Euro Zone Summer in Stockholm

The Nobis Hotel

If Northern Europe were pressed to name its cultural capital, it very well might be Stockholm. Built on 14 islands, the Swedish city buzzes with a robust dining scene, high-end design, smart new hotels and dozens of museums. And in the summer, Stockholm hosts a clutch of food and music festivals, among them a jazz festival, June 17-19, and the Culture Festival, Aug. 16-21, when the city’s plazas and parks fill up with spectators for some 500 musical acts, readings and comedy shows.

If you’re planning a visit, the newest noteworthy hotel is the Nobis (Norrmalmstorg 2-4; rooms from about $370 per night), which opened last December on Norrmalmstorg Square. The 201-room property inside a pair of 19th-century buildings is filled with historic touches, like the stunning ironwork on the spiral staircase, that blends well with the streamlined Scandinavian style of the firm Claesson Koivisto Rune, which designed the hotel. The designers also gave the year-and-a-half old Hotel Skeppsholman (Grona gangen 1; rooms from $260 per night) a similarly eclectic aesthetic. The 17th-century building on Skeppsholmen Island cheap jerseys for sale, a bosky enclave near the Moderna Museet, has original casement windows and wooden floors along with contemporary Swedish design furniture and lighting.

Snickarbacken 7

For some mod Scandi furnishings of your own, hit up the new concept shop Snickarbacken 7, a one-stop leisure pit for designer T-shirts, accessories and home furnishings (along with designer flat whites in the cafe). Street fashion just got a jolt with the opening of Cos, a culty brand of clean-lined clothes for men and women from H&M, which had never had a Cos store in its own city until now. After shopping up an appetite, refuel at Pubologi, a fusion gastropub that opened this year. The small-plates menu — drawing on ideas from London pubs, American diners and Southern European kitchens — includes dishes like tartar of veal from Upplandsbonden served with anchovy mayonnaise, deep fried capers, brioche croutons and bottarga ($27). Afterward, down a nightcap at the Nobis Hotel’s Golden Bar, a popular hangout decked out in wall-to-wall gold mirrors.

If it’s a more vertiginous thrill you’re after, head up to the new Skyview (Arenaslingan 7), a glassed-in gondola ride that takes you and 15 other passengers up the side of the Ericsson Globe. It’s by far the best view in town. Or there’s always ABBA: a themed tour, à la New York’s “Sex and the City” bus route, will start in July, tracing the now-famous footsteps of the band that, for better or worse, defined a nation.