and culture. Djurgården is a large island park adjoining Östermalm that is home to the city's two most-visited attractions: Skansen, an open air museum-zoo, and the not-to-be-missed Vasa Museum, which houses an incredibly well-preserved 17th-century warship that was salvaged from the waters of Stockholm harbour after it sank on its maiden voyage in 1628.
If you've come to enjoy great architecture, decadent nights out, excellent shopping and a big dollop of culture, you may find yourself reluctant to go anywhere else.
Sodermalm
Södermalm, or Söder as it is casually known, is the large island on Stockholm's southern side that feels like the most downtown part of the city. It is often thought of as the anti-Östermalm, the area with a younger, cooler demographic (a result of the lower rents), where bars are more likely to serve beer than cocktails, and where in place of exclusive restaurants and designer boutiques you're more likely to find yoga studios, second-hand shops and a sense of fashion that tends to be more street than chic.
Many tourists pop over to Söder just for the views. Close to the bridge crossing from the Old Town is Eriks Gondolen, the restaurant-bar suspended from a viewing platform, which is the perfect place for a sunset drink. Then, at the end of 2007, another restaurant-bar opened, Och Himlen Därtill, which takes things to a whole new level. It's located on the 25th and 26th floors of Skatteskrapan, which translates as The Tax Scraper, so named because it used to house the tax office. It is the tallest office building in the city, and the views from the top are astounding and vertigo inducing.
Söder's other attractions include one of the city's best hotels, the Rival, which is owned by Benny Andersson from Abba. The hotel brought fresh life to Mariatorget, the square on which it stands, thanks in part to the Rival Bakery and Rival Café which are next door to the lobby, while inside the hotel there's a classic Art Deco cinema and matching circular bar. On Söder's southern edge there's one of the city's biggest hotels, the Clarion, which is worth bearing in mind for leisure travel because their rates fall in the summer when business travel slumps.
Close to the Clarion there's Eriksdalsbadet, which has Stockholm's best indoor and outdoor swimming pools, and a beautiful waterside path runs along the western edge of Söder. In the summer this is one of the nicest places to go for a paddle outside.
For shopping, there are two key places to explore. Götgatan, the partially pedestrianized street leading towards Och Himlen Därtill, has several cool clothing shops on it. Then there's an area south of Folkungagatan that has been branded as SoFo. While it pales in comparison with New York's SoHo, which inspired its nickname, it's full of unusual independent stores.
By night Södermalm is extremely lively, with a great range of places to eat and a drink: Italian food from Portofino… cheap-but-excellent sushi from Akki… meatballs and beer at Pelikan… Or spend a night eating, drinking and dancing at Marie Laveau, an all-purpose venue that includes a restaurant, several bars and, at the weekend, a huge subterranean club.
From 2009 there will be another reason to visit Södermalm, with the opening of the city's most-anticipated new attraction – Abba: The Museum. More than a quarter century after Agnetha, Benny, Björn and Anni-Frid disbanded, they're still a force to be reckoned with.
Mamma mia! Here we go again.
Stockholm City
Abba got it right: Stockholm really is a ‘Summer Night City’. The Swedish summer is usually wonderful and sometimes it’s breathtaking.
In June, July and August the locals make the most of the warmer months, no doubt remembering how long and dark the winters can be. People seem to have boundless energy and spend much of their time sitting at outdoor cafés, swimming in the waters around Kungsholmen and Södermalm, sailing out into the archipelago and meeting up in the city’s parks to drink box wine and cook sausages on little disposable grills that can be purchased from the supermarket.
In July the Swedes take their annual holiday. Many Stockholmers retreat to their country houses or set off on long sailing trips leaving the city extremely quiet, especially since some shops and restaurants close up for the month.
As summer eases into autumn, the city is no less spectacular. Expect days of high blue skies and cool, bright sunshine. This is the season for kicking through the leaves on a walk through Djurgården (see right), the island close to Östermalm that makes you feel as if you are in the middle of the Swedish countryside. With a bit of luck, September and October can be lovely.
But then comes November and the onset of winter. Or should we say winters? The Swedish winter seems more like three seasons than one. There's early winter, midwinter and late winter. Early winter, in November and the start of December, is dark and dank, with lots of mist and drizzle. Late winter, from late February to the start of April, is brighter but often wet and gloomy. But between them comes midwinter and it can be magical.
In the heart of a good Swedish winter, the water freezes around the islands and snow blankets the streets, which makes the dark days seem brighter. It's cold but usually not windy and the city adapts to make the most of the chill. Around Christmas, outdoor markets are set up with stalls selling glögg (warm mulled wine). Ice-skating rinks appear and children can ride up and down Kungsträdgården on Shetland ponies. Cafés and restaurants place burning candles outside their doors to show they are open.
So, if you are faced with the question of when to visit Stockholm, there are only two times to be wary of: early winter and late winter. Opt instead for summer, autumn or the not-so-bleak midwinter. Incidentally, spring hardly exists at all in Sweden. Late winter drags on forever until, over the course of one long weekend, the residents realise with a start that early summer has begun.
Whichever season you choose, bring shoes you can walk in. Stockholm is a small capital by world standards and it's possible to see most of the key sights in a couple of days, pausing for nice long lunches. In the summer, you should also plan on spending at least one day exploring the archipelago.
The city covers several islands, making it easy to divide into navigable areas. To help you plan your days, we've concentrated on the four districts that will prove most useful for a visitor to Stockholm: Gamla Stan, Norrmalm/Vasastan, Östermalm and Södermalm.
