Stockholm's Millennium Tour is worth investigating

 

Ben Walsh
Friday 23 March 2012 01:00 GMT
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Rooney Mara in 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'
Rooney Mara in 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo'

The Millennium Tour on the central island of Sodermalm in Stockholm takes in the various haunts of cyber-goth Lisbeth Salander and her ally, the investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist. Presumably, the tour doesn't include the riper, kinkier and more distressing elements of Larsson's hugely successful (over 60 million readers) crime trilogy? "No, not really," says Sara Claesson, somewhat anticlimactically. Instead, the head of communications for the tour emphasises the appeal of Salander. "She is so 'Pippi Longstocking', a very famous character from a Swedish children's book by Astrid Lindgren," maintains Claesson. "She's obstinate, small, smart and strong."

The walk starts at Bellmansgatan 1, where Blomkvist lives, then passes the Millennium editorial office, Salander's luxury apartment and many other locations mentioned in the books and film. The tour attracted 20,000 visitors from around the world last year and the fresh addition of facts about the shooting of the US version of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, which starred Daniel Craig and Rooney Mara as Salander, should add more. "I think that Craig looked better as Mikael Blomkvist than the Swedish actor Mikael Nyqvist," confesses Claesson. "In addition, I think that the acting is much better in the American film than in the Swedish ones."

Tours such as this appear to be all the rage at the moment and the Millennium Tour follows in the footsteps of the Inspector Morse tour in Oxford, the Midsomer Murders tour, which takes in the murderous villages of Causton and Badger's Drift, and the Harry Potter walking tour of London, where you can learn about the capital's "rich muggle and wizarding history". And there are plenty more: Gavin and Stacey, Downton Abbey, Doctor Who... Where will it all end? The Office walking tour? Heartbeat? Silence of the Lambs?

Visit www.stadsmuseum.stockholm.se for more details on the Millennium Tour; 'The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo' is available on DVD and Blu-ray on 23 April

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