Östermalms Saluhall Tour

Exterior of the Östermalms Saluhall market.

Today we started off with a tour of Östermalms Saluhall indoor food hall. While our tour guide was a little late, we were still able to see the market before it got too busy. We had the chance to go up to the balconies at the top of the market to see the layout of the whole market and the decorations along the ceiling and walls. I really loved this market because there was so much history behind it, but sadly they are now grappling with how they can continue to keep the market open during tourist off-seasons. The market used to be primarily made up of over 100 individual stalls where vendors could sell their fresh fish and produce to people and they could leave when they used up their stock. The inside of the market has preserved a lot of the original architecture for the stalls, but the decorations along the walls have been redone and restored. Our guide was talking about how the vendors have started to have restaurants and carry-out boxes to try to get more customers and appeal to more young people. I thought this was a really interesting contrast to the Glass Market in Copenhagen because the Glass Market was structured to have more food and drink vendors available than open market stalls like the Saluhall originally had. It was also interesting to see how they are redeveloping the stalls in the market and how they have redone the decorations in the hall; I feel like Copenhagen felt a lot more historic and since we've been in Stockholm we've seen how they have tried to keep their historic heritage while accepting that modernization of the city could be the best path forward for the needs of their shops and citizens.