Stockholm, Sweden City Guide
In June 2017, my husband and I embarked on a three-week long backpacking trip of western Europe. In my first post of this series, I go through all the details about preparing for this trip from itinerary, budget, packing, riding the train, lodging, and other common questions I’m asked. Now, I’ll take you through a detailed “City Guide” of every city we visited, and my top recommendations of where to eat and drink, where to stay, and what to see. First up, Stockholm, Sweden.
We flew in and out of Stockholm at the beginning and end of our trip. On of my husband’s childhood best friends is currently getting his PhD in Stockholm, and we wanted to visit him. Turns out, it is also one of the cheapest places to fly into in western Europe — win, win!
Before I dive into the details about what we saw and did, a little background on the travel style Curtis and I enjoy. Our favorite way to travel is to get immersed in local culture. We like to eat unique foods and people-watch. On the flip side, we don’t like to do much in the way of touring — I can’t stand waiting in line or crowded attractions. We also like to be outdoors, so one of our favorite things to do is just stroll along the city and see the sights. So you’ll find a lot of these types of travel recommendations in our city guides. If that’s the type of travel you like, too, read on!
Because our friend has lived in Stockholm for several years, we lucked out by having a “local guide,” especially since it was the first city on our trip. We usually stay centrally-located when we travel so we don’t spend all our time lost on public transit. If we can walk there, we try to. For Stockholm, we stayed in Gamla stan, or Old Town, which is the city center of Stockholm and right on the water.
Where to Eat When in Stockholm, Sweden
There are three things you must eat if you’re visiting Stockholm:
- Skagen or skagenröra, which is basically a creamy, dill shrimp salad served on toast
- Surströmming, or pickled herring
- and fika, which is the Swedish social custom of breaking for coffee and a sweet around 3:00 in the afternoon
Cafe Schweizer is where we had our skagen. They do excellent coffee, tea, sweets, and fresh small plates. They also do fresh squeezed orange juice, and to prove the freshness they keep the oranges in crates just outside the cafe until they need to grab them and squeeze.
Gasgrand 4 – We stumbled into this place while exploring the streets of Gamla stan. There are tons of little cafes on every street. We had a pickled herring plate and some Swedish beer from Gotlands Bryggeri : Wisby Weisse and Wisby Pils
We took our fika at Konditori Sturekatten. They have amazing tea, cakes, coffee, etc. This cozy cafe is decorated like a 20th century grandmother’s house, with paintings of cats and all! It’s one-of-a-kind.
What to Do
As I mentioned, one of our favorite things to do in any foreign city is stroll the streets. We people-watch, window-shop, and stop for snacks along the way. Gamla stan, with its cobbled streets and beautiful old buildings, is perfect for this type of strolling.
We also loved walking along the waterfront. When we were in Stockholm we were blessed by 60-70* (F) days and sunshine, but that weather is unusual. Look how blue everything was:
We also love to just sit in a park, soak up the sunshine and maybe read a book. While in Stockholm, we spent some time in the Kungstradgarden Park.
Where to Stay
I highly recommend the Castle House Inn! We found this place on Hostelworld. It does offer private rooms, but the bathrooms are down the hall. I think it’s a wonderful hostel for any kind of traveler. Our friend has stayed there and said it was a great social experience, and we stayed there with a private room and found it quiet, clean and safe. Just what you want for your first hostel in Europe!
I hope you enjoyed this low-key, affordable city guide to Stockholm, Sweden! For more general tips about backpacking western Europe, head back over to the travel section of my blog. For more City Guides, including what we did in Denmark, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Austria — press on! -Emily
