Sweden holidays

Sweden is Northern Europe's largest and most-design-influential country — Stockholm spans 14 islands of the Stockholm Archipelago (one of the world's most-photogenic city settings, the Gamla Stan old town from 1252, the Vasa Museum with the 1628 warship recovered intact from the harbour mud, the open-air Skansen, the Fotografiska photography museum, the ABBA museum), and beyond the capital lie the 30,000-island Stockholm Archipelago for summer-island-hopping by ferry, the Swedish Lapland for winter Northern Lights viewing and the world-famous ICEHOTEL at Jukkasjärvi (rebuilt from scratch each November using fresh river ice from the Torne River), the western Gothenburg with its canals and Liseberg amusement park, the southern beach-and-castle Skåne region around Malmö (joined to Copenhagen via the Øresund Bridge), and the medieval UNESCO Visby on Gotland Island. Sweden invented the Nobel Prize (awarded each December in Stockholm), the design-style we call mid-century-modern (Bruno Mathsson, Carl Malmsten, Carl Larsson at Sundborn), the safety match, the adjustable spanner, and IKEA flatpack furniture.

A 7-10 day Sweden trip: Stockholm (4-5 nights — Gamla Stan Old Town walking, Vasa Museum, Skansen open-air museum, ABBA Museum, the Royal Palace, the Stockholm City Hall and Nobel Prize banquet hall, dinner at Frantzén three-Michelin or Oaxen Krog two-Michelin, optional Stockholm Archipelago day-cruise to Vaxholm or Sandhamn) → optional Uppsala day-trip (the historic university town with the cathedral) → travel south via train or fly to Gothenburg (1-2 nights — the Haga old town, Liseberg amusement park, the seafood market Feskekôrka) → optional Malmö and the Skåne region (1-2 nights — the Turning Torso skyscraper, the Lilla Torg square, the Kullaberg Nature Reserve, the medieval Lund cathedral) → optional Gotland Island via ferry from Nynäshamn (2 nights at the UNESCO Visby walled town). Winter trips swap the south for Swedish Lapland at Kiruna or Abisko (3-4 nights — Northern Lights, husky sledding, the ICEHOTEL, Sami reindeer-herding cultural experiences).