Stockholm and Helsinki in 7 Days: A Day-by-Day Itinerary

Sweden and Finland · 7 days

Three days across fourteen islands: a warship from the 1600s, an old town with no cars, and the design blocks of Södermalm.

Day by day

Day 1 · 3 placesLanding and a first evening in Gamla Stan

airport → center: Arlanda Express in 18 minutes, or the bus in 45

Gamla stan
A medieval island with no cars: ocher houses, an alley three feet wide, and Stortorget square, where the city started.
Stockholm Arlanda (ARN)
This is where you land. The Arlanda Express runs to the center in 18 minutes; the bus takes 45 and costs half.
Monteliusvägen
A third of a mile of path along the edge of the Södermalm cliff: water below you, the city hall and the old town across from it. The best sunset in town, and free.

Day 2 · 4 placesDjurgården: the Vasa and Skansen

the museum island, all on foot or on tram 7

Vasamuseet
A ship from 1628 that sank twenty minutes into her first voyage and was raised whole 333 years later. She fills the hall in half-darkness — 98 percent original wood.
Skansen
The first open-air museum in the world, 1891: a hundred and fifty buildings brought in from all over Sweden, craftspeople at work, and northern animals in the enclosures.
Ulla Winbladh
A tavern in an 1897 house on the same island: Swedish meatballs, herring, and beer under the linden trees. Book a table even on a weekday.
Moderna Museet
Picasso, Dalí and Matisse on the small island of Skeppsholmen, free to get in. The café terrace looks out on the water and the old town.

Day 3 · 4 placesSödermalm, the city hall, and the evening ferry

the city by day, then Värtahamnen port — the ferry leaves at 4:30pm

Stockholms stadshus
A city hall of eight million bricks, where the Nobel Prize is handed out. Inside only with a tour — the Golden Hall is laid with real gold.
SoFo · Södermalm
The blocks south of Folkungagatan: small labels, vintage, third-wave coffee. This is where Stockholm looks the way it gets written about.
Fotografiska
A photography museum in an old customs warehouse, open late into the evening. The top floor has a view over the bay that people go up for even with no show on.
Värtahamnen
The port the evening ferry to Helsinki leaves from. Boarding closes an hour ahead; it is twenty minutes from the center by bus or cab.

Day 4 · 6 placesMorning in Helsinki: the cathedral, the harbor, Oodi

the ferry docks at 10:10 at the West Terminal, 15 minutes by tram to the center

Tuomiokirkko
A white cathedral at the top of a wide staircase over Senate Square — the thing everyone pictures when they hear “Helsinki.” Inside it is empty and bright, the way Lutherans keep it.
Länsiterminaali
The West Terminal, where the ferry docks in the morning. Tram 7 or 9 gets you to the center in fifteen minutes.
Kauppatori
The market square right at the water: stalls with grilled salmon, cloudberries, and reindeer sausage. The island boats leave from here too.
Uspenskin katedraali
Red brick and gold domes on a rock across the harbor — the largest Orthodox cathedral in Western Europe, built when Finland was Russian.
Esplanadi
A boulevard between two streets where every Finnish label has a store — Marimekko, Iittala, Artek. In summer the bandstand plays for free and the lawn fills up after lunch.
Oodi
The 2018 city library of wood and glass, where you can sew, print on a 3D printer, or just lie on the terrace. The Finnish answer to what a city is for.

Day 5 · 1 placeSuomenlinna: a sea fortress on the islands

ferry from the Market Square, 15 minutes each way

Suomenlinna
A sea fortress from the 1700s on six islands, with eight hundred people living on them. Ramparts, a dry dock, the submarine Vesikko, and beaches between the bastions.

Day 6 · 4 placesDesign, sauna, and water

the center on foot, a sauna on the shore in the evening

Löyly
A public sauna on the shore in a wooden building shaped like a rock: three saunas, a swim straight in the sea, and a terrace facing the sunset. Book ahead.
Ateneum
The national gallery: the golden age of Finnish painting, the Kalevala turned into pictures, and a Van Gogh bought in 1903.
Kampin kappeli
A wooden “chapel of silence” in the middle of the loudest square in town: people step in to sit quietly, with no service going on. Free to enter.
Temppeliaukion kirkko
A church cut straight into the rock, with a copper disk instead of a dome. The sound in it is good enough that records get made there.

Day 7 · 1 placeLast morning and the flight home

city → airport, the I or P train, 30 minutes

Helsinki-Vantaa (HEL)
This is where you fly home from. The I or P train from the center takes half an hour and runs in a loop — which one you get on does not matter.