CITY HALL & NOBEL TOUR

£   pp

With some irony, Alfred the inventor of dynamite has the world’s most prestigious peace prize named in his memory. This tour focuses on his life and times , visiting places in the city associated with his life and the Stadshuset (City Hall) in whose Blue Room the prize is awarded at a banquet each year. Built in 1923 and now Stockholm’s skyline feature, Stadshuset’s Golden Room features a mosaic with 19 million fragments of gold leaf and an elegantly colonnaded Prince’s Gallery.

STOCKHOLM CANAL TOUR

£   pp

The novelist Selma Lagerlof dubbed Stockholm ‘Beauty on Water’ and the city’s tourist board has been using the phrase as its slogan ever since. To see how and why this is the case, this tour takes you along the historical network of canals that intersect the city’s fourteen islands. Probably one of the best ways to see the city and its most impressive buildings. Takes in Kungsholmen, Langholmen and Reimersholmen.

THE ARCHIPELAGO AND A LITTLE HISTORY

£   pp

Something of the archipelago and a little light Swedish history is the flavour of this tour. Starts off with a trip to Vaxholm, a fashionable summer place in the archipelago dominated by a fortress whose central square is still bordered by delightful clapboard wooden houses. Next stop is the foundry where Gustav Wasa had his cannons built for the Wasa (big mistake) and a tour down through Swedish history to Penningby Slot, Nortalje and Ranas Slot.

THE VIKINGS FACT AND FICTION

£   pp

Not quite the pillagers, rapists and rampaging madmen that tabloid history has turned them into: this tour unravels fact from fiction. As well as sites containing Viking memorabilia, rock carvings and runic stones, this trip takes in Vallentuna, Finsta and Uppsala’s Old Town with its exquisite cathedral and botanical gardens laid out by Carl von Linne (all of the latter being nothing to do with Vikings, of course). Lots of story telling along the way.

GRAND TOUR OF STOCKHOLM

£   pp

If your included city tour leaves you wanting more then this is the answer: probably (as Carlsberg might say) the best and most comprehensive tour of the city there is. All of Stockholm’s landmark places and those in the surrounding areas are included in the first section done by air-conditioned bus.After that, your guide takes you out by boat and from the water you’ll see Stockholm at its most spectacular.

THE ROYALS AND THEIR CASTLES

£   pp

See how the other half lived and, to an extent, still live. Start by going north to Ulriksdals Slot, the 18th century Baroque palace set in a lime tree park and then on to Hagaparken, the Versailles inspired palace built by Gustav IV. Continue to Drottningholm with its palace, park, theatre and Chinese Pavilion and home to the current Royal Family. Finish at the Royal Castle in the Old Town, where you can continue on to lunch or shop.