What Is Kastellholmen? Stockholm’s Flag-Flying Islet

Kastellholmen in Stockholm

Kastellholmen is a small island in central Stockholm, just east of Skeppsholmen and reached from it by a short iron footbridge. Its landmark is Kastellet, a 19th-century brick citadel that flies the Swedish naval ensign and is the point from which the Swedish Navy fires ceremonial gun salutes on royal and state occasions. Where is … Read more

What Is the Vasa Bridge? How Stockholm’s Islands Connect

Vasabron, the Vasa bridge in central Stockholm

Vasabron (Vasa Bridge) is a stone bridge built in 1878 that crosses the Norrström strait in central Stockholm, connecting the Norrmalm district near Vasagatan to Helgeandsholmen, the small island that holds the Riksdag, Sweden’s parliament building. It is one of dozens of bridges that link the city’s islands into a single walkable centre. What is … Read more

What Is Drottninggatan? Stockholm’s Main Street Explained

Street-level view of the front door at Drottninggatan 85, Stockholm, the building housing the August Strindberg museum

What is Drottninggatan? Drottninggatan (“Queen Street”) is one of Stockholm’s oldest and longest streets, running roughly north-south through the district of Norrmalm from Tegelbacken, near Stadshuset, up to Norrtull at the edge of the inner city. Its central stretch has been closed to general traffic since the 1980s, making it one of the city’s principal … Read more

What Is Skogskyrkogården, and Why Is It a World Heritage Site?

Skogskyrkogården in Stockholm

Skogskyrkogården — the name translates literally as “the Woodland Cemetery” — is a working burial ground in southern Stockholm, designed between 1915 and 1940 by the architects Gunnar Asplund and Sigurd Lewerentz. UNESCO added it to the World Heritage List in 1994, describing it as a landscape and set of buildings that “exercised a considerable … Read more

What Is the Stockholm Public Library, and Why Is It Famous?

Rows of bookshelves beside metal railings and staircases in a spacious modern public library

The Stockholm Public Library — Stockholms stadsbibliotek in Swedish — is the city’s main library building, on Sveavägen in the Vasastan district. It is famous chiefly for its architecture: a cylindrical, copper-domed rotunda designed by Gunnar Asplund and opened in 1928, widely cited by architectural historians as one of the defining works of Nordic Classicism. … Read more

What Is Katarinahissen? Stockholm’s Historic Lift Explained

Katarinahissen in Stockholm

Katarinahissen is a public lift and viewing platform on Södermalm that carries pedestrians up the steep rock face between Slussen, at water level, and Mosebacke torg, roughly 38 metres above. The current steel structure dates from 1935, replacing a wooden lift from 1883 — one of Stockholm’s oldest pieces of surviving public transport infrastructure. Where … Read more

What Is Monteliusvägen? Stockholm’s Cliffside Viewpoint

Panoramic view of Stockholm seen from Monteliusvägen

Monteliusvägen is a pedestrian path that runs along a rock ridge on the north side of Södermalm, Stockholm’s southern island district. It follows the edge of a cliff called Mariaberget, roughly 500 metres long, with an open view north across the water of Riddarfjärden toward Kungsholmen, Riddarholmen and Stockholm City Hall. Where exactly is Monteliusvägen? … Read more

What Is the Avicii Arena, and What Was It Called Before?

View in Gamla stan, Stockholm, photographed in July 2018

The Avicii Arena is a large spherical indoor arena in southern Stockholm, used for concerts, ice hockey, handball and televised events such as Melodifestivalen. It opened in 1989 under the name Stockholm Globe Arena, was known for decades as Ericsson Globe under a sponsorship deal, and was renamed Avicii Arena in 2021 in honour of … Read more

About what you read here. Access Stockholm is an independent guide written from published, checkable sources — museum and transport operators’ own information, official city and tourism data, and the public record. We have not visited the places we write about, and we do not publish personal recommendations or invented “local favourites”. Where we point to something notable we say who says so.

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