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Nordic Christmas

Viking around the Arctic Circle

By Jamie Martin

January 3^rd, 2026

Christmas markets and cobblestone streets. Mulled wine and modern design. Vikings and valkyrie.

Dreaming of a Nordic Christmas and the Northern Lights, we endured a dozen hours cramped into the economy seats of an Airbus before landing in Stockholm.

As dusk settled in, ice-gray clouds and stinging rain yielded to cobalt skies and an arctic breeze. It was 3pm.

We dropped our bags at the elegant Grand Hotel and set out to explore the ancient city.

Bracing against the bitter cold, we peered into the shop windows of our Norrmalm neighborhood. Before long, we were warming up in a cozy English pub packed with festive guests under a low ceiling.

Viking Is a Verb

In Old Norse, "vík" is a bay or inlet. To go "vik-ing" meant to set out on an overseas expedition, typically to explore, trade, or raid.

So the term viking was, in fact, a verb, and the early settlers of what became Sweden were not vikings, but the Norse: the North Germanic peoples of Scandinavia.

Most Norsemen were not vikings, but farmers, craftsmen, traders, and sailors. Those who did go viking often did so temporarily to find new land or resources, or to trade.

An Ancient City

Long before its cobbled streets and colorful construction, the archipelagos that comprise Stockholm were trade routes and seasonal settlements. By the ninth century, settlements and fortifications had been developed, but there was no city. Because farming was limited, the Norse became excellent shipbuilders, sailors, traders...and raiders.

Around 1252, Birger Jarl established a fortified settlement on what is now called Gamla Stan ("old town") to protect inland Sweden and consolidate power. The settlement was named Stockholm: a fortification ("stock") on an islet ("holm").

Over the next two centuries, Stockholm grew as a key commercial hub for the Hanseatic League. Gothic architecture and an elite merchant class rose alongside the Swedish nobility. The city was economically powerful but politically volatile. Tensions between Danish, Swedish, and German interests were constant.

In 1520, Danish King Christian II executed dozens of Swedish nobles, triggering a rebellion led by Gustav Vasa, who soon became king and founded modern Sweden.

Multitudes of Museums

Stockholm outranks most cities in Europe in terms of museums per capita. As Sweden industrialized later than Britain or France, there was a push to preserve rural life and folk culture to define its national identity.

Some of its most iconic museums were founded in the late 19th century, including the the Nationalmuseum (1866), the Nordic Museum (founded 1873), Skansen (1891), and the Swedish History Museum (Historiska).

We set out to visit two per day, but even in a very walkable city with museums often adjacent to one another, this was a challenge.

National Museum

Next door to our hotel stood the massive National Museum. Completed in 1866, it is a temple to Sweden's art collection, with grand marble staircases, monumental symmetry, and three floors of labyrinthine galleries.

This is what the artist thought a dolphin looked like.

Historiska Museet

The Swedish History Museum features thousands of Viking-era artifacts that illustrate trade, religion, daily life, and travel during the Viking Age. The museum's Gold Room (Guldrummet) is one of Europe's largest collections of treasure. With over 500 pounds of gold and silver objects from prehistoric and medieval Sweden, many of the display cases were simply piles of jewelry and ceremonial items.

Fotografiska

Of the seven museums we visited, the Contemporary Museum of Photography, Art & Culture was my favorite. Its permanent collection and curated exhibits were so thoughtfully designed and displayed to maximize the impact of every image, from large-format portraits to grainy daguerrotypes.

Frozen Figures

Outside of the museums, statues lined almost every street corner. Many were designed in dark bronze with minimal detail to look better in snow or low winter light. Unlike many European capitols, Stockholm has few grand triumphalist statues. Kings are thoughtful and restrained, reflecting Sweden’s self-image as cautious and morally reflective.

Lost at Sea

The catastrophic loss of an iconic ship...and her magnificent recovery three centuries later.

Built for King Gustavus Adolphus to project Swedish power, the Vasa was launched in 1628 with a crew of 250 and an unprecedented 64 bronze canons on two gun decks.

At over 1,200 tons, her hull was filled with 120 tons of rocks to provide ballast, but a flawed design sealed her fate: within minutes of her maiden voyage, a light breeze pushed her to heel and water flooded into her lower gun portals, sinking the ship less than a mile from shore.

She was lost to history until 1956 when a naval engineer and maritime historian, Anders Franzén, discovered the wreck. Five years later, 98% of the hull had been recovered. Thanks to the brackish water in Stockholm’s harbor, the ship’s black oak timber was preserved. Over 6,000 metal bolts had corroded after 333 years underwater, so they were replaced to keep the hull intact. After several attempts to float the hull, she was finally stabilized and towed into port on her own keel.

Full fathom five thy father lies;

Of his bones are coral made;

Those are pearls that were his eyes:

Nothing of him that doth fade

But doth suffer a sea-change

Into something rich and strange.

Sea-nymphs hourly ring his knell:

Ding-dong. Hark! now I hear them,—ding-dong, bell.

The Royal Palace

Completed in 1754, the Royal Palace was built on the site of the medieval Tre Kronor Castle, which burned down in 1697. One of the largest royal palaces in Europe still in active use, it has 600 rooms spread across eleven floors. It functions as the King’s official workplace, a venue for state receptions, and a repository for royal collections.

Royal Regalia

The Royal Regalia housed in the Treasury (Skattkammaren) includes crowns, orbs, swords, and coronation robes

In the Lapland of Luxury

After four nights in Stockholm, we flew to Rovaniemi, the capital of Finnish Lapland. Situated directly on the Arctic Circle (66° 33'N), Rovaniemi is the "official" hometown of Santa Claus and a popular tourist destination.

We joined a Parisian couple on a shuttle bus to our destination another 100 miles north. As we were whisked away across a gray-blue tundra, I stared out the back window watching the sun slowly set behind us.

When we arrived at the newly-constructed NOA Villas, it was dark and deeply cold. Fresh powder flanked either side of our short path. The hotel had no restaurant and the nearest grocery store was 20 miles away, so we were relieved to see wine and champagne available for sale at reception.

Chasing the Aurora

Growing up in Florida—about 2,700 miles south of the Arctic Circle—one of my favorite movies was Local Hero (1983), a quirky film about a businessman whose life is changed in a small Scottish town where he experiences the Aurora Borealis for the first time. Filmed in Pennan, a remote coastal village we visited in 2011, the Northern Lights dance above the North Sea in shimmering greens, blues and reds, engulfing the town's iconic red telephone box that remains in service today.

In real life, Scotland isn't often privy to this cosmic phenomenon where electrons and protons from the sun (the "solar wind") are excited by Earth's magnetic field like gas electrified in a neon tube. Even in 2025, when solar activity peaked and coronal mass ejections were so active that the Aurora was occasionally (and vaguely) visible in the United States as far south as Florida, the best views are above the Arctic Circle.

Five hundred miles north of Stockholm, I was ready to capture the fleeting green lights. Wearing several layers of insulation under my ski gear, I left the cozy comforts and heated floors of our cabin. Cautiously testing the icy steps of our stairway with one foot at a time, I felt like Neil Armstrong descending into a lunar landscape.

With a thermos in one hand and my tripod in the other, I walked a while to escape the glow of our little community and find dark sky.

Single-digit temps and a sideways snow tested the fingerless gloves I'd purchased to keep my hands warm as my fingers mounted a Sony A7 with its chunky wide-angle lens to a flimsy tripod set in the snow.

Despite my preparation, conditions to shoot the Aurora were terrible. During our three nights in one of the darkest parts of dark-sky Lapland, I never even saw a star. The snow intensified so much the next day they closed the Rovaniemi airport.

With the skies blotted out by snow clouds, I packed up the camera and focused on the villa's amenities—a private sauna and jacuzzi, an e-bike with snow tires, a kick sled—and the bottle of Nikka whisky I'd brought from home.

A Smörgåsbord

We returned to Stockholm for a few more nights and ate our share of meatballs and mash. While reindeer was common and comfort food ubiquitous, Stockholm's culinary identity was harder to define than in Paris or Osaka. Walking from Sodermalm through Gamla Stan to Ostermalm, we saw more English pubs, French fare, and sushi than traditional Swedish options.

Historically, Stockholm's menu has focused on cold-water fish and game, root vegetables, mushrooms, berries, and dairy. The Baltic trade routes brought the early introduction of spices and salt from the east, and baking techniques from Germany.

To survive the long winters, the Nordic diet has prioritized preservation and pragmatism over precision and technique: simple, seasonal ingredients plus pickling, curing, fermenting, smoking, or drying to extend shelf life.

Outside Scandinavia, Swedish cuisine is underrepresented or stereotyped (IKEA meatballs).

Meatballs and mash at the Nordiska Museet

Tenderloin tableside-flambed at Brasserie Astoria

A remarkably simple and decadent winter bean and gruyere dish at our hotel, NOFO

Reindeer tenderloin and potato croquette at Pelikan

Beyond Meatballs

With just eight seats around a pristine birch-wood counter, Michelin-starred Sushi Sho is a group omakase experience where guests enjoy twelve to fourteen courses in an immersive two-hour tour of Japan and Scandinavia's freshest fare.

While it was a once-in-a-lifetime meal for us, Ostermalm's premier sushiya performs this intimate ritual three times nightly with a skeleton crew of four.

We arrived early and waited outside in a gentle snow as the first sitting settled up, collected their coats, and bowed to the chef.

As we shuffled into the compact quarters, a regular was informed that his reservation was mis-booked. A gracious host tried to console the man, but found him inconsolable.

Standing silently aside, the chef listened with the intense focus of a professional athlete awaiting an official's ruling. The tension tightened as half of the guests stood outside in the cold waiting for the unwelcome party to vacate.

They finally did, and as we were seated, greeted, and refreshed, the kitchen came to life, its staff resurrected by our excitement and anticipation.

Midway through our dinner, Susie requested that the chef cut her nigiri in half—a generous accommodation offered by a celebrated itamae in Osaka last year who noticed Susie struggling to eat pieces whole. (Traditionally, nigiri is eaten with your fingers in one bite.) This tradition was important to our chef, who froze, mortified, with his thumb pressing a clump of rice. She might as well have asked him to microwave it. He explained to her, with a pain both deep and searing, that he could make a smaller nigiri, but he would not bisect his creations.

"At least now the mis-booking wasn't the worst part of your night, Chef!" I said cheerfully. He smiled and we called for more sake.

Walking Stockholm

Stockholm is an archipelago in time: clusters of islands that developed outwards from medieval Gamla Stan to affluent Östermalm to the north and bohemian Södermalm to the south. Like the nautilus shell of Parisian arrondissements spiraling , connected by bridges that link neighborhoods like ,

We walked some 40 miles in seven days and barely made a dent.

New Year's Eve

We celebrated our last night in Stockholm ringing in the New Year with Södermalm locals. A crowd of mostly twenty-somethings gathered along the harbor to watch the display with champagne and Roman candles. We left around 12:30am but sensed the party was just getting started.