Clarion Hotel Stockholm

Described as "Stockholm's Art Hotel N°1", this is an excellent place to stay when visiting Stockholm. The ultra-modern hotel is located only 20 meters from the Skanstull Tunnelbana exit on Ringvaegen in Süderholm, which is only 4 stops south of T-Centralen. You'd expect it to be noisy inside, right next to this busy street, and, I should add, there's a freeway basically running through the hotel, but we've never had such a good night sleep before. The place was so quiet that we never even heard the next door neighbours. At times we thought we were the only people in the hotel.

But we weren't, which became apparent at breakfast, but more about that later.

The hotel lobby is sleak and the staff is extremely friendly and polite and will go out of their way to assist you in any way possible. There's a little bar right next to the check in desk, with a good view of what's happening on Ringvaegen. The whole front of the hotel is glass.

Walking up the little slope to the lifts, you wonder if you stumbled onto a Monopoly board. Strange, colourfull little seats are scattered around. There's also a lot of Nordic art in the public rooms, the restaurant and the bar.

Our room was spacious and luxurious. Half of the bed was covered with pillows, which was a bit over the top if you ask me. The bathroom was also very roomy, but you had to remember it had a sliding door. You CAN actually also push it open, as I found out... repeatedly... but I wouldn't recommend it.

After a good night sleep, you head down to the breakfast hall, which is amazing. You can basically choose from about 10 kinds of bread and rolls, cereal, several kinds of cheese, a full English breakfast, raw thinly sliced vegetables, slices of melon, blood orange and pineapple, cakes, coffee and tea.

Tell me where do you find smoked salmon and reindeer at a breakfast buffet? Exactly.

We booked this hotel through Booking.com and got a special "3 nights for 2" deal, which made this hotel extremely affordable.

Of all the hotels I've stayed in in my life, this one is definately Top 5. Highly recommended!