Stockholm: City overview

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Surrounded by water and wilderness, cocooned in darkness by the Scandinavian winter and bathed in insomia-inducing sunshine during the brief summer months, Stockholm languishes in melancholic isolation beside the Baltic. Built over a series of 14 islands and linked together by more than 50 bridges, the Swedish capital itself sits like an island amid a bleak existential vista of forests and frozen lakes. With around one and a half million people huddling together for warmth, Stockholm's spirit has been shaped by its solitude on the periphery of Europe. You have to travel some 700 kilometers southwest to Copenhagen, or venture east across the Baltic to Helsinki to reach its nearest neighbors. The neat architecture, the focus on design, art, music and creativity and the orderly living for which Swedes are renowned, all exist in direct and dramatic contrast to the rugged landscape that cuts through the heart of the city. Little wonder then that Stockholmers cling to their culture with such dedication through their galleries, museums, restaurants, clubs and bars -- connections to the outside world denied to them by geography alone.

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