Kungsträdgården, the King's Garden

You are in Kungsträdgården, 'the King's Garden', which Stockholmers fondly call Kungsan. Along with Humlegården, it is the oldest public park in the city. Today it hosts concerts, an ice rink in winter and cherry blossom in spring, but for centuries it was a closed garden.

1From royal plot to public park

It is said that as early as the 15th century King Erik of Pomerania had a cabbage patch here. Later it became a Baroque garden reserved for the court, with armed guards at the gates. Only in the 18th century was it opened to the public, becoming a place for strolling and revelry that the poet Carl Michael Bellman described in his songs. The Makalös palace, the 'peerless', also stood here until it burned down in 1825.

2Two kings and some elms

The statue in the middle is Charles XIII, from 1821, with four lions by Bengt Erland Fogelberg. The one to the south is Charles XII, unveiled on 30 November 1868, a hundred and fifty years after his death. Many people say, half jokingly, that he is pointing towards Russia, his great enemy. In May 1971, hundreds of people spent the night in the park, some of them up in the elms, to stop the trees being felled for a metro entrance. The 'Battle of the Elms' was won: the trees are still here.

At the far end is the Opera. In the theatre that stood before it on the same site, King Gustav III was shot during a masked ball in March 1792.

3What to look for

• The elms between the two statues, the ones the protest saved.
• The outstretched arm of Charles XII.
• The cherry trees, planted in 1998.