STOCKHOLM · SWEDEN
Old town, open water, fourteen islands.
Archipelago cruises, Old Town walks, the Vasa warship and the museum island of Djurgården. The medieval lanes of Gamla Stan, the ghost stories after dark, and thirty thousand islands waiting just offshore.
Only here
Three things that are pure Stockholm.
Plenty of cities have boat trips, an old quarter and good museums. A whole salvaged warship, an archipelago this big, and a medieval island this intact belong to Stockholm alone.
Raised from the seabed
The Vasa Warship
A sixty-four-gun warship that capsized in the harbour on her maiden voyage in 1628, sat in the cold Baltic mud for 333 years, and came up almost whole. She now fills her own museum, ninety-eight per cent original timber, the only preserved ship of her century anywhere in the world.
- 1 Stockholm Pass: Save up to 50% – Includes Vasa Museum Ticket
- 2 Vasa Museum Guided Tour, Including Ticket & Guide
- 3 Stockholm Pass: Save up to 50% – Includes Vasa Museum
Thirty thousand islands
The Archipelago
East of the city the water breaks into some thirty thousand islands, skerries and bare rocks, the largest archipelago in the Baltic. Steamboats have run the same routes for over a century, out past red summer cottages and pine to islands with a single jetty and no cars at all.
- 1 Stockholm: City Archipelago Sightseeing Cruise with Guide
- 2 Stockholm: Archipelago Boat Tour
- 3 Stockholm: Highlights Boat Tour
Eight centuries deep
Gamla Stan
The old town fills its own small island, one of the largest and best-preserved medieval centres in Europe. The lanes are the original ones, a few barely shoulder-wide, opening onto the ochre and rust facades of Stortorget, the square where the city began in the 1250s.
- 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 here
The one almost everyone books.
If you only do a single thing in Stockholm, the numbers point here. The easy opener most first trips end up being built around.
The classics
Stockholm's Most Popular Tours & Tickets
The Vasa, the archipelago, Skansen and the Old Town. The handful of things almost every first trip is built around.
Out to the islands
Which way to the archipelago?
The islands start fifteen minutes from the quay and run for sixty miles. How far you get, and how fast, comes down to the boat you pick.
The open water
Where the city runs out of streets.
Past the last bridge the pavement gives way to open water and the archipelago begins: granite skerries, pine and red cottages, the odd white church spire, thinning out for sixty miles until there is nothing left between you and the open Baltic. Boats have worked these channels since the steamship age.
Archipelago tours & cruises →By area
Stockholm, six ways.
Gamla Stan for the old lanes. Djurgården for the museums. The harbour for the boats out to the islands. And the trains north for the day trips, when you want to leave the city behind.
One island, every museum
Djurgården, the museum island.
A short walk or a two-minute ferry from the centre, the old royal hunting park is where most of Stockholm's great museums now sit side by side: the Vasa warship, the open-air Skansen, the ABBA museum and the photography halls of Fotografiska, all on one green island you can do on foot.
See all 18 museum tours & tickets →Coffee and a cinnamon bun
Fika is not optional here.
Fika, the daily ritual of stopping for coffee and something sweet, usually a cardamom or cinnamon bun, runs the Swedish day. Food walks thread it together with the old market halls, the herring and the new Nordic kitchens between Gamla Stan and Södermalm.
- 1 The Nordic Food Walk Stockholm
- 2 Stockholm Food Tour
- 3 Stockholm: Secrets of Gamla Stan Guided Tour w/ Fika Option
By activity
Pick how to spend the day.
On the water by cruise, kayak or fast RIB. On foot through the Old Town, the ghost stories or the food halls. Or indoors with the Vasa, the museums and the Viking past.
Plan it
Three perfect days.
First time in Stockholm? Here is a long weekend that hits the essentials without a wasted hour.
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