Chair in the Nordisk Museum

People are making holidays mostly in summer, although it’s also more and more popular to make a smaller trip in winter, for example to the mountains, to ski, or to some special cities. But it’s not very popular to go to places where it’s cold, dark, you can’t ski, and many places of interest are closed.

Make your tour

Such a place is Sweden, especially Stockholm in winter. For example, in the city which “stretches across fourteen islands where Lake Mälaren flows into the Baltic Sea” (Wikipedia), which is located in an archipelago, almost all boat tours were stopped the end of September. “Welcome back next year” – is writing the home page of a company. Thank you very much, but I had to go to Stockholm in November.

Stockholm downtown by rain

But it is possible to see many interesting places even by the cold, dark wintery weather. One of the first things we made was participating on some “free” (in reality, tip based) tours made by young people in town. (They have a Facebook group called “Free Tour Stockholm”.)

Could and also wet

It was amusing and interesting, they told funny stories of the history of the city. But dress really warm, because 1.5 hours walking and standing around by this weather is tough. Not only the temperature but also the humidity (almost 100 percent), the rains and the wind.

Sweden is really expensive, it has one of the highest price levels in Europe. So think it very well in which museums you want to enter. For most people, Vasamuseet (the museum around the famous royal flagship Vasa, sunken in the 17th century) is a must, a real wonder. For some others, maybe uninteresting. (But costly, anyway.) The same can happen with other museums, but fortunately, a bunch of them are free.

The prow of the Vasa

Visit the real Vikings

For example, we found free the Army Museum (Armémuseum), the Maritime Museum, the Medieval Museum, the latter hidden below a bridge in front of the main entrance to the Parliament in a small island. The History Museum was also really nice, with a great collection of Viking artifacts. And important details about the real Vikings, not the fake ones you see in many movies. (A broader list of free museums here.)

Some museums are free on only one day of the week. I think Nordisk Museum (ethnography) on Tuesdays, Nobel Center on Fridays.

Some articles like “X free activities in Stockholm” are also recommending the House of Culture (Kulturhuset) on the modern square that is also the traffic center of the city (T-Centralen). That is a complex of theater, exhibition rooms, library, concert rooms, cafe, but we couldn’t find anything interesting for us at that moment.

Open air museum in November?

We bought our entrance to the famous Skansen, an open-air folk museum and zoo on the island Djurgården. Most buildings were closed, can be visited inside only in summer. But there was one with open stove fire, a woman sitting there dressed in traditional clothing, speaking a lot of languages and telling stories about the past. That intimate building was worth more than a dozen others.

Further, the reindeers, squirrels, seals… Skansen is a huge area, with many interesting things, we didn’t regret the visit.

The model of the Skansen

What is not worth

There is a Stockholm Pass granting free entrance to a lot of museums, free use of the hop on hop off buses and the excursion ships. But in November, many museums are free, the busses have a less frequent schedule, and the ships are resting in port. So I don’t think this pass is worth the money in winter, maybe in summer, but better make your own research.

What to do if you don’t like museums? About one nice program, visiting the, maybe, the largest art exhibition of the world, the subway system I wrote you some days ago already. (Slow Down, Tourist – Colorful Arts Deep Below The City».) If you buy the local travel card of three or seven days, you can go cheap or for free to some nearby villages where in summer the boats go. (With busses and commuter trains.) Like Vaxholm with a big fortress or Sigtuna, a small town with an old history.

We chose Sigtuna, it has a small museum, some church ruins, and a nice main street. All very small, but at least we saw the landscape, local people traveling in the local bus, areas without any tourists at all. I needed it, to see some fragments of real life.

Prices and transfers

Sweden has a fame of a very rich country, where wages are high but all products and services very expensive. That seems to be totally right but more complicated in the practice. There can be high price differences and also a gap between the levels of quality.

“Normal” urban buses of the company SL

For example, the airport transfer (to Arlanda) can cost you 99 (11,0 USD or 9,6 EUR) or 200 crowns (SEK). The trains Arlanda Express are the expensive ones but need only 20 minutes. The busses of Flygbussarna, in theory, or under normal conditions, 50-60 minutes. We had bad luck and get stuck in heavy traffic in the after-work hours of Friday, so we needed approximately 80 minutes.

Imagine you go to the airport and the busses are stuck – I would take the cheaper busses only from airport to the town, and not the way back. Normal city transport isn’t cheap either but very good, and you can go to many suburban places with the same urban pass.

Without a credit card, you are lost in Sweden, use of cash can be complicated or unpleasant, sometimes impossible.

My “Slow down, tourist” project

Millions and millions of tourists are traveling to the most crowded destinations, like London, Paris, Amsterdam, Barcelona, Athene, Roma etc., but only hundreds or thousands to other historical places, beautiful medieval or classic destinations.
Many people are running from one famous monument to other, and from one bar to other, without paying attention to nice or important details. I’m a slow tourist, trying to know less known places, small towns or villages, sometimes everyday’s life of the people. I’m trying to share my experiences with you in this series.

Army Museum

Other posts in my series “Slow down, tourist” you may want to read:

• Less Known Places In Prague
• Dark And Light Stories Of Nürnberg
• Autumn – means death?
• Homage To Catalonia
• Small, Medieval And Beautiful
• Mysterious Town In The Hills
• Cathedral Gargoyles In Pain
• The Castle of the Squirrels
• Fiesta Of The Giants
• Colorful Arts Deep Below The City

You can message me on Discord.