Stockholm

Stockholm Travel Guide

Stockholm is a city in the flush of its second youth. In the last 10 years Sweden's capital has emerged from its cold, Nordic shadow to take the stage as a truly international city. What started with entry into the European Union in 1995, and continued with the extraordinary IT boom of the late 1990s, is still happening today as Stockholm gains even more global confidence. Stockholm's 1 million or so inhabitants have, almost as one, realized that their city is one to rival Paris, London, New York, or any other great metropolis.

With this realization comes change. Stockholm has become a city of design, fashion, innovation, technology, and world-class food, pairing homegrown talent with international standard. The streets are flowing with a young and confident population keen to drink in everything the city has to offer. You can sense this energy in the gossiping crowds that pack the street cafés and restaurant terraces, discussing life over an espresso and from behind designer sunglasses; you can hear it in the laughter of laid-back weekenders in the city's many open spaces; and it seems you can buy it in the shops, which are full to bursting with cutting-edge Swedish products. The glittering feeling of optimism, success, and living in the "here and now" is rampant in Stockholm.

Of course, not everyone is looking to live so much in the present; luckily, Stockholm also has plenty of history. Positioned where the waters of Lake Mälaren rush into the Baltic, Stockholm has been an important Baltic trading site and an international city of some wealth for centuries.

Built on 14 small islands joined by bridges crossing open bays and narrow channels, Stockholm boasts the story of its history in its glorious medieval old town, grand palaces, ancient churches, sturdy edifices, public parks, and 19th-century museums -- its history is soaked into the very fabric of its airy boulevards, built as a public display of trading glory.

From the first written mention of the city, in 1252, to the last word on Swedish street fashion today, Stockholm is a world capital in the truest sense. The city invites you to explore the way back when, enjoy the now, and fancy the near future.