Sweden · West Coast
Gothenburg
A Dutch-planned harbour city of canals, trams and wooden lanes, with the country's best shellfish and car-free islands at the end of the tram line.
Gothenburg is Sweden's second city and its port on the North Sea side, founded in 1621 and laid out by Dutch engineers, which is why a moat and a couple of canals still cut through the middle of it. It is a working harbour town rather than a capital: shipyard cranes on the far bank, trams everywhere, and a run of grand 19th-century avenues climbing from the water to Gotaplatsen and the Gothenburg Museum of Art. The best of it is at the edges, in the cobbled wooden lanes of Haga and on the car-free granite islands you reach on a tram ticket.
Suggested stay
2–4 days
Language
Swedish
Currency
SEK
Timezone
UTC+2
Why you'll love Gothenburg
The islands a tram and a short ferry from the centre puts you on car-free granite skerries with swimming rocks and fishing harbours
Shellfish this is the west-coast seafood city, where the shrimp sandwich is a serious matter and the oyster beds are an hour north
Haga a district of low wooden and stucco houses on cobbles, saved from demolition and now the best short walk in the city
Less formal than the capital Gothenburgers trade on being friendlier and blunter than Stockholm, and the city is small enough to cross on foot
Best time to visit
May-Sep
17-22° days
57.707° N, 11.967° E
UTC+2 · Europe/Stockholm
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Weather & when to go to Gothenburg
Month by month: typical highs and lows, rainfall and rain days.
✓ Best May-Sep
Cards tinted by calculated verdict · big number = typical daily high, small = low · hover for conditions
When to avoid Gothenburg
It rains here more than almost anywhere else in Sweden, and the wet comes with Atlantic wind off the mouth of the river, so a grey week is a genuine possibility at any point in the year. The dark half is cold and short on daylight, the islands run reduced boat timetables and the outdoor half of the city closes down. The long light of the warm months is when the harbour, the archipelago and the terraces all work at once.
Top things to do in Gothenburg
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The southern archipelago
nature wildlife scenic ⭐ Highly recommendedTake a tram to Saltholmen and a public boat out to Aspero, Branno, Styrso, Donso or Vrango: bare granite, wooden houses, swimming rocks and no cars at all, on the same transit ticket as the tram.
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Haga
culture arts 👍 PopularThe city's oldest suburb, saved from 1970s clearance: two-storey buildings of stone below and wood above, cobbled streets closed to traffic, and cafes selling cinnamon buns the size of a dinner plate.
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Gothenburg Museum of Art
culture artsAt the top of Gotaplatsen behind the Poseidon fountain, with a hall of turn-of-the-century Nordic painting that is the best collection of its kind anywhere, plus Rembrandt, Monet and Picasso downstairs.
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The amusement park by the Avenue
culture arts 👍 PopularScandinavia's largest, laid out as a wooded garden on a hillside since a 1923 exhibition, with a wooden coaster among the rides and a lights-and-glogg season in the dark months.
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Shrimp sandwiches and west-coast shellfish
food 👍 PopularThe rakmacka is bread barely visible under hand-peeled shrimp, egg and dill mayonnaise, and it is a lunch rather than a snack. Oysters, langoustine and mussels come off the Bohuslan coast just north.
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Slottsskogen and the Botanical Garden
nature wildlifeA large city park with Nordic animals in open enclosures and penguins in a pond, facing one of Europe's biggest botanical gardens across the road, with a rock garden and a valley of rhododendrons.
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Skansen Kronan
historyA squat 17th-century crown-shaped redoubt on the hill above Haga, built against a Danish attack that never came. The climb takes ten minutes and the view over the roofs and the harbour is the best in the centre.
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The canals and the moat
scenicThe Dutch engineers who laid out the town left a moat and a canal grid through the middle. Flat-bottomed boats run the loop, ducking under bridges so low that passengers have to lie back on the benches.
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Alvsborg fortress
historyAn island fortress in the river mouth, built to guard Sweden's only western outlet when Denmark held both sides of the sound, later a prison. Boats run out from the harbour through the warmer months.
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The harbour and the shipyard bank
historyCross the river to Hisingen for the old yards: gantry cranes left standing over the water, a floating museum of ships including a submarine and a destroyer, and a barque moored at the quay.
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Masthuggskyrkan
scenicA brick and timber church on the ridge west of the centre, its interior built like an upturned ship's hull, with a terrace outside looking straight down the river to the sea.
Best areas to stay in Gothenburg
$ Budget $$ Mid-range $$$ Premium
Inom Vallgraven
First-time visitors $$The old grid inside the moat
Explore hotels in Inom Vallgraven →
Haga
Atmosphere $$Cobbles, wooden houses, cafe tables
Explore hotels in Haga →
Linnestaden
Food & nightlife $$Bars and restaurants below the park
Explore hotels in Linnestaden →
Majorna
Best value $Old dockworker district, quietly alternative
Explore hotels in Majorna →
Vasastan
Quiet & central $$$Grand stone avenues, students, museums
Explore hotels in Vasastan →
Live nightly prices from Booking.com, Agoda and others, centred on Gothenburg
Getting to & around Gothenburg
Getting there
Fly into Landvetter, with an airport coach to the terminal beside the central station in about half an hour
Flight
Gothenburg Landvetter (GOT)
Twenty-five km east of the city. Airport coaches run frequently to the bus terminal next to the central station in around thirty minutes, and taxis take about the same on a clear road.
Train
Goteborg Central
Fast trains from Stockholm in a little over three hours, and from Malmo and Copenhagen down the west coast line
Ferry
Masthugget and Majnabbe terminals
Ships cross to northern Denmark in around three hours and run overnight to Kiel in Germany, landing a tram ride from the centre
Coach
Nils Ericson terminal
Long-distance buses from Stockholm, Malmo and Oslo pull in beside the central station
Getting around
Tram
The backbone of the city, a dense network of blue trams reaching Haga, the park, the harbour and the archipelago boat quay at Saltholmen
TBC
Walking
The centre inside the moat is small and flat, and Haga and the Avenue are both a short walk from it
Free
Bus
Covers Hisingen across the river and the outer districts the trams miss
TBC
Ferry
River shuttles cross to the shipyard bank, and the archipelago boats leave Saltholmen on the same transit ticket
TBC
City bikes
Flat ground and good lanes make cycling the quickest way across the middle, with docking stations through the inner districts
TBC
Day trips from Gothenburg
Marstrand
Full dayFortress island
A car-free island town of white wooden houses under Carlsten, a huge 17th-century stone fortress, and the country's sailing capital for well over a century.
Getting there
bus | ferry | car
1 hr by bus and ferry north
The Bohuslan coast
Full dayGranite fishing villages
Smogen's boardwalk of red sheds, Fjallbacka under its cleft rock, and Grebbestad, where most of Sweden's oysters are pulled out of the water.
Getting there
car | bus
1 hr 30 min by car north
Tanum rock carvings
Full dayBronze Age petroglyphs
Thousands of figures cut into flat granite around three thousand years ago: ships, hunters, bulls and a long-nosed bridal pair, with a museum at Vitlycke to explain them.
Getting there
car | tour
1 hr 45 min by car north
Trollhattan
Half dayLocks & waterfalls
Three generations of canal locks stepping ships up past the falls of the Gota river, with the sluices opened on set days so the dry gorge runs full again.
Getting there
train | car
45 min by train north
Varberg
Full dayFortress & sea baths
A moated coastal fortress holding the preserved body and clothing of a medieval man found in a bog, and an ornate wooden cold bathhouse standing out over the water.
Getting there
train | car
1 hr by train south
A little history of Gothenburg
Gustavus Adolphus chartered Gothenburg in 1621 on the last stretch of coast Sweden held between Danish Halland and Norwegian Bohuslan, and hired Dutch engineers to build it: a fortified grid with canals, on marshy ground that needed piling. It was the country's window to the west, which mattered enormously while Denmark controlled the sounds and charged tolls on everything passing through.
The Swedish East India Company, founded here in 1731, made fortunes on tea and porcelain from Canton and paid for the merchant houses along the canals. In the 19th century Scottish and English traders arrived in numbers, and shipbuilding, textiles and ball bearings turned the city industrial. The yards employed tens of thousands until the 1970s, when the industry collapsed almost completely; the cranes were left standing and the riverbank has been slowly rebuilt as offices, housing and film studios.
Gustavus Adolphus charters the city at the mouth of the Gota river and Dutch engineers lay out its canals
The Swedish East India Company is founded, trading with Canton and enriching the town
Shipbuilding begins on the river, the industry that will define the city for over a century
A tercentenary exhibition creates Gotaplatsen, the art museum and the amusement park in one go
The great shipyards close as the industry moves to Asia, leaving the cranes over the water
Know before you go
Payment
Cards everywhere
English
Everywhere
Wifi
Reliable
Power
Type C / F
230 V, 50 Hz
Dialing
+46
The months our climate read flags to avoid: the wettest, lowest-rated weather of the year.
FAQs about Gothenburg
▸ How many days do you need in Gothenburg?
Two covers the centre, Haga and the museums comfortably. Add a third for the southern archipelago, which is the thing visitors most often regret skipping, and a fourth if you want the Bohuslan coast.
▸ Stockholm or Gothenburg?
Stockholm is grander and has the bigger sights. Gothenburg is smaller, cheaper, easier to walk and better for seafood, and its archipelago is a tram ride rather than an excursion. Plenty of trips do both on a three-hour train.
▸ How do you get to the islands?
Tram to Saltholmen at the end of the line, then a public boat, all on the standard regional transit ticket. The islands are car-free, so people move goods around on little electric trolleys. Timetables thin out once the season ends.
▸ Does it really rain that much?
Yes. Gothenburg sits open to Atlantic weather and is one of the wettest cities in Sweden, with rain spread through the year rather than concentrated in a season. Pack for it and it stops being a problem.
▸ What should you eat here?
A shrimp sandwich at lunch, oysters or mussels from the coast just north, and a cinnamon bun with coffee in Haga. The city also holds an unusual number of ambitious restaurants for its size.
More in Sweden
Gotland (Visby)
A complete medieval town wall on a Baltic island of limestone sea stacks, ruined churches, white beaches and sheep pasture.
✓ best May-SepKiruna
An iron-ore town inside the auroral oval, with dog teams, a hotel carved each winter from river ice, and Sweden's highest mountains an hour west.
✓ best Jun, AugMalmo
A Renaissance castle, a twisting tower on the old docks and the best falafel in Sweden, with Copenhagen half an hour over the bridge.
✓ best May-Sep