The best museums Sweden

It all began when in 1922, a young doctor came to settle in the village and never left. We discover his life, his passion for nature and of course the omnipresent Sami culture. At the top of the stairs, you will find a classroom, a sewing room and a kitchen reconstructed with objects from the 1930's; all the history of the pioneers of the time. Downstairs is the silver collection that made the museum famous, as well as a movie theater.

ABBA The Museum is a museum dedicated to the famous Swedish pop group, from its creation in 1970 to its split in 1983, and its comeback in 2021. Since its opening in 2013, it is a hit, with nearly 300,000 visitors per year! You can discover costumes, instruments, golden records and other objects that belonged to the group, but also exact replicas of the places where ABBA lived and worked to take you closer to the life of the quartet. More than a simple museum, the place has been designed to offer a true immersive and interactive experience. The multiple devices available to visitors are regularly renewed to remain at the cutting edge of technology. During your visit, these devices will allow you to virtually try on the band's costumes, sing songs, create music, play quizzes and even slip into the skin of a fifth member of the band by performing on stage alongside the avatars of Björn, Agnetha, Benny and Frida. Finally, a new space takes you behind the scenes of the quartet's latest project: ABBA Voyage, a series of futuristic concerts in the form of holograms. For an even more interactive experience, rent an audio guide and let the band members tell you their stories!

Good to know: reservations on the site are highly recommended and only credit cards are accepted in the entire museum (including the store and restaurant).

The Museum of Fine Arts has one of the first collections of international art in the country. It exhibits mainly Swedish and Nordic painters from the ^16th century to the present (Carl Larsson, Ernst Josephson, Ivar Arosenius, Karl Isaksson, Anders Zorn, Edvard Munch...), but also Dutch and Flemish painters from the ^17th century. The museum houses private collections, such as that of Fürstenberg, much admired for its Nordic light and fin de siècle melancholy. On the^first floor, an exhibition is devoted to art after 1945. On the^2nd and^3rd floors, sculptures (Rodin, Per Hasselberg, Johan Tobias Sergel, Henry Moore, Carl Milles...), graphics and drawings. The real masterpieces are exhibited on the^4th and^5th floors. Nordic art of the ^18th and ^19th centuries and the beginning of the ^20th century exhibits, among others, cheerful and rural oil paintings by the Dane Peder Severin Sekoyer (1851-1909), such as The Artists' Festival in Skagen, and funereal ones such as The Death of Charles XII, by Gustaf Cederström (1845-1933), the Double Portrait by Alexander Roslin (1718-1793), and many beautiful oil paintings by Anders Zorn (1860-1920) that show the soft light of the Nordic summers. Of particular note is Nils Forsberg's (1842-1934) terrifying and realistic Family of Acrobats in Front of the Circus Director. Among the more recent works, one should particularly note an oil painting by Odd Nerdrum (born 1944), the enfant terrible of contemporary Nordic art.

Here, different types of environments have been recreated that are home to many rare animal species. You can visit the exhibits in any order. The underwater life, with huge aquariums in which turn large sturgeons, beautiful rays and especially sharks; the deadly animals: behind glass walls, some of the most dangerous reptiles in the world; an area dedicated to the polar fauna; and especially the reconstruction of a tropical forest where you move freely, rubbing shoulders with small monkeys, caimans and iguanas.

The city museum, located in the building that once housed the offices and warehouses of the former East India Company (Östindiskahuset), is a combination of an archaeological museum, a historical museum, an industrial museum and a theater museum. Today it houses several historical collections evoking the life of Gothenburg from the Middle Ages to the present day, as well as temporary exhibitions on modern and contemporary Gothenburg.

Built in 1705 on the order of Admiral Count Hans Wachtmeister, the museum presents exhibitions on stonecutters, shipbuilding, navigation and fishing. The exhibits change regularly, so be sure to check the website. The museum is suitable for both adults and children. In the basement, in summer, the Greven café offers homemade cakes and quiches. After the visit, you can enjoy the beautiful baroque garden.

It is a paradise for naval history and model ship enthusiasts. Here are exhibited reproductions of magnificent three-masted ships from the 19th century, merchant sailing ships and other warships, modern submarines, cruisers from the beginning of the 20th century... Photos, navigation objects of all kinds and paintings retrace the history of Swedish and international navigation through the ages. Few explanations in English (none in French).

A remarkable museum that takes us back in time, from the first engraved stones dating from the^5th century to the reconstruction of a Gotland farm in the ^19th century, through the exceptional Viking treasures discovered in the north of the island and the geological curiosities of the "island of a hundred churches". Children will love the Ship o'Joy exhibition, where they can play together in boats, fishermen's huts and cargo ships. A small café and a store.

Malmö Castle is the heir of a first building founded by Erik of Pomerania in 1430 before being rebuilt a century later and occupied by the mint. After the return of Skåne to Sweden, the defenses were strengthened and a moat system dug. After the return of peace with Denmark, the building was converted into a prison and then into a museum in 1937. Of the castle itself remains, beyond the wooden bridge over the moat, a massive facade framed by two round towers, all built of brick.

In the courtyard, a modern building (also without lightness) houses four sections of the Malmö Museums (Malmö Museer). The restaurant Wega is located on Slottsholmen, right next to the main entrance of the Malmö Museums.

The Governor's House and the House of Technology and the Navy are located outside the castle. Between the museum and Kommendanthuset, there are some brightly painted wooden huts: this is the Fiskehoddorna, which serves as a fish market every morning.

Kontsmuseet (Museum of Fine Arts). Beautiful collection of Swedish landscape artists such as Carl Fredrik Hill (1849-1911). There are also contemporary works, notably by the sculptor Carl Fredrik Reuterswärd (born in 1934) and the Malmö-born surrealist painter Max Walter Svanberg (1912-1995). One room is devoted to a sketch made by the Dane Joakim Skovgaard for the mosaic of the cathedral in Lund. Beautiful collection of Russian paintings from the late ^19th century and representative works of Swedish design.

Historical museum. Documents, plans and objects tracing the history of Malmö Castle and focusing on life in Skåne in the ^17th century, when it became part of Sweden.

Aquarium & Tropicarium. Local fish and amphibians, but also (more exotic) gymnotes, better known as electric eels, and other piranhas.

Museum of natural history. Flora and fauna of Skåne, geology and paleontology with notably a dinosaur skeleton.

Kommendanthuset (the Governor's house). An ^{eighteenth-century} mansion that now houses exhibitions on photography. Right next to the Governor's house is a very nice little café serving organic and locally grown products (sandwiches, pies, salads, ice cream and homemade pastries).

Tekniken och Sjöfartens Hus (House of Technology and the Navy).

The Jamtli Museum is an open-air museum with historic buildings, and an indoor museum with permanent and temporary exhibitions. "Jamtli" literally means "Jämtland hill" in the local dialect. The place is known for its bell tower, whose architecture is very typical of 18th century Sweden. Along a road, you will see it at the edge of a pavement. You will find an archaeological and handicraft collection, works of art and artefacts that will take you deep into the history of the region.

It is a temple of cultures and traditions, of peoples and their rites of the 19th and 20th centuries. You will discover the ways of life through instruments, weapons, clothes, means of transport and other usual and ritual objects. You will see Indonesian masks, Chinese carnival costumes, an Inuit child's kayak, arrows and headdresses from Indian tribes, Beninese engravings... The sound and visual atmosphere allows you to immerse yourself in the different contexts.