Mariatorget

Where it sits. Mariatorget is a rectangular square and public garden in Södermalm, the large island district immediately south of Stockholm's old town. It sits on the high ground of Mariaberget, a few minutes' walk uphill from Slussen, with Hornsgatan running along its northern side and Sankt Paulsgatan along the south. The square is planted rather than paved: gravel paths, plane and lime trees, benches, two fountains and a run of magnolias that flower in late April. It is one of the few genuinely restful open spaces in central Stockholm, used by residents rather than by tour groups, and it functions as the social centre of the surrounding grid.

How it came to exist. Södermalm burned repeatedly in the eighteenth century, and after the Maria fire of 1759 destroyed a large part of the parish, the authorities cleared this block as a firebreak and open space rather than rebuilding on it. For much of its later history it carried the name Adolf Fredriks torg, taking its present name from the neighbouring Maria Magdalena parish in the twentieth century. The church itself, a short walk south, has medieval origins as a chapel, was rebuilt as a parish church from the 1580s, and was reconstructed again after the same 1759 fire. Its churchyard holds the graves of, among others, the poet Evert Taube and the assassinated prime minister Olof Palme.

What stands in the square. At the northern end is the fountain sculpture Tors fiske, Thor's Fishing, by Anders Wissler, unveiled in 1903: the god hauling on a line with the Midgard Serpent coiling below, cast in bronze on a granite basin. On the southern side stands Hotel Rival, a functionalist building of 1937 that combined a cinema, apartments and shops. It was bought and restored by Benny Andersson of ABBA and reopened in 2003, and the 700-seat auditorium still runs as a cinema and live venue, which makes the square one of the few in Stockholm with a working picture house on it.

Millennium country. This is the heart of Stieg Larsson's Stockholm, and unusually for literary tourism the addresses are precise and walkable. Mikael Blomkvist's flat in the novels is at Bellmansgatan 1, a distinctive building on the cliff edge roughly 400 metres north-west of the square. Lisbeth Salander's first apartment is on Lundagatan, to the south-west below Skinnarviksberget. The Millennium magazine offices are placed on Götgatan, running east from Slussen. In David Fincher's 2011 film of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Blomkvist's regular café was shot at Sankt Paulsgatan 17, one block from the square, and the 2009 Swedish trilogy worked across the same district. The Stockholm City Museum has run a Millennium walking tour through these streets for years; Mariatorget is where almost every version of the route passes through.

What is around it. Hornsgatspuckeln, the hump of Hornsgatan just west, is lined with small galleries. Monteliusvägen, a few minutes north, is a narrow cliff-edge path with the best free view in Stockholm: the City Hall, Riddarholmen and Lake Mälaren spread out below, and it is at its best in the hour before sunset. Götgatan and Skånegatan to the east hold much of Södermalm's food and bar life, and the SoFo blocks south of Folkungagatan concentrate independent shops. Fotografiska, the photography museum in a converted customs house, is fifteen minutes east along the waterfront. Södermalm was a workers' district well into the twentieth century and parts of it still show that: the wooden houses of Åsöberget and the cliffside lanes above Slussen survived because the ground was too steep to redevelop profitably.

Practical detail. Mariatorget has its own station on the metro's red line, one stop from Slussen and three from T-Centralen, and the square is flat and step-free, which is not true of much of Södermalm. Cafés with outdoor seating open onto it from spring, and the benches fill on any warm evening. It is residential, so the noise drops sharply after eleven, and the square is at its most photogenic early on a summer morning when the low sun comes down Sankt Paulsgatan.

Timing. May to September is the obvious window, with the magnolia flowering in the last week of April as a specific reason to come earlier. Midsummer, in the third week of June, empties central Stockholm as the city leaves for the archipelago and the countryside, which makes the days around it unexpectedly calm. Winter is dark by mid-afternoon, and the square becomes a shortcut rather than a destination, though the Rival's cinema programme runs regardless of season. Anyone following the Millennium geography should allow half a day on foot: Bellmansgatan, Lundagatan, Götgatan and the Slussen waterfront form a loop of about four kilometres, all of it through streets that are still ordinary residential Stockholm rather than a curated trail.