Stockholm in September, water everywhere and long light

September’s a lovely time for Stockholm, because the summer crowds have gone home, the water turns that dark, glassy blue, and in the late afternoon the light makes the whole city look like it’s posing for you. If you’re thinking about a first trip to the Nordics on your own, this is a really good place and a really good month for it.

It’s also an easy city to be alone in. Swedes leave you alone in a nice way, so you can sit in a café for two hours with one cinnamon bun and nobody will bat an eyelid.

The ferry that’s secretly a tour

The commuter ferries are part of public transport, so your normal travel card gets you on the water. If you take the one going to Djurgården and stay on past your stop, it’s basically a harbour tour for the price of a bus ticket. The locals will be reading their phones while you stare at the islands.

Where to stay

Stay in Södermalm if you can. The bakeries open early and the streets slope down to the water in every direction, so even when you take a wrong turn you end up somewhere nice.

It’s a good place to give your mornings a little routine, like a bun and a coffee, then the long way round along Monteliusvägen for the view over the old town, and after that whatever you feel like doing. Having a routine like that makes a new city feel like yours pretty quickly.

What a week costs

Stockholm is expensive, and dinner in a restaurant will happily prove it, so the trick is to have your big meal at lunch. Lots of places do a daily menu with coffee included for about half what you’d pay in the evening. Roughly, for a week:

• a small hotel room, around 110 euros a night
• lunches, 12 to 16 euros each
• ferries and metro, covered by a 7-day card for around 40 euros
• one proper dinner out if you feel like it, around 55 euros
• coffee, which in Sweden is its own budget line

Book this one ahead

Book a sauna slot before you go. The bathhouses fill up, especially the pretty ones on the water, and just turning up doesn’t work at weekends. Book two days ahead and go late in the afternoon, so you walk back out into that long light with wet hair and nothing else planned.

Bring something warm for the evenings, and try to leave one afternoon completely empty.