When you walk through the doors of Hôtel Reisen — you don't travel back in time. You merely stroll into the memoirs of an eclectic, flamboyant past.

The hotel is set directly on Stockholm's scenic waterfront and uses the historic Old Town (Gamla Stan) as its picturesque and telling backdrop. The building's foundation dates back to 1617 — a time when Gustavus Adolphus the Great was the King of Sweden and the world had just invented telescopes and steam turbines.

For centuries, the building has served numerous functions. The name originates from the Dutchman Fredrik Reiss who ran a semi-legal coffeehouse in the 1750s. But — it's also been used as storehouse, drinking den, and an epicentre for some of the most prominent poets in European history. In here, Carl Michael Bellman was reciting «Drink out thy glass!» whilst chirping up naughty beauties. Fritiof Nilsson Piraten was using room 705 and six half-bottles of Château Margaux to find an exit to his writer's block. The Russian-American Nobel Prize winner, Joseph Brodsky, locked himself in a corner room drafting poems to make cracks in the Soviet Empire.

And, the list goes on as their nights were long.

In Scandinavian terms, the word Reisen means «the Journey» — which we believe is the perfect, welcoming metaphor for the Hôtel Reisen guest experience:

We're not asking you to mimic history, but to use our cheeky past to create some stories on your own.