Sweden offers you many opportunities for cultural and outdoor activities. Visit the cities and explore the country's glorious past or the life in a cosmopolitan and modern society. Sweden enjoys a mostly temperate climate despite its northern latitude, mainly due to the Gulf Stream . In the south of Sweden leaf-bearing trees are prolific, in the north pines and hardy birches dominate the landscape.

The three greatest cities Stockholm , Gothenburg and Malmo display three different characters. The capital Stockholm is beautiful, hi-tech oriented and full of history. This presentday capital is surrounded by its predeccesors Uppsala , Birka , Nyköping and Sigtuna . Famous is the trip by steaming-boat across the Göta Kanal (the Blue Ribbon of Sweden) that connects Gothenburg with Stockholm . The west coast and its fishing villages is the place for gourmets, especially seafood lovers, while those digging for history will be fascinated with Uppsala, the ancient Viking city where the newest buildings date from the 18th century. A really novel excursion is a visit up north to the Ice Hotel, sculpted from ice every winter in Lapland where the Sami people enjoy showing visitors their way of life, based on their reindeer herds. Meanwhile, way down south Smaland has been christened 'the Crystal Kingdom ' in honour of the famous glassworks that exist there in places like Orrefors and Kosta.

Sweden 's great and vastly unspoiled nature is very diverse and offers you new and unexpected beautiful views every time you visit it again. The south has warm and sandy beaches, an open rural landscape with beautiful manors and patches of woods. In the central part, the coast is dominated by thousands of small islands, the skerries, consisting of more or less bare rocks carved and polished by the latest glaciation. The landscape becomes more and more dominated by the woods, spotted with many lakes and smaller agricultural areas. The further to the north you move, the more the woods take over. Skerries give you the impression of travelling through a chain of lakes all the way to the Finnish border, as you move along the coast. The rivers become greater, the forests darker, the people fewer in the north. Close to the Norwegian border, the mountains get higher and rougher. Lappland in the northwest, north of the polar circle, lets you experience the emptiness of polar tundra in alpine environment.

Sweden became rich and powerful thanks to its great natural resources, the iron ore mines in the far north and in the central part, the forestry-based industry and cheap electricity from water power. Today, the country is in the frontline of IT development and infrastructure.