Hotel Reisen, Stockholm – the maritime hotel on Skeppsbron since 1819

A coffee house for sea captains in the 1750s, a hotel since 1819, and vaults from the 1690s beneath the slate. Hotel Reisen on Skeppsbron in Gamla stan is one of Stockholm's oldest hotels – with views straight out over the harbour.

Skeppsbron in Stockholm is the Old Town's façade facing the water: a long row of merchant houses where ships once unloaded goods from all over the world. In the middle of the quay, at Skeppsbron 12–14, lies Hotel Reisen – one of the city's oldest hotels, with windows facing Saltsjön and the boats setting off towards Djurgården and the archipelago. The façade from 1930 is adorned with small sculptures of a cog, a fish with an anchor, and the Skeppsbron waterfront itself.

Behind that façade lies more than three hundred years of Stockholm's history.

01Fredrik Reiss's coffee house

The story begins with coffee. In the 1750s, there were eleven coffee houses in Stockholm with permission to serve coffee, and three of them were run by the Dutchman Fredrik Reiss. One of them was located in the block where the hotel stands today and became a popular meeting place for sea captains, travelling salesmen and sailors – it is even mentioned in one of Carl Michael Bellman's texts. According to Hyatt, Reiss's daughter soon began renting out rooms to travellers. The name Reisen comes from him; he died in 1763.

During the 1760s, two interconnected buildings were erected on the site, Skeppsbron 12 and 14, which in the 1790s were warehouses where goods from the ships in the harbour were stored. In 1819, the city's society of victuallers took over the building and started Hotel Reisen.

02Vaults under the house

The oldest surviving part lies underground. In the 1690s, the groin vaults were built in the cellar, which is part of the old city wall and today houses the hotel's spa facilities. In one of the vaults sits a stone with a footprint, according to Wikipedia left by one of the women who carried bricks and mortar on the building site. Hyatt describes the footprint as approximately 350 years old.

Insider tip

Ask for a room facing Skeppsbron and the water.

03A century of renovations

In 1919 the SARA company took over the hotel and a few years later also bought the building. In 1930 a new hotel building of six storeys was erected to designs by the architect Curt Björklund, and it is that façade, with Gustaf Sandberg's small sculptures, that faces the quay today.

In the 1960s, the hotel needed modernising, and the aim was to create an environment in the spirit of seafaring. The designer Sigvard Bernadotte, the textile artist Astrid Sampe and the interior architect Jonas Tengbom were engaged as artistic directors. The hotel was extended into three old warehouse buildings behind the main building, and the walls still follow the curved lines of the alleys. External window shutters with mirrors were fitted to reflect light into the rooms. After the renovation, the hotel had 126 rooms, all with a maritime character.

In 1993, the hotel became First Hotel Reisen, and since December 2020 it has been part of Hyatt's The Unbound Collection – the first hotel in Scandinavia under that brand.

04Rooms: sauna and harbour view

According to Wikipedia, the hotel today consists of five interconnected buildings across seven floors with 144 rooms. When Hyatt took over, the chain described the rooms as renovated in Scandinavian style, with views of the water and Stockholm's islands from many of them, walk-in showers and – in many rooms – a private sauna. Ask for a room facing Skeppsbron: the view over the harbour is the hotel's great asset.

05Gamla stan around the corner

The quay sits with Gamla stan at its back and the water in front. The Royal Palace, Stortorget and Västerlånggatan are within a few minutes' reach, and from the quay the boats head out into the archipelago. See the quay in VERA PI's street guide to Skeppsbron, explore Gamla stan and follow our plan for a day in Gamla stan. It's all also on Metro Mode's map of Stockholm.

06Skeppsbron then and now

For centuries, Skeppsbron was Stockholm's most important quay, the place where ships from the Baltic Sea and the world unloaded their goods and where the trading houses stood close together. The warehouses where Reisen stands today stored precisely such goods. Today, the quay is a promenade with views across Saltsjön towards Skeppsholmen and Djurgården – and from the hotel's windows you can still watch the boats come and go.

07Who it suits

Reisen is for those who want to wake up with the harbour outside the window and the alleyways of Gamla stan as their backyard – and for those who appreciate staying in a building where history is embedded in the walls, from the 1690s vaults to the 1960s maritime interiors. It is a larger hotel than Gamla stan's small boutique houses, with the resources that provides.

For a weekend. For a lifetime.