Gamla Stan (The Old Town)

About this place

Gamla Stan is the nucleus from which Stockholm grew in the thirteenth century: an entire island of narrow stone lanes and facades painted yellow, orange and brick red, preserved to a degree that makes it one of northern Europe's most complete historic centres. It did not survive by accident but because Sweden stayed out of both world wars, so the city was never bombed. Its main axis is Stortorget square, whose row of coloured houses fronts the city's postcards — and which was also the stage for one of the bloodiest moments in Swedish history: the Stockholm Bloodbath of 1520, when the Danish king Christian II executed around eighty Swedish nobles here over two days, the event that triggered the revolt ending union with Denmark. The real pleasure is getting lost without a map: alleys like Skartenbergsgrand and Marten Trotzig barely two arms wide, craft shops and small cafes in seventeenth-century cellars, and Storkyrkan cathedral in the middle. Avoid the main Vasterlanggatan street at midday — the busiest and priciest — and take the side lanes instead.