▶ Watch the guide The best things to do in Gothenburg are Liseberg, the ferry out to the southern archipelago from Saltholmen, the wooden lanes of Haga, the Botanical Garden and its 16,000 greenhouse species, and Feskekôrka, the 1874 fish hall that reopened in 2024. Three days is the right length: one for the centre and the museums at Götaplatsen, one for the islands, one for Haga and the parks. Summer is when the city works best.
Gothenburg is Sweden's second city, 620,000 people on the Kattegat coast where the Göta älv reaches the sea. Gustav II Adolf chartered it in 1621 and hired Dutch engineers to drain the marsh, which is why the old centre is a grid inside a moat. Trams reach almost everything, and a single zone ticket carries you out to car-free islands.
Liseberg opened on 8 May 1923 for the city's Jubilee Exhibition and is still owned by Gothenburg, which is why it reads more like a public garden with roller coasters in it. Two rides carry the reputation: Balder, the wooden coaster, and Helix. The season runs spring to the end of December, and the winter half is the Christmas market.
The archipelago is ordinary public transport here, not an excursion. Tram 11 reaches Saltholmen in about 35 minutes, and four ferry lines fan out from the pier to the southern islands. A zone A ticket covers all of it and none of the islands allow cars. Vrångö, the southernmost, has reserves at both ends and the best sand.
Haga is the oldest suburb outside the moat and the best surviving run of landshövdingehus, the local building type with a brick ground floor and two wooden storeys above it. The paved stretch of Haga Nygata is cafés, small shops and the enormous cinnamon buns at Café Husaren. Above it sits Skansen Kronan, a fortress begun in 1687.
Universeum stacks its exhibitions up through a glass building at Korsvägen, and the rainforest is the part people remember: a full-height indoor jungle you climb through, with aquariums below. Open every day of the year, generally 10am to 6pm, and next door to Liseberg if the weather turns.
One of the largest botanical gardens in Europe, and a working horticultural collection rather than a park with labels: about 16,000 species under glass, plus a rock garden and a Japanese valley. Behind it the ground rises into Änggårdsbergen, a reserve of bare rock and pine you can walk into from the top gate.
The central park runs to 137 hectares of meadow, oak and rock, and the animal park inside it opened in 1876, which makes it the oldest zoo in Sweden. It charges nothing, and what it keeps is regional: seals, penguins, moose and Gutefår sheep. The Natural History Museum sits on the eastern edge.
The fish hall on the canal has been called the fish church since it opened in 1874, because Victor von Gegerfelt gave it a nave, a pitched roof and pointed windows. It reopened in 2024 after four years, restored rather than replaced: fish counters at ground level, restaurants around them. Come for the counters as much as the tables.
The art museum closes the top of Kungsportsavenyn behind Milles' Poseidon, and the brick arcade built for the 1923 Jubilee Exhibition anchors the whole square. Inside, the strength is late nineteenth-century Nordic painting in top-lit galleries. Free under 25. Göteborgs Konsthall on the same square is free for everyone.
A museum you walk across rather than through: a line of vessels moored at Packhuskajen and joined by gangways, billed as the largest floating ship museum in the world. The destroyer Småland is eight decks deep, but the submarine Nordkaparen is the one that stays with you. Seasonal, April to early November.
The Paddan boats leave Kungsportsplatsen for 50 guided minutes through the seventeenth-century moat, the canals and the harbour. They pass about twenty bridges, one of them low enough that everyone has to duck, which is why it is nicknamed the cheese slicer. Spring to late autumn, roughly every half hour in the middle of the day.
A split-level dining room in a 1775 East India Company warehouse at Klippan, looking out at the river traffic. Shellfish is the whole argument.
A seventeenth-century building on Lilla Torget by the canal, working the classical end: shellfish platters, whole fish, a long white wine list.
A Michelin star since 2015, on Viktoriagatan in Vasastan, working a set menu that changes with what the west coast and the season provide. The room is plain on purpose.
One Michelin star on Johannebergsgatan, and the least formal of the three: modern Swedish cooking served in a room that behaves like a neighbourhood restaurant.
The city kunsthalle on Götaplatsen, showing contemporary work in a 1923 hall next to the art museum. Free for everyone.
The southernmost island, 35 to 50 minutes out, with nature reserves at both ends and the best sand. A marked path loops it in a couple of hours.
The busiest southern island and the one with two ferry stops. Hilltop views, wooden houses, swimming spots and enough cafés for an easy first visit.
A working island rather than a summer one, one of Sweden's shipping communities. Climb Radarberget for the view back across the chain.
Known for the dances on the pier, held on Thursday evenings from late June to mid-August. The rest of the week it is meadows, rock and swimming.
The smallest stop on the line, called Kössö, where the only vehicle allowed is the wheelbarrow. Twenty minutes gets you round it.
The closest island on line 283, the one for half an afternoon. Shallow clear water, a bathing area, and a climb up Valen over the shipping channel.
The Haga institution and the source of the hagabulle, a cinnamon bun the size of a dinner plate, meant to be shared and photographed in that order.
The city's specialty coffee benchmark, with its own roastery and sourdough bakery at several addresses. The courtyard off Magasinsgatan is the one to find.
An Italian bar on Kyrkogatan that serves espresso standing up and does not pretend to be anything else. Quick, correct, and the antidote to a long Swedish coffee.
A classic konditori on Västra Hamngatan: princess cake, semlor in season, and the sort of room where people read the paper for an hour.
Founded in 1901 and still baking by hand on the floor above the counter. Order at the case and take the stairs.
Run by two siblings in Kvillebäcken on Hisingen, pouring coffee roasted by their own company, Ritu. Worth the tram across the river if you care about what is in the cup.
The Garden Society beside the moat, one of the best preserved nineteenth-century parks in Europe. Around 4,000 roses, and an 1878 Palm House.
A reserve of pine, bare granite and small lakes beginning at the Botanical Garden's top gate. The quickest way out of the city without leaving it.
The ribbon of park following the old moat, planted when the fortifications came down. It links the Garden Society to Haga in a fifteen-minute walk.
Two lakes in a nature reserve on the eastern edge, with swimming and marked trails. This is where Gothenburg runs and swims.
The hill on Hisingen that gives the free view, up through the park to bare rock with the port and river below. Best an hour before sunset.
The calmer alternative to the Avenue: nineteenth-century blocks and restaurants along Linnégatan, with Slottsskogen at the end of the street.
The four long streets between Järntorget and the river: bars, small restaurants, record shops and the venues that keep going after the centre closes.
An old dockworkers' district west along the river, now students and second-hand shops, with the Maritime Museum at Stigbergstorget. Cheaper than the centre.
Late nineteenth-century blocks with carved stone facades running west from the Avenue, with the Röhsska museet and small cafés along Vasagatan.
Literally inside the moat: the original seventeenth-century town on its Dutch grid, holding the canals, the market halls and most of the hotels.
On Hisingen, one tram stop across the river, rebuilt in fifteen years around a food market hall and a run of roasters. The direction the city is growing.
A wooden seaside town on its own island under Carlsten fortress. Buses run from Nils Ericson Terminalen in about an hour, then a 200-metre ferry.
A late eighteenth-century estate at Mölndal with formal gardens, a kitchen garden and a restaurant in the old servants' quarters.
The island north of the city, 50 minutes by bus, holding the Nordic Watercolour Museum and the herring village of Klädesholmen.
Down the coast in Halland, 39 minutes by train, with a thirteenth-century fortress on the sea wall and a cold bathhouse built out over the water.
Thirty-four minutes inland by train, a town of wooden houses that has made fika its identity, plus a light festival that takes the streets in autumn.
Two hours ten by bus into northern Bohuslän, and the postcard: a boardwalk of red fishing sheds, a shellfish auction and granite skerries.
The 49th edition ran 266 films from 76 countries over ten days of Swedish winter, in cinemas across the centre.
The largest annual half marathon in the world, starting and finishing at Slottsskogsvallen. The route closes for the day.
The world's largest youth football tournament, a week in July. The 2026 edition drew 1,956 teams from 78 countries.
Three days in Slottsskogen, with The Cure, Gorillaz and Nick Cave on the 2026 bill. The food is entirely vegetarian.
The free city festival: four days of music, food, dance and street performance across the central squares.
The largest cultural event in the Nordic countries, with a full seminar programme and a public rather than trade crowd.
The old-fashioned Christmas market in the seventeenth-century Kronhuset and the workshops around it. Closed Mondays.
The park becomes one of Sweden's largest Christmas markets from mid-November. Buy dated tickets ahead of weekends.
The airport is east of the city with no rail link, so the bus is the option. Flygbussarna runs to Nils Ericson Terminalen in about 40 minutes, every 15 to 20 minutes until midnight.
The central station is at Drottningtorget with the bus terminal attached. SJ runs hourly to Stockholm in about three and a half hours, and Öresundståg runs direct to Copenhagen.
Västtrafik runs the network and one zone A ticket covers all of it, ferries included. The tram system is the largest in the Nordics, 176 kilometres over 11 lines. Buy in the app before boarding.
Hand-peeled shrimp on buttered bread with mayonnaise, egg and dill, in a portion that counts as lunch.
Langoustine off the Bohuslän coast, served cold and split with mayonnaise, or grilled. Priced by the boats.
Nine in ten Swedish oysters come from near Grebbestad. Cold-water and slow-growing, eaten with lemon alone.
Farmed on ropes along the same coast, cooked in white wine or a cream and dill broth. The cheapest good meal.
West coast fish soup on a saffron and tomato base, with mussels and shrimp, served with aioli and bread.
Shrimp folded into mayonnaise and dill with roe on top, on fried bread. Invented in Sweden in the 1950s.
Pickled herring in as many cures as the kitchen keeps, with potatoes, sour cream and a shot of aquavit.
The Haga cinnamon bun, baked at the size of a dinner plate at Café Husaren. One is enough for two people.
Get our one-page Gothenburg cheat sheet before you go.
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