Wander through 5 centuries of Swedish history at Skansen, the open-air museum founded in 1891. This is Stockholm’s most visited attraction, drawing 1.5 million visitors a year. More than 150 traditional houses, shops, warehouses, farms and churches from all around the country have been reconstructed here. In the adjacent zoo, children admire the bears, reindeer and elk.
Skansen is all about nostalgia and history. The aroma of freshly baked cinnamon rolls fills the air. The baker was up at the crack of dawn to get started with his bellows – it takes hours to get the old wood-burning oven to the right temperature. A few doors down, the pharmacist is handling jars, bottles and pipettes to transform various kinds of distillates and powders into medicine. And in the Sami camp, reindeer are being milked around the lavvus, the typical Lapp tents.
“A 14th-century wooden warehouse from Norway’s Telemark is Skansen’s oldest building”