Europe on the Quick: A Long Weekend in Stockholm

Nightlife

Stockholm is spread over 14 islands. Sodermalm was once a working-class neighborhood; in recent years, it's been gentrified by artists and hipsters (Martin Adolfsson) [enlarge photo] FEBRUARY 2006 ISSUE • Table of Contents • Secret Hotels of Costa Rica • Europe on the Quick: A Long Weekend in Stockholm • Pacific Coast Highway • Trip Coach: Spain, Portugal, and the Azores • Shut Up and Ski • 40 Best Vacations

General advice for long weekends in Europe

Fly direct whenever possible. I came across an appealing air/hotel package on Go-today.com--$449 per person for three nights--but the company wouldn't promise direct flights. We'd be in Europe for all of 72 hours; I didn't want to spend any of them sitting around Heathrow.

Stay at a hotel that's centrally located. Stockholm has an amazing airport train, the Arlanda Express: It goes from the Arlanda airport to the city with no stops in between, and costs $24 one-way. Even better, we walked from the train platform at Central Station to the hotel lobby in less than 60 seconds. Also, because all of Stockholm's subway lines stop at Central Station, we didn't have to connect to get back to the hotel.

Accept the fact that you won't be able to see everything. Stockholm is home to 75 museums (see stockholmtown.com for info); we only went to two: the Moderna Museet, which has a great selection of 20th-century art, and the Vasamuseet, which houses a wooden ship that capsized in 1628--15 minutes after it launched--and was dredged up only 45 years ago. What about the other 73? Think of it this way: If you love a city you're visiting, you can go back and see whatever you missed.

Don't make too many set plans. The massages we reserved at Sturebadet were nice, but it was a distraction to have an appointment of any kind looming in the afternoon. Moreover, the whole experience--finding the spa, checking in, changing, showering, paying--took a much larger chunk of time than we'd expected. I wish we'd skipped it and walked around Söder more, spontaneity being more fulfilling.

Don't be afraid to relax. I don't sleep on planes, and find flying to Europe hard. But, boy, the sleep you get when you're jet-lagged is the best, and that alone is almost worth the trip.

Where the Scandinavian deals are