2 min
25 min
13 · 14 · 17 · 18 · 19
31.1 / km²
12
1
221
+17% vs city
Counted from OpenStreetMap and Inside Airbnb (CC BY 4.0)
Staying in Gamla stan
Gamla stan is the island Stockholm started on: Stortorget, the Royal Palace, the alleys off Västerlånggatan, and Riddarholmen with its palaces across a small bridge. It is genuinely beautiful, it is 200 metres from the Palace to your front door, and the metro station at the south end takes every red and green line train.
The problem is that it is a working tourist attraction with 7,000 people living in it. Cars are banned inside, the cobbles are unevenly paved and there is nothing soft to wheel a case over, the buildings are 300 years old and most have no lift, and rooms in them are small - one of the mid-range hotels advertises its rooms as cabin-sized and charges 1,850 kr. There is one ordinary supermarket on the island.
Book it for two nights if waking up inside the old town is the point of the trip, and pick a street off Västerlånggatan - Baggensgatan, Kindstugatan, Stora Nygatan - rather than on it. Book anywhere else if you are staying a week, travelling with a large suitcase, or expect to eat dinner at a price a Swede would pay.
What works
- You walk out of the door into the Palace, Stortorget and the Nobel Museum
- Gamla stan station takes every red and green line train, one stop from Central
- Emptied of day-trippers by about 19:00, and genuinely quiet after that
- Four bridges into Norrmalm and Slussen for Södermalm, both under fifteen minutes
What does not
- Cobbled, car-free and mostly lift-free: hard work with luggage or a pushchair
- Restaurants around Stortorget are aimed at people who will never come back
- Rooms are small and dear - cabin-sized doubles at 1,600 to 1,900 kr
- Pickpockets and the street-gambling scam work Västerlånggatan all season
- One supermarket for the whole island, and no ordinary shops at all
Many of Gamla stan's restaurants are high-end, and those around Stortorget can be a bit overpriced. The least costly eating options are the fast food places.Drinks in Gamla stan are quite expensive - expect to pay around 60 kr for a 500 ml lager in a cheap pub, rising to 95 kr for a microbrew beer in a nice pub. If you like to drink a lot, it's worth heading further afield, and avoiding the tourist bars.Beware of pickpocketing and illegal street gambling, especially around Västerlånggatan.