"Stockholm - The Venice of the North " a Stockholm Travel Page by elPierro

The Venice of the north is what they call Stockholm, not strange because Stockholm is build on several islands all connected to each other by bridges. Water is a very important part of Stockholm. Big ferries and smaller boats cross the waters here.

The city is quite old and nicely decorated buildings can be found everywhere. Gamla Stan is the oldest part where you can also find the Royal Palace.

Stockholm doesn't look Scandinavian at all, but more as a copy of Paris or Venice. Still it's impressive and the long daytime in summer makes this city even more interesting.

Stockholm was a narrow bottleneck on the main waterways from western Sweden to the Baltic Sea.
Ships had a hard time passing Stockholm as the currents were very strong. After all the broad waterways were narrowed down drastically because of an isle (the isle where Gamla Stan was build on).

Boats therefore had to be unloaded before they could make it through the current and were to be loaded once they passed the isle. This caused a settlement to be founded by Geman craftman who had a big interest in the iron ore shipments.
Later the king founded a city as the settlement kept on growing and thriving. With founding of the city, Stockholm was founded around 1250AD.

- Gamla Stan, very touristy but interesting enough to see.

- Try out a hotdog, Swedes love hotdogs, and they are relatively cheap food.

- Go see the Vasa Museum and see a real conserved galleon.

- Rleax a bit in the parks of Djurgården.

- There's a fair selection of museums in Stockholm. You might want to see some.

- Explore Stockholm from the waterside, it gives a good overview.

- Watch out for the finger.. in the waters between Norrmalm and Helgeandsholmen is a pointing finger, the hand moves and turns on the movement of the water.