Visiting Stockholm, Sweden: Top Sights on Foot

Stockholm is Sweden’s capital, a city of historic districts, royal landmarks, museums, churches and neighbourhoods shaped by water. The best things to do in Stockholm range from exploring medieval Gamla stan and Riddarholmen to discovering the Vasa Museum, Nordic Museum and the city’s distinctive architecture. Neywo offers a free audio guide for Stockholm with 450 narrated places.

What to See in Stockholm

Stockholm Palace and Tessin Palace

Stockholm Palace stands in Stadsholmen, in Gamla stan, and remains the official residence of Sweden’s monarch. The present palace was built after Tre Kronor Castle was destroyed by fire on 7 May 1697. Nicodemus Tessin the Younger designed the building, and Carl Hårleman completed much of the work after Tessin’s death. The palace contains 1,430 rooms, including royal apartments, the Hall of State, the Royal Chapel and the Bernadotte Apartments. Its collections include the Treasury, Livrustkammaren, Gustav III’s Museum of Antiquities and the Tre Kronor Museum.

Beside the palace, Tessin Palace was built between 1694 and 1701 as the private home of architect Nicodemus Tessin the Younger. Its Baroque garden uses carefully arranged perspectives to make the enclosed space appear larger, while the ceremonial rooms retain their original decoration.

Storkyrkan and the German Church

Between Stockholm Palace and Stortorget, Storkyrkan—also known as Stockholm Cathedral or Sankt Nicolai kyrka—has been part of the city’s religious and public life for centuries. Its interior preserves the character of a late-medieval brick hall church, with a vaulted ceiling supported by brick pillars, while the exterior was extensively reshaped in the Baroque style during the eighteenth century.

The German Church, or St. Gertrude’s Church, rises above the streets of Gamla stan from the district’s highest point. It developed from a medieval meeting house used by German merchants. The German Saint Gertrude Parish was established in 1571, and the church still belongs to the Church of Sweden, with most services held in German.

Riddarholmen and Riddarholm Church

Riddarholm Church is Stockholm’s oldest surviving building with its oldest above-ground brick walls and the city’s only preserved medieval monastic church. Originally built for the Greyfriars, or Franciscan, monastery founded in 1270, it is best known as the final resting place of most Swedish monarchs.

The red-brick church is a three-aisled basilica with a narrower choir and an openwork cast-iron spire. Burial chapels surround the medieval structure, including the Rococo-roofed Karolinska Chapel and chapels with Renaissance elements.

Nearby, Bonde Palace stands at Riddarhustorget between the House of Knights and the Chancellery House. Designed by Nicodemus Tessin the Elder and Jean De la Vallée, it was built between 1662 and the 1670s for Gustaf Bonde. It later housed Stockholm’s courthouse and has been home to Sweden’s Supreme Court since the 1940s.

Nordic Museum and Vasa Museum

Djurgården brings together some of the most important museums to visit in Stockholm. The Nordic Museum explores everyday life and work in Sweden from the sixteenth century to the present. Its monumental building, designed by Isak Gustaf Clason and constructed between 1889 and 1907, was conceived as a Nordic Renaissance castle. The great hall stretches for more than 125 metres and rises 24 metres high.

The Vasa Museum is built around Vasa, a 64-gun warship that sank while leaving Stockholm harbour on its maiden voyage in 1628. The ship was salvaged in 1961, and the museum opened in 1990. Vasa is described as the only almost fully intact seventeenth-century ship ever salvaged, making it one of Stockholm’s most distinctive museum experiences.

Nationalmuseum

On Blasieholmen, Nationalmuseum occupies a state-listed historic building designed by Friedrich August Stüler, with interiors by Fredrik Wilhelm Scholander. It opened on 15 June 1866 during the Stockholm Exhibition of 1866. A major renovation took place between February 2013 and October 2018, and the museum reopened on 13 October 2018.

Hallwyl Museum

Hallwyl Museum preserves the Stockholm home of Walther and Wilhelmina von Hallwyl. Completed in 1898, the residence became state property in 1920 and opened as a museum in 1938. Its rooms retain the character of an early twentieth-century private home, while the collection includes art, antiques, weapons, porcelain, silver, toys, everyday objects and Asian objects and chinoiserie. Altogether, it contains more than 50,000 documented objects.

Katarina Church and Södermalm

Katarina Church stands high above eastern Södermalm and remains the parish church of Katarina Parish. The original building was completed in 1695, but the church was destroyed by fire in 1723 and rebuilt with a larger octagonal tower. Another fire on 17 May 1990 left almost nothing but the outer walls. The rebuilt church reopened in 1995 with a new organ by J. L. van den Heuvel Orgelbouw.

Södermalm’s historic streets, churches and elevated setting make it one of the best areas for a self-guided exploration of Stockholm. The Neywo walk through the district also includes Södra Teatern, Slussen, Stockholm City Museum, Maria Magdalena Church and Mariatorget.

Klara Church and central Stockholm

Klara Church marks the Klara area of lower Norrmalm with its 116-metre tower. A church has stood on the site since the 1280s, and the present buildings developed between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. The church takes its name from the former Saint Clare convent that once occupied the area.

Central Stockholm also includes Sager House, the official residence of Sweden’s prime minister. Buildings on the site were first mentioned in the 1640s, while the French Rococo character of the present house comes from Robert Sager’s rebuilding in 1893.

Royal Dramatic Theatre

At Nybroplan, the marble-white Royal Dramatic Theatre—Dramaten—is Sweden’s national stage for spoken drama. Founded by King Gustav III in 1788, it has continued its activities ever since. The current building opened in 1908 and was designed in the Art Nouveau style by Fredrik Lilljekvist, with decorative contributions from artists including Carl Milles and Carl Larsson. Prince Eugen also decorated parts of the interior.

Skogskyrkogården

South of central Stockholm, Skogskyrkogården, or the Woodland Cemetery, combines pine forest, landscape and architecture. Created between 1915 and 1940 by Gunnar Asplund and Sigurd Lewerentz, it was inaugurated in 1920 and became a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1994.

The site includes the Skogskrematoriet crematorium complex, with the Chapel of Faith, Chapel of Hope and Chapel of the Holy Cross. Other features include a memorial grove, an open-air urn garden and the Meditation Grove. With around 100,000 burial places, it is Sweden’s largest cemetery by number of graves.

Explore Stockholm with a Free Audio Guide

A Stockholm audio guide lets you discover the city without joining a group or following a fixed schedule. Neywo has 7 walking tours, 1 bus route and 1 bike route in Stockholm, covering 450 narrated places. The walks range from 0.82 to 2.65 km and from 102 to 114 minutes, while the bus route covers 3.2 km in 14 minutes and the bike route covers 2.3 km in 12 minutes. Together, the tours include between 7 and 12 narrated stops each, depending on the route.

The walks cover Gamla stan, Riddarholmen, Djurgården, Blasieholmen, Skeppsholmen, Södermalm, Östermalm and Norrmalm. The bus route links Östermalm and Södermalm via the Royal Quarter, while the bike route crosses central Stockholm from Södermalm to Humlegården. Each story plays as you reach the place, at your own pace: no group, no schedule. Narration is available in 11 languages.

Download Neywo and explore Stockholm with an audio guide that tells the story of each place as you arrive. To continue planning a trip around the country, discover Sweden, or compare Stockholm with Gothenburg and Uppsala.