A slow travel guide to Malmo

This post is sponsored by VisitSkåne who covered my flights, accommodation and expenses for this trip. All thoughts, opinions and content are my own, unaltered and unedited as always.

Twenty eight hours isn’t much time to explore a new city.

Luckily Malmo isn’t huge and there’s certainly no need to let it exhaust you. You can easily walk everywhere or rent a bike and you’ll be anywhere you need to be in no time. 

Malmo is a quiet sort of city – my favourite kind. There’s no rush. I saw a man park up his bike on the grass and take a nap by the river in the Park on Monday lunchtime. 

My number one tip when it comes to planning city breaks is to always always have places to eat and drink up your sleeve. Scandinavian cities always appear picture perfect online with adorable coffee shops on every street but like with any city that is not the case in real life – I’m showing you a highlight reel remember.

Apart from their old towns, I find scandi cities very industrial and that means you have to know where to look. Doing a little research (like reading this blog post and taking notes) before you go to get your bearings means you won’t be disappointed. 

Where to stay

Oh boy – A concrete slab of a building divided up into hotel rooms and apartments, all of which house luminous green doors with their numbers written on the front in marker pen. It’s not a hotel that would usually draw me in but it’s a lot lovelier than it sounds – and it’s immaculately clean! The skate park opposite the hotel combined with the skate board they leave in the room for you took me straight back to my Avril Lavigne fan girl days. 

The location really couldn’t be better. As well as being a short walk from the central train station, if you walk down past the twisted torso building you’ll find yourself waving across the water to Copenhagen. From there you can sit and stare at ‘the bridge’ until you get sick of humming the soundtrack. There are plenty of cosy looking restaurants along the way too. 

We really enjoyed our stay in this hotel and I’d rebook a return visit in a heartbeat.

Getting around

Getting to Malmo is very easy. We flew into Copenhagen airport, followed the signs to the train station, bought a ticket from the machine (you can translate into English if you need to) and 20 minutes later we’d arrived in the centre of the city. If you’re a fan of ‘the bridge’ you’re going to LOVE the train ride in.  

Once you get there bikes are the best way to get around. The roads are fairly quiet and there are plenty of cycle lanes so you’ll feel very safe. You can hire bikes from a number of spots dotted all around the city. Donkey Republic and Malmo by bike seemed to be popular. If you stay at Oh Boy, bikes are included.

Buses and trains seemed plentiful but I always prefer to walk or bike when I can, purely because I love to take my time and have a good nosey around. 

Where to eat

Breakfast, Coffee & Fika (coffee and cake break) are where Malmo outshines most other cities I’ve been to. It’s the capital of coffee stops and has more cafes per capita than any other city in the world. These are the ones worth visiting, not just for pretty Instagram photos, but also the best food and drink I could find during my short 28 hour stay. The times I’ve hunted down a picture perfect cafe I’d seen on Instagram only to find the food and coffee are..well…meh don’t bare thinking about. Rest assured these are all worth a visit.

Noir – this has a very Parisian cafe feel to it. I loved the breakfast here and it’s the perfect place to grab a table outside and people watch to your heart’s content. It’s fairly central too so a great place to start your day. Like most places in Sweden it’s super vegetarian friendly.

Slottsträdgårdens Kafé – I think this little place was my favourite, but I’m a sucker for a romantic park location where I’m surrounded by green. The vegetarian menu was particularly great here and they had a great selection of teas.

AB Smaland – a lifestyle store / cafe in the centre of a high street. Upstairs is where they keep all the vintage furniture you’ve been scouring the internet for. I’m not one for shopping as such when I’m traveling but I really enjoyed browsing this store. The plant collection is legendary and the cafe is a lovely spot to have a breather and refuel.

Jord – vegan only food and truly vegan heaven. If all vegan food tasted like this I’m sure many more of us would be able to stick to the diet. Even as a vegetarian it’s always a worry when you can’t read the menu, so knowing you can eat everything on it was lovely.

Our plan was to go to Riket for dinner but it was closed. If you’re in Malmo on Sundays be sure to check the opening times of everywhere before you set off. (it was closed but I heard it’s great – in danger of a hanger meltdown we ended up at La Bonne Vie around the corner which served up a lovely veggie risotto).

Other highlights

I loved that the city closed down on Sundays – I think this is the way Sunday should be. I enjoyed being forced into a very relaxed day. 

The parks – I just love green in a city and Malmo has a bunch of it. I can get anxious when there’s too much hustle and bustle so it’s always good to have a sanctuary to escape to. The windmill at the back of Slottstradgarden was just beautiful.

St Knut Torg – this area reminded me of Greenwich Village in New York. It has that village community feel to it and is peppered with mini park squares. There are plenty of cafes and independent shops to be explored around here too.

Old town – if wandering pretty cobbled backstreets and staring at picturesque buildings is your thing you’ll love this part of the city. It’s really close to the park and Noir cafe too so you’ll be spoilt for watering holes.

I feel like I’d only just scratched the surface of Malmo but I really liked what I saw. I’d love to go back to spend more time exploring. If you go before I get chance to go back make sure you leave me any other gems you find while you’re there.