Neil Hopcroft

A walk around the island of Södermalm

Looking back: not far from here was ‘the English Shop’, where you could buy baked beans and marmite, if you so desired. We didn’t go there much but it was a comfort to know that we could. Södermalm is, in some ways, the Boulevard Saint-Germain of Stockholm, a bohemian island where all the cool kids hang out. […]

Looking back: Somehow I never ended up finding these places again, despite much ambling around the city.

Valhallavägen forms the northeast boundary of the city centre, running north of Östermalm from the 1912 Olympic Stadium to Ladugårdsgärdet. It was built as part of the regeneration of Östermalm from slum dockland to the plush part of the city it remains to this day. The stadium is far smaller than we expect these days […]

Looking back: the Tunnelbana system is known as the longest art gallery in the world – most of the stations have some kind of theme of works. The underground train system in Stockholm is called ‘tunnelbana‘, t-bana or T-train for short. There are three lines, imaginatively named ‘red’, ‘green’ and ‘blue’, though they missed a […]

Like many cities, Stockholm has a central station where everything converges – all the ‘pendeltag’ and inter-city trains stop here, and the underground (tunnelbana) lines all pass through T-Centrallen, connected to central station. There is also a coach station here for long distance coaches.

Looking back: I have always found waterfronts magical, especially when they are reflecting city lights in the distance – Stockholm has an abundance of such views. Stockholm has a lot of waterfront – it is a city made of islands, 24000 of them in the archipelago although the city centre rests on something like 10 […]

Looking back: we would later find many car shows where these kinds of machines were on display There was a time before cars were boxy but safe – here are some pictures of a few I’ve found in my exploration.

Looking back: this was the first of many runestones I found, it became a bit of a treasure hunt for me to find and photograph them. There are a number of Rune Stones around the Stockholm area – one thing that A wants to do while she is here is to find some of them. This one […]

Looking back: The little roads were more prevalent in this area of northern Stockholm than elsewhere in the city. These roads are widely used by cyclists and walkers alike, and, at the right time of year, skiers. If instead of walking toward the Galleria from my office you cross the E4 and railway line you find yourself […]