Stockholm

On the way to the Future Urban Transport Conference in Göteborg Sweden I spent a day in Stockholm exploring the city and its transport system. It was a relatively warm and sunny, so everyone was out enjoying the day.

I planned my short trip using the website Spotted by Locals. Many of their recommendations were in the SoFo area (the neighborhood south of Folkkungagatan) in the Södermalm part of Stockholm. It's an "old" (I would say 1910-1920) district that has been rediscovered by creative young urban types, so it's filled with interesting shops, restaurants, coffee shops, bars etc.


Spotted by locals recommended a park called Montelius-Gäten. It's a little hard to find on their map, but it's just behind Bastugaten, which you can reach by walking uphill from Hornsgaten (here's my Stockholm Visit map). It's a very nice path running along the edge of the hill overlooking the harbour and city with a series of benches, lawns etc.

On Saturday morning I walked through the city to the Vasa Museum, it's a huge sailing ship that sank on its maiden voyage (in 1634) only to be rediscovered in 1957. More in the next post.


On leaving the museum I was able to catch a historic trolley to the centre of town. It reminded me of San Francisco and I talked briefly with the conductor about San Francisco's historic trolleys. At the square where the trolley ended, the group that runs the historic tram had a bookshop set up in another old trolley. I did not have time to browse because my bus was arriving to take me to the Stockholm museum of Public Transport (more in another post).

After leaving the Public Transport Museum, I walked through the SoFo district again and had an great ice cream at AH (two of the flavours I had were saffron and licorice). Then I headed to the main station to catch my train to Göteborg.

Stockholm has a great public transport system. I was able to buy a 24-hour pass for about $10 that let me use everything - even the historic tram. The subway system is excellent, very nice cars and stations. My only complaint is that you cannot buy tickets (either for the public transport system or the railway) with a credit card unless you know your PIN. So you need to wait in, quite long, lines to buy your tickets. I probably wasted 20 minutes this way on Friday.

More Stockholm photos - views, public transport, public transport museum on my Flickr sets.