Berns Hotel

Berns belongs firmly to the collective Swedish cultural consciousness. Strindberg sat here in the 1870s, harvesting the atmosphere for his best-selling The Red Room; a century later, Diana Ross & the Supremes took to the stage. In the late 1980s Berns legendary music halls were complemented with one of Stockholm’s first boutique hotels. Neighbours include Dramaten (the Royal Dramatic Theatre) as well as the section of Birger Jarlsgatan that serves as the city’s own catwalk. Popular Kungsträdgården is off to the left and fashionable Strand-vägen off to the right – with plenty of quayside quaintness in between. Guest rooms are decorated in a confident mix of styles: a bit classy (lots of marble), a bit cosy (textiles in warm, bright hues), a bit stylish (designer furniture) and a bit cool (contemporary photographic art). Many rooms feel like half-secret hideaways although the hotel has more than 80 of them. Breakfast is annoyingly not included in the price, but on the other hand it’s eaten in one of northern Europe’s most beautiful dining rooms. It’s here, in red velvet armchairs under the fabulously ornamented fin-de-siècle ceiling and the enormous chandeliers, that the aura of history descends on you definitively.