Solna Things to Do

This is where I spent lots of time waiting for, or lunching with my mum when I was little as she worked for the national touring theatre which had its head quarters here at the time. They moved in when the historic film studios from 1920 closed. Today, a couple of building companies have bought the whole lot, but promise to keep it open to the public to stroll around whilst developing it. I hope so, since this is where a huge chunk of Swedish film history was made, including several Greta Garbo and Ingrid Bergman films. There is a foundation which shows you around film historical places - visit the weblink below for details.

I have no photo of the church, but I will try to get one soon as it is one of the nicest ones in the County Stockholm and moreover, it is one of the oldest and one of three "round churches". These are normally mainly found in Denmark - notably on Bornholm - but here for some reason a few have also been built (see Bromma Church amongst my Stockholm tips too). These churches were originally built so the parish could seek shelter in them in times of unrest and even so that the villages could defend themselves from enemy attacks with the help of the tower.

Those of you who enjoy park landscapes and gardens should definately go to the royal Haga Castle and Park. Here you will amongst other things find the Butterfly House ("Fjärilshuset") in the former royal hothouses. The butterflies are the main draw, although there are also exotic birds and a Japanese garden. Expensive entrance for its size but that is more than justified when you see these gorgeous butterflies as here, at one of their feeding stations...

This is where the present king was born. The castle's proportions are a bit odd and the artistic Gustav III would not have liked it but since his own masterpiece was never finished, a new and smaller castle was built here in the 19th century as the Gustav III's Pavilion was deemed too small for the following royal families with all their children. The castle was used as a home for War children during the First World War but then went back to the royals. However, it was donated to the Swedish state when our present king was young, but only on the condition that it would be used to house state guests. Thus, presidents and others on state visits get to stay here.

The Eco temple was where Gustav III liked to have his dinners as he loved eating out. This huge gazebo originally had frescoes in the ceiling (discovered during a later renovation) but they are now in the Copper Tent exhibitions. Today, the temple is a popular place to get married in.

Also in gorgeous Haga Park are these Copper tents. Originally built to cover up the royal horse guards' stables and living quarters as you entered the royal grounds, they are today used as a cafe, restaurant and have a small but interesting exhibition on Haga Park and its history. The exhibition is not in English but the guides often take you around to show you what there is and there is a huge model of what Gustav III's original castle would have looked like if he had been able to finish it, but of course he was murdered and the French architect had to stop. It would have been amazing...

This is Sweden's Pere-Lachaise and where you find more famous Swede's graves than anywhere else (not Garbo's though - she is at Skogskyrkogården). August Strindberg, Vilhelm Moberg and lots of other writers as well as businessmen like Krueger and the whole Ekman acting family. The cemetary is huge so you'd better check the site below to find your place of pilgrimage.

Karlberg is a property just across the border in Solna municipality, along the railway leading north from Stockholm and close to Kungsholmen. In the 1620s, king Gustav II Adolf's half brother, Admiral Gyllenhielm, aquired the property through merging three villages, and a stone mansion was built in 1634, which is the core of what you see today. As he died, it was empty for a while before the famous nobleman de la Gardie took it over in 1650 and expanded it greatly and improved its interior. I don't know if that was too much for him or if he had other problems but he went bust and the mansion was taken over by the Stenbock family before finally becoming royal property in 1688. The royals used it as their summer house and queen Ulrika Eleonora founded a childrens home in its grounds. The famous warrior king Karl XII ("Charles XII") spent a lot of his childhood here to during the queen's active time and much later had his favourite dog buried in the park after all their battles together. As the Three Crowns Castle, then Stockholm's royal palace, burnt down in 1697 the royals moved out to Karlberg permanently. In 1792, when Stockholm's new Royal Palace had long since been built, king Gustav III founded a military school here - the Royal War Academy. Ever since then, Karlberg has been known as Sweden's major cadett school but you are still allowed to walk the grounds and sunbathe along the canal below the castle.