There are 3 WHS in the greater Stockholm area.

- Royal Domain of Drottningholm
- Birka and Hovgården
- Skogskyrkogården

How much time is recommended to visit all 3? Any issues regarding transportation between the sites?

I would say that it takes two days for these three sites. Skogskyrkogården and Drottningholm can be visited within one day. Both are easily reachable by metro (or tunnelbana in Stockholm). Skogskyrkogården is very easy to visit because it has own metro station. For Drottningholm take metro to Brommaplan and then change to bus or walk some 4 km. You can also go to Drottningholm by ferry from the center of Stockholm.

Visiting Birka by ferry takes practically one day. Ferry starts near the City Hall 9.30 or 10.00 (depending the time of the year) and it goes back 13.45, 15.00 or 15.30.

From Stockholm it is also possible to do day trips by train to Engelsberg and Falun.

If you have your own transport then you can probably see all of them in one day but it would be a busy one and the main thing will be timing how you visit Birka/ Hovgarden.

It is easy to combine a visit to Hovgarden with a trip to Drottningholm as you would have to drive past the latter to get to the former. In terms of quality of visit I would recommend trying to get to Birka though as Hovgarden isn't the most spectacular site on its own, though there is a boat with limited hours that sails between the two islands. If you don't have your own car then you can get a series of busses from Stockholm to Hovgarden, and these stop outside Drottningholm.

You need to take a bus to Drottingholm. That's also the bus continuing on to Hovgarden, so those two could be done on a day trip.



As I understood it the ferries operate in summer which is Jun to Aug. The Birka ferry may operate on a weekend during winter (i.e. rest of the year), but I wouldn't count on it. The buses to Hovgarden (with some walking after you cross the sound with the ferry) run regularly.

In general, don't bank on Swedish transport options being regular or frequent. They aren't.

Venturing to Falun or Engelsbeg seems a bit much. I would rather go to Visby, if you want to do a long excursion.

Certainly, but by metro you can get very close to Drottningholm. From Brommaplan metro station you can either take a short bus connection or walk. I find metro easier means of transport than buses in Stockholm.


Well, it is not too much for me. Actually I think it is quite easy, at least easier than bus + ferry connection from Stockholm to Visby which could take minimum 4-5 hours.
- Train connections (about once per hour with a change in Västerås) from Stockholm to Ängelsberg takes 2-2,5 hours. From the Ängelsberg station it is a short walk or bus to Engelsberg bruk.
- For Falun, there are a plenty of options. 1) infrequent direct train (2,5 hours), 2) with train change in Gävle (3 hours), 3) train to Borlänge (2,5 hours) and change to bus (0,5 hour). The latter was what I did. There is plenty of time to explore the Great Copper Mountain (including the mine tour) with its environments and also the center of Falun.

During the week you may be right. Try that on a weekend and the picture changes dramatically ;)

We were there last year and tried to do Drottningholm and Hovgarden on the same day but failed miserably. Public transport is all about planning and being on time and that's not something we're very good at.

We were there in april and no boats were going to Birka by than so we had to take the bus. Only Hovgarden can be reached in that way and from Brommaplan it'll take you about one hour. Our first attempt was after our visit to Drottningholm but we missed the bus and had to wait two more hours for the next one. Not very keen on waiting we decided to go to the historic museum in Stockholm instead. They have some nice findings on display there and it will help you to get a bit of a viking feeling'. You'll need that because the site itself isn't very exciting we found out het next day.

After we got on the bus (312 I believe it was) we were driven to Hovgarden. So we thought. The busdriver however left us at the ferry and drove back to Stockholm. "Now what?" my wife askked. "I have no idea honey. I was under the impression the bus would take us to the Island as well...."We had no choice but to wait and see and after a while the ferry came and we went on board. Not knowing where to go we asked another busdriver where we could find this famous Unescosite. He drove the bus for a few years now he answered but had never heard of it! After calling his collegues about its whereabouts!

Finally on site it took us about ten minutes to see it all. It's just three hills and a runic stone really. We did a short walk and than went back to the busstop.... where we had to wait another two hours for the next one came to pick us up. I quess

echwel
Sounds about right

I have never had any major problems with Swedish public transport, but maybe it is too much the same than in my home country Finland ;) But like echwel told, public transport is all about careful planning, being on time and preparing yourself to some changes on schedule.

I think Birka is the better option if you want to have a good experience on this WHS. If the weather is good the ferry trip itself is very beautiful and enjoyable. Even though I'm usually not that keen on guided tours, I found the tour (included to the trip price) quite interesting and informative. Ferries to Birka operate only from the end of April to the end of September. Here are timetables for 2017 Stadshusbron-Birka and Hovgården-Birka.