How Do You Say "Sale" In Swedish?

Christmas is coming to an end... now comes the time that Swedes call Mellandagarna, meaning "middle days", which is the time between Christmas and New Years. It is the big shopping week here in Sweden and all types of stores drop their prices to get rid of excess stock brought in for Christmas. Wherever you go in Stockholm you will see signs that say REA! which is Swedish for "sale", or perhaps MELLANDAGSREA!

Where to go for the sales? The best place is the downtown area which has the highest concentration of stores. A great place to start is the NK Department Store which is located at the head of Kungsträdgården park. A beautiful store, here you will find everything from food to bedding to clothes to interior design. Across the street (kitty corner) you have the Gallerian Shopping Center with loads of stores. If you exit NK at the basement level you come to Sergelgången, an underground passageway lined with stores and leading to the Sergels torg square. At the far end of the square you come to a street that bisects the square called Drottninggatan (Queen's Street). This pedestrian street is a shopping mecca... heading north you'll first find Åhlen's Department Store and a couple of blocks later the PUB Department Store which is on the corner of Drottninggatan and Kungsgatan (King's Street). Heading east on Kungsgatan, you come to a high concentration of electronic stores like On/Off, Siba and Elgiganten. At the end of Kungsgatan you come to the posh district of Stureplan. Right on Stureplan square you have the Sturegallerian Shopping Center. This whole area, including the street Biblioteksgatan, is where you will find the high-end designer shops. To the east of Stureplan is Östermalm, a great place to find interior design stores... like Svensk Tenn.
That pretty much gives you a good overview of the downtown area. If you think it's too cold to fight the crowds in town, then you can find some great shopping closer to the Rival Hotel. Within a 10-15 minute walk of the hotel we have the pedestrian street Götgatsbacken, the shopping center Skrapan and the hip neighborhood of SoFo... all of which I have written about earlier.
Happy Shopping! For more shopping tips, click here!
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