About Solna
Solna is very well placed between central Stockholm area and the international Stockholm Arlanda airport. Although Solna is an integral part of central Stockholm, it works as an independent municipality. Solna has an extensive – and growing – network of sustainable public transport and is easily reachable from other parts of the region.
Solna is one of Sweden’s fastest-growing municipalities with six new city districts being currently built. Today’s 85,000 inhabitants are estimated to grow up to 100,000 by 2030. The city of Solna is also a popular destination for businesses, partly due to its location and partly due to the business-friendly climate and inclusiveness and diversity in the area that is a highlight of Solna.
A third of Solna is green open spaces. A third of the Royal National City Park is part of Solna. The uniqueness and cultural beauty of the park is that it includes some of the beautiful neo classical Royal Palaces, which makes it one of the most-visited recreation areas in the city..
Nestled in nature, Solna boasts three nature reserves, several bays and lakes, known both for their biodiversity and recreation.
Area
Solna has developed around the National Arena for Football, Friends Arena, and Scandinavia’s largest shopping centre, Mall of Scandinavia.
With a unique mix of housing, offices spaces, restaurants and bars, hotels and other services. Together with the nearby Royal National City Park, Solna is a main attraction for visitors with a fast growing hospitality industry. Many large businesses have moved their offices here. The university hospital New Karolinska Solna and the Karolinska Institutet, one of the world’s foremost medical universities are also here. The district is also developing a center for tertiary care and world-leading life sciences to improve public health.
Solna is a inclusive, vibrant and sustainable for all its inhabitants. It is built around knowledge, creativity and creating experiences.
Commuting
Solna is very well connected to most of the city and Arlanda airport. Distance to Stockholm city center Drive to city – 11 min adjust 7 kms.
Solna Centrum is a hub to connect to every part of the city with ease.
Solna is on the blue line on the Stockholm metro. One can go straight to Kungstragården which is the city center directly. The nearest commuter train station is Sundbyberg.
Solna is also well connected by the city bus services to get around to all the neighboring areas including the airport.
Distance to airports
Arlanda Airport (ARN) – 32 min for 29 kilometers for both domestic and international flights.
Bromma Airport (BMA) – 15 min for 6.1 kilometers away with mostly domestic flights
Stockholm Skavsta Airport (NYO) – 1 hour 15 min for 117 kilometers connecting a few low-cost airlines.
Nearby Solna
A 10 minute ride from Solna you will find yourself in Sundbyberg and Tensta and Kista which are one of the most culturally diverse areas in Sweden.
Ulriksdal & Bergshamra are two ice floes in Solna where you can skate when the ice is thick enough. It is usually between January and March.
Bus 515 pass Solna station (Mall of Scandinavia and Friends Arena) on the way to Odenplan in the western area in Stockholm city. Timetable 515 towards Solna station and Odenplan.
Bus 506- (busstop at Svetsarvägen) stops at Solna centre, Karolinska University Hospital and at Sveavägen in Stockholm city western area.
Museums
Solna has some very interesting museums one must visit when they visit Stockholm.
Haga Park Museum
An outlandish building constructed for the Royal Guard sits in front of Gustav III’s Royal Pavilion. In line with the 18th-century fascination for all things oriental, this building has a pattered blue outer structure designed like three Turkish tents and made from copper.
The central of these tents houses the Haga Park Museum.
This is where you can see the grand designs Gustav III made for an epic Neoclassical palace. Read more.
MC Collection
One of Edsberg Palace’s outbuildings hides an excellent motorcycle museum. It is a private collection spanning more than a 100 years. Here the motorcycles are treated like mechanical works of art.
Among the many vintage models are Indians, Harley Davidsons and Husqvarnas, but there are also modern racing bikes and a couple of futuristic concepts to show how technology has progressed. The museum has 400 bikes in its reserve and updates the exhibition of 140 every few months to keep it fresh. Read more.
Filmstaden
For lovers of Swedish cinema, and the works of Ingmar Bergman, this a pilgrimage site. More than 400 movies were filmed here at these studio.
The complex was built by Svensk Filmindustri (Now SF Studios) in 1919-20, and pretty much any 20th-century Swedish director or actor you can think of worked at this place at one time.
Bergman had especially close links with Filmstaden, having learned his trade at the studios’ various facilities in the 1940s. Filmstaden is now a residential neighborhood, with an artistic flavor in its production companies, cinemas and restaurants.
Many of the old studio buildings are intact, like the Lilla Ateljén (Little Studio), where all the silent movies were shot. Read more.
Swedish Museum of Natural History
Founded in 1819, on the east shore of Brunnsviken, this eminent museum was and housed in its current buildings since 1916. Kids will be thrilled with the dinosaur fossils, while most of the museum’s exhibits are accessible for younger minds.
The permanent exhibitions handle topics like human history, human anatomy, fossils and evolution, life in water, the natural world in Sweden, polar tribes, climate change and geological wonders like meteorites. At Cosmonova you can be dazzled by 3D movies at the IMAX theatre, which doubles as Sweden’s largest planetarium. Read more.
Mall of Scandinavia
Right next to the Friends Arena is the largest shopping centre in Stockholm, becoming the second largest in Scandinavia when it opened in 2015. There are few things about the complex that put it head and shoulders above most malls.
All of the big international chains like H&M and Zara are here, along with more than 20 restaurants and endless leisure facilities are here including a Tesla outlet.
There’s a bowling alley, crazy golf course and a 15-screen cinema including a record high 500 seating IMAX theatre. Visit.
Friends Arena
Built in 2012, Friends Arena is the home stadium of both the Swedish national football team and the local side AIK Solna.
It has a capacity of 54,000 and is the largest football stadium in the Nordic region. Visit.
Parks & Nature Reserves
Solna has large parks where there is a lot of room for walking, playing, nature studies, meetings, ball games, picnics and also just sitting quietly on a bench. There is a lot to discover in these spaces. In Sweden, nature reserves are one of the most common ways to protect valuable nature. There are currently three nature reserves in Solna. Each nature reserve is unique and therefore has its own regulations to preserve natural values.
Hagaparken
Hagaparken an English landscaped park with many monuments in its borders. Founded by King Gustav III near the end of the 18th century and was a preferred royal property for subsequent monarchs.
Since 1922 Hagaparken has been home to the Royal Cemetery, where most members of the royal Bernadotte family have been laid to rest. Hagaparken is one place everyone always visits in Solna. Read more
Slottsträdgården Ulriksdal
The regal parkland around the palace is a lovely place to wander through.
Fruits and vegetables were cultivated here for the palace from the 1700s. Now it is a private enterprise where one can buy fresh produce in a lofty setting.
If you’re just here to look around, the greenhouses, vegetable patches and flower gardens are all relaxing, and there’s a cafe that bakes its own pastries. Read more.
Bergianska Trädgården
On the east side of Brunnsviken is another magical garden next to the water.
Founded for the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, the Bergian Garden goes back to 1791 and moved to its present location in 1885. It has beautiful building like the Victoriaväxthuset (Victoria Growth House), The Old Orangery, housing tropical plants. Edvard Andersons Växthus (geenhouse.
Outside one can walk around vegetable gardens, a Japanese pond and woodland from all over the Northern Hemisphere. There is also a lovely space to meditate by the Brunnsviken. Read more
Råstasjön Nature Reserve
Råstasjön nature reserve is Solna’s third and newest nature reserve. It is located in the middle of Solna, next to Gamla Råsunda and Arenastaden. In the reserve there is variety of nature with different water and land environments. Råstasjön has a rich bird life with one of the county’s largest colonies of laughing gulls and several nesting red-listed species. There is also a species-rich bat fauna with seven species. Read more
Igelbäcken Nature Reserve
The Igelbäcken nature reserve is located in northern Solna and includes Dammtorp, Brotorp, Överjärva farm, the southern part of Sörentorp and part of Ulriksdal’s castle park. In the reserve there is a varied nature with forest and open ground, rock outcrops and depressions. In the reserve there is a hundred-year-old spruce forest and on the outcrops there are pine trees that are up to 200 years old. The reserve’s wetlands are important habitats for amphibians and many other species. Through the reserve flows Igelbäcken, where the rare fish greenling is found. Read more
Ulriksdal Nature Reserve
Ulriksdal’s nature reserve is located next to Ulriksdal’s castle park in northern Solna, between the bays Edsviken and Brunnsviken. Most of the nature reserve is located on Stockholmsåsen and consists of forest. Particularly distinctive are the thick-stemmed old pines and areas with beech forest. On the reserve’s southern storm hill, Kvarnkullen, there is an open terrace with interesting flora, including the protected backsippa. In the reserve, you can also see clear traces of cultural history, including one of the Stockholm region’s largest burial grounds from the Late Iron Age. Read more.
Iconic Building
Solna being a place of historic significance a few of the iconic building in Stockholm. There are palaces and castles in parks which were private properties of royal family. The parks are now open to the public but and the building to visit as well.
Gustav III’s Pavilion
In the summer you can put your name down for a guided tour of Gustav III’s lush pavilion, viewed as one of the masterpieces of 18th-century Neoclassical architecture in Northern Europe.
The pavilion was to be a residence as the king awaited the construction of his palace, and was the place he departed to attend the masquerade ball where he was killed in 1792. The pavilion’s interiors were decorated by the French-born painter and interior designer Louis Masreliez.
And during a restoration of the pavilion in the 1940s, Masreliez’ original designs were rediscovered: Since then the interiors have been as they were at the end of 18th century, original furniture and all. Read more.
Ulriksdal Palace
A little way up from Haga is another royal palace, this one in the Baroque style from the 17th century.
Queen Hedvig Eleonora had grand designs for the palace as a future home for her grandson Prince Ulric, but the child died in infancy and the plans were scrapped. Most of the architecture was the work of Nicodemus Tessin the Elder who built many of Sweden’s grandest royal and noble estates of the period.
At the end of the century Tessin’s son built the orangery, which is part of the tour and houses some of the sculpture collection of the Swedish National Museum.
On your visit you’ll enter the stables, which houses Queen Christina’s coronation carriage, dating to 1650. Read more.
Karlberg Palace
On the Karlberg Canal at the very south of Solna is an estate used by Sweden’s royalty in the 17th century.
The palace as we see it was begun in 1634 and since the end of the 18th century has been a military academy. For this reason the interiors are usually closed to the public, but the park is open during the day and the path along the canal is lovely.
In summer there’s a steady flow of boats going past, and people have barbecues on the water’s edge.
A couple of points of interest to track down in the park are an 18th-century folly, a temple of Diana, and a grave for Pompe, a dog belonging to Charles XII. Read more.
Edsberg Castle
A smooth drive to the north shore of Edsviken will deliver you to one more sumptuous property. Edsberg Castle is easy to spot from afar because thanks to its yellow facade, and was ordered by Thure Gustaf Rudbeck, a military man and politician.
The house is closed to the public, but the location is all the motivation you need to make the trip. In summer the view down the length of Edsviken from the veranda is a treat. Read more.
Solna Church
The Norra Begravningsplatsen, Northern Cemetery, is an attraction of its own, and the final resting place of some of Sweden’s most noteworthy figures in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Alfred Nobel, August Strindberg and Ingrid Bergman are just a few of the illustrious burials. At the southern edge is the extraordinary Solna Church, which comprises connected buildings from a 12th-century Romaneque fortress.
The rotunda is the oldest portion of the church and is crowned with a ceremonious dome and cupola.
Head in to admire the 15th-century ceiling frescoes, painted by Albertus Pictor, the most distinguished Swedish painter of the period. Read more.
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