Drottningholm is Sweden's little Versailles, a royal island on Mälaren that the court built up over three centuries and UNESCO put on its list in 1991. Three and a half kilometres of palace, parterre, pavilion and theatre — the whole 18th century laid out on one island and still, in places, working.
Come by water. The Strömma boat from Stadshuskajen takes an hour across the lake, and the slow approach is half the point; the palace rises out of the trees the way it was meant to. Land at the brygga and the garden facade is right there — the slott (palace) the royal family still keeps a wing of.
Walk out into the baroque garden, the clipped parterre giving way to the looser English park, and follow it to Kina slott, the rococo Chinese pavilion built for a queen's birthday in 1753. Then double back for the slottsteater — the Court Theatre, one of the few anywhere still staging opera on its original 18th-century machinery.
End at the jetty. Take the boat back if the day's still long, the bus to Brommaplan if it isn't.
