Gamla Stan Ghost Alleys

Gåstorget is the smallest square in Stockholm, tucked into the narrowest bend of Gåsgränd in Gamla Stan. Its name translates to Goose Square, a nod to the geese once kept here by city residents. While most squares in the city were designed…

Stortorget features colorful merchant houses crowding a cobblestone square in the heart of Gamla Stan. In fifteen twenty, King Christian the Second of Denmark orchestrated the Stockholm Bloodbath here. After his coronation, he invited…

Brända Tomten—the Burnt Plot—is a small, triangular square where the streets Själagårdsgatan and Köpmangatan meet. Its name comes from a violent fire in seventeen twenty-eight that leveled the buildings previously standing here. After the…

A bronze statue of Saint George and the Dragon stands in the center of Köpmantorget. It depicts the saint mounted on a horse, mid-strike against the beast, a replica of the original fifteenth-century wooden sculpture found inside the…

Själagårdsgatan runs through the oldest part of Stockholm with a pronounced curve that follows the natural ridge of the island. Its name translates to Soul Farm Street, a reference to the medieval almshouse once located here. In the…

A small, circular stone well sits in the center of the Tyska Brunnsplan square, surrounded by narrow, leaning buildings. During the plague years of the early eighteenth century, this neighborhood held the grim task of carting away the…

Prästgatan runs like a narrow, stone-paved vein through the oldest part of Stockholm. Its name translates to Priest Street, a title earned because the city’s clergy once lived in the houses lining this path to the cathedral. In the…

Mårten Trotzigs Gränd measures thirty-six inches across at its narrowest point. It is the tightest alleyway in Stockholm. A German merchant named Mårten Trotzig bought the properties on either side of this path in the late sixteenth…