Djurgården
— — the king's old hunting wood, kept whole.
Not only on a wall.
“An island in central Stockholm that has belonged to the crown since the sixteenth century and has never been built over. The southern half holds Skansen, the Vasa Museum, the ABBA Museum, and the Gröna Lund amusement pier; the northern half is oak forest and meadow, with paths that locals walk year-round. The island sits inside the Royal National City Park, the first urban national park in the world. A short ferry from Slussen lands at the western tip. — from the studio
Djurgården, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Djurgården is an island of roughly 2.7 square kilometres in central Stockholm, lying east of the Old Town and forming part of the borough of Östermalm. The crown has held the land since King Karl XI declared it a royal hunting ground in 1680, which kept it from being developed as the city grew around it. Since 1995 the island has anchored the Royal National City Park, the world's first national park inside a capital city, covering 27 square kilometres along the inlet. The island is reached by bridge from Strandvägen and by ferry from Slussen and Nybroplan.
Most major sights cluster on the western and southern shores, within fifteen minutes' walk of the Djurgården bridge. Skansen opened in 1891 as the first open-air museum in the world and holds about 150 historic buildings moved from across Sweden. The Vasa Museum next door shelters the only nearly intact seventeenth-century warship in existence, raised from Stockholm harbour in 1961. Tram line 7 from Sergels torg runs along Strandvägen and onto the island, and most museums share a long opening window, with shorter hours from October through March.
Djurgården reads as a different island each season. In May the oak forest above Rosendal flushes with wild garlic and Stockholmers walk the paths in shirtsleeves. June and July bring long Nordic light and the Gröna Lund concerts, with the sun setting after 22:00 around midsummer. The Skansen Christmas market opens in late November and runs through Advent, with traditional julbord set out in the eighteenth-century farmsteads. February brings cross-country ski tracks along the northern half when there is snow on the ground.