Stockholm Travel Guide

Gamla Stan is where Stockholm began, founded around 1252, and keeps the most complete medieval core in the Nordic countries. Narrow cobbled lanes and ochre mansions cluster around the Royal Palace, the cathedral and the Nobel Prize Museum. Wandering here is reading Stockholm's chronicle from Viking age to modern kingdom.

The Vasa Museum stands on Stockholm's Djurgården, displaying the 17th-century warship Vasa, which sank on her maiden voyage in 1628 and was salvaged in 1961. Almost perfectly preserved, the towering carved galleon stuns visitors and makes this the most-visited museum in the Nordic region — a lost naval power reborn in the hall.

Storkyrkan is Stockholm's oldest and most important church. Built from 1279, it features the famous St George and the Dragon wooden sculpture (1489), a Baroque altar and royal ceremony history — next to the Royal Palace. Built from 1279; Stockholm's oldest. St George and the Dragon (1489) — Gothic wood carving. Royal baptisms and weddings. Adjacent to Royal Palace.

Stockholm City Hall was completed in 1923 to designs by Ragnar Östberg in National Romantic style — a red-brick tower crowned by the Three Crowns, standing by the water. The Blue Hall hosts the Nobel banquet each year, and the Golden Hall is clad in some 18 million gold mosaic tiles. It is Stockholm's most photogenic public building and a symbol of Sweden's modern civic ritual.

Brasília's TV Tower stands on the city's Monumental Axis, about 224 m tall—among Brazil's tallest buildings and the best place to overlook this "airplane-shaped" city. A free observation deck at about 75 m offers a view of Brasília's unique planning—the airplane-like layout, the straight Monumental Axis, the symmetrically spread residential wings and the distant Paranoá artificial lake—directly showing the design idea of this World Heritage city. A lively handicraft fair is held at the base on weekends. Climbing the tower to see the whole city and the airplane outline is the quickest way to grasp Brasília's overall layout.

Stortorget is the oldest square in Stockholm's Gamla Stan, Sweden. This medieval square is known for colorful merchant guild buildings, the Nobel Museum and the 1520 Stockholm Bloodbath — the center of Stockholm's old town.