Vasastan is the part of Stockholm that reads. It has more bookshops than it strictly needs, a library that other cities would build a tourist economy around, and a hill with an observatory on it — and the whole walk is barely three kilometres.
Start at Odenplan and climb straight to the Stadsbibliotek. Gunnar Asplund finished it in 1928, and the lending hall is the thing: a tall drum of bookshelves rising in tiers to a ring of high windows, daylight pouring down the middle. Go in. Stand in it. Then take the path up Observatorielunden behind it, where the 1750s observatory sits at the top of a wooded hill and the city lays itself out to the south.
Come down into upper Drottninggatan — the calmer, northern end, past the tunnel, where the street becomes a proper high street of konditori and small shops. Sit somewhere for a fika. Then west across Vasaparken, the neighbourhood's green lung, and out at Rådmansgatan. A short walk, but a literate one.
