2023-12-30 09:29:43
They are not couch potatoes even in winter. Anyone who visits the Swedish capital during the cold season will be amazed: Stockholmers are always active outside, even in freezing temperatures. First, a man cycles through the streets with a snowboard in his backpack. Then someone else, also with a board in his arms, runs to the subway. Ice skating is also a popular sport.
Stockholmers celebrate their outdoor fun in and around the city even in the dead of winter, when it’s icy and gets dark early. The Swedish word “Friluftsliv” can be translated as “being outside”: the joy of outdoor activities, regardless of the weather.
Stockholm, located on the archipelago, criss-crossed by canals and surrounded by lakes, offers good conditions. Most activities are accessible by bus, tram and subway. If you want to combine a city trip with winter sports, Stockholm is the right place for you.
“We also go paddling when it’s minus 15 degrees Celsius,” says Theresa Kroh. It begins to snow as the Stockholm paddling winter tourists carry their kayaks to the jetty in the middle of the archipelago on Räsero. She leads the group, which sits in three boats and sails through a kind of jelly made of ice chunks. You have to arm yourself against the cold, which requires a special kind of onion look: dry suit, life jacket, two pairs of gloves – fleece on the inside, rubber on the outside – and rubber boots. A water-repellent floppy hat over the beanie against melting snowflakes. A spray skirt that is stretched over the seat opening in the kayak.
Winter paddling in the archipelago
The guests quickly get warm in the boat. Because you have a lot to do: Paddling in salty water requires strength, especially when a thin layer of ice has formed in some places: Then you have to hold on, otherwise the boat will get stuck. Theresa Kroh shows how she maneuvers her kayak out of the ice. The paddle, held very close to the boat’s hull, becomes an ice pick, piercing the ice vertically with a boom. That is exhausting. The kayak crunches through the thin layer of ice like a small icebreaker. As soon as the boats reach open water there is a boost.
It feels like someone has abruptly released the handbrake. The boats glide past on icy banks lined with frozen reeds. Its ears shine white, snow has collected here. It’s hard to tell where the mainland is in the snow-covered archipelago, which consists of around 30,000 islands. A very special natural experience.
Through salty ice water: kayakers paddle in the archipelago in winter
Quelle: Getty Images/ Johner RF
The fact that the canoe center can continue to operate all year round in the archipelago is not necessarily due to climate change, but primarily due to friendly neighbors. It has been more than 50 years since the last time the Stockholm archipelago was completely frozen over. If too much ice forms off the shore of the archipelago, a neighbor from the island opposite opens up small channels.
After returning, we go to the sauna on the jetty to warm up. If you want, you can then go into the ice-cold Baltic Sea to toughen up. And anglers go fishing even in freezing temperatures. Like the archipelago residents Helen and Bo Lundgren, who, not far from the canoe center, are heavily bundled up and fishing for sea trout with tourists, even in the bitter cold – sometimes from a boat and sometimes from holes that they drill in the ice.
Ice skating and wreck diving
In the middle of Stockholm lies Kungsträdgården (King’s Garden), the city’s most beautiful public park. From November to March it transforms into an ice rink used by locals and tourists alike. Because you can skate here every day until 9 p.m., and it’s free too. Practical for tourists: you can also rent ice skates here for a small fee.
But as soon as the temperatures have been below freezing for a long time and the ice cover is thick enough, you can go on natural ice in Stockholm. The kilometers of long-distance ice skating on lakes and canals is called Långfärdsskridskor. In the south of the city, just under an hour by bus and train from the central Slussen subway station, there are guided tours of the meandering lakes Magelungen or Drevviken, for both beginners and advanced hikers.
Pleasure skating: With ice skates on the natural ice with the best views
Quelle: Getty Images/Corbis Documentary RF/Henrik Trygg
Gunilla Kühner, a city guide in Stockholm and a passionate winter sports enthusiast, has also been skating on the ice this winter. She recommends another adventure for tourists: ice diving. In winter, she says, the visibility underwater is better than usual, which is due to the lack of cloudiness caused by algae or suspended matter. Although it is cold, the further you go down, the more the difference between air and water temperatures becomes relative: “The ground temperature is the same cold in all seasons.”
Near Stockholm, several diving centers near Dalarö now offer such winter dives to the underwater park there: with more than 30 historical wrecks, from fishing boats to three-masters from the 17th century. In cold winters the Baltic Sea around Dalarö usually freezes over, but because icebreakers and ferries are always on the way to the islands, there are enough open spaces.
Snowboarding and alpine skiing
Stockholm, which is fairly flat, has even built its own ski mountain, the Hammarbybacken. It is now a winter landmark of the city: a white hump in the Björkhagen district, easily accessible by tram. Admittedly, it is more of a hill than a mountain.
“It was actually a garbage dump,” says Olivia Walten from mountain lift operator Skistar. What was left over from major construction projects nearby was once dumped here. Today the former Hammarbybacken rubble pile is at least 93.5 meters high.
Stockholm’s alpine peak is hidden behind high-rise buildings. “That’s strange, where are you supposed to ski here?” shouts a child in winter sports gear after getting off the tram. Only around the next corner does the urban ski hump with its slopes appear.
Fishing happiness in the archipelago: sea trout bite in any weather
Source: Stefan Weissenborn
A drag lift leads to the top. Once at the top, Stockholm lies at your feet, high-rise buildings and canals instead of an Alpine panorama. Depending on your ability, it takes one to two minutes and you’re back in the valley. But you shouldn’t underestimate the urban mini-ski area with its four pistes, two of which are very easy. Nothing works here without certain basic knowledge – as demonstrated by a tour group from Malta who borrowed equipment and are on skis for the very first time without instructions.
One member of the group is already having trouble making it onto the magic carpet. Shortly afterwards he stands on the conveyor belt with his skis crossed, only to lose his balance after a few meters and fall over. A few meters higher up, a few children in a freestyle snowboarding class are doing a much better job: pimp after pimpf twirls through the air on a jump.
Stockholmers come to the mountain for after-work skiing; the slopes are only open from 3 p.m. on weekdays. You can then wave under floodlights until 9 p.m. On weekends the service runs from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Then tourists are in the majority, who are amazed at being able to go alpine skiing in the middle of flat Stockholm.
Source: Infographic WELT
Tips and information
How do you get there?
By plane: Non-stop from Frankfurt to Stockholm, for example, with Lufthansa or Scandinavian Airlines, from Berlin also with Easyjet or Eurowings. By night train: There are two night train connections from Germany. The Swedish state railway SJ runs a Euronight between Stockholm and Hamburg and Berlin. There are, among other things, six-person sleeping compartments or sleeping compartments for two people (sj.se). Alternatively, the private night train Snälltåget runs between Berlin, Hamburg, Copenhagen, Malmö and Stockholm. For those who decide at short notice between Christmas and the first week of January 2024, then again regularly between Easter and autumn (snalltaget.se).
Where is a good place to live?
Thanks to the nautical collector’s exhibits, the “Collector’s Victory Hotel” in the old town is almost a small shipping museum. A double room including breakfast, for example, costs the equivalent of 184 euros in January, (victoryhotel.se). The “Hotel Frantz” is centrally located near the Slussen train station, from where Hammerbybacken can be reached in 20 minutes. The double room with breakfast costs from 170 euros per night in January (hotelfrantz.se).
Winter sports
Winter paddling: for example at Skärgårdens Kanotcenter in Resarö, accessible by subway T14 and bus 670. Three-hour kayak tours from 115 euros per person, the subsequent sauna and bath in the Baltic Sea costs 18 euros (kanotcenter.com). Diving: A boat trip with two dives in the Dalarö underwater park costs the equivalent of 115 euros at Captain Baltic, plus 90 euros for equipment (vrakdykarpensionatet.se); Dykcharter offers similar prices (dykcharter.se). Skiing: The day ticket at Hammarbybacken costs the equivalent of around 26.40 euros for adults; complete ski and snowboard equipment can also be reserved in advance, from 24.40 euros per day (skistar.com). You can ice skate for free Kungsträdgårdenone hour of ice skate rental costs the equivalent of 9 euros (motionera.stockholm). Fishing: A four-hour fishing trip with Catch & Relax, for example, costs the equivalent of around 520 euros for four people (catchrelax.se).
Further information
visitsweden.de, visitstockholm.com
Participation in the trip was supported by Visit Sweden. Our standards of transparency and journalistic independence can be found at go2.as/unabhaengigkeit
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