Back to Stockholm
Djurgården
A lush dreamscape right in the city. Djurgården is a tranquil National City Park packed with world-class museums and fairytale walking paths.
It is hard to believe that Djurgården even exists. A green peninsula, full of parks and museums, walkable and almost free from car traffic — and yet it lies just a short tram ride from Stockholm's central metro. It is as if nature and culture conspired to create the perfect urban space and then pressed it right into the middle of one of Scandinavia's largest cities.
Djurgården's history begins in the center of power. During the 16th century, the peninsula was reserved as a royal hunting park — an exclusive wildlife reserve where only those with the right bloodlines were allowed to set foot. The trees are still there, the oaks ancient and gnarled, and sometimes you can imagine you hear the sound of hooves echoing in the still forest edge. But since then, Djurgården has become something different: a democratic meeting place for all of Stockholm.
The Vasa Museum alone justifies a trip to Stockholm. The warship Vasa, which sank on its maiden voyage in 1628 just 1,300 meters from the quay, was recovered from the depths of the Baltic Sea in 1961 and is today 98 percent intact — the only preserved 17th-century warship in the world. Standing next to it is an almost frightening experience of the passage of time. The ship is enormous, decorated with hundreds of carved lions and figures, and rises from the floor like a ghost from another era.
Further into the park, Skansen lurks. Founded in 1891, it is the world's oldest open-air museum and the idea was simple and radical all at once: move all of Sweden to an island. Farms, churches, and towns from Lapland to Skåne have been dismantled and rebuilt here, staffed by craftspeople in historical costumes showing how life was lived. It is an impossible place not to be fascinated by — but it is the free zoo in the middle of Skansen, with its bears and moose and lynx, that tends to catch the calm flaneur off guard.
Read more & useful links
Explore events and experiences in Djurgården
See events in Stockholm