Cliff edge streets of ochre apartment blocks and wooden cottages, and the addresses The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo used for Salander and Blomkvist's own buildings.
What Södermalm looks like
Streets climb the north side of the island in long runs of stone steps, ending at railings above a drop to the water. drops downhill in worn cobblestone between ochre and cream rendered buildings, with a church dome and rooftops visible over the water at the bottom of the run.
Four to six storey rendered blocks in ochre, red and yellow line and on , their fronts pressed close to narrow cobbled roadways. At the corner of a six storey block rises into a domed corner turret above shopfronts still set behind their original stone surrounds.
A scatter of low wooden houses survives among the taller blocks, painted dark red with steep tiled roofs and small windows. One stands alone in a gravel yard behind a black iron lamppost. Another is squeezed into a narrow gap beside a plastered block, reached by an outside staircase.
sits on the eastern heights, a paved square that looks out over the harbor and the old town. Where the ground drops toward on the western shore, a gravel path runs along the water's edge with trees screening the newer buildings across the inlet.
Shot in Södermalm
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo used addresses on Mariaberget and around Brännkyrkagatan for Lisbeth Salander and Mikael Blomkvist's own streets. The Beck films return often to a balcony on , on the island's western shore, for the running scenes between Martin Beck and his neighbor Valdemar.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, 2011
Mikael Blomkvist's apartment
The film used Bellmansgatan 1 for Mikael Blomkvist's apartment entrance, the same address Stieg Larsson gave the character in the novel. The gothic revival building rises in red render at the top of Mariaberget, with a footbridge crossing to the ridge above Pryssgränd close behind it. Street View
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, 2011
Lisbeth Salander's apartment
The film used Brännkyrkagatan 66 for the exterior of Lisbeth Salander's apartment building, and the street below it for the shot of her leaving on her motorcycle. The block runs in the same rendered facades and ochre and yellow paint as the rest of Mariaberget's hillside streets. Street View
What Södermalm can double for
Fjellsiden in Bergen, Norway
Fjellsiden climbs the hillside above Bergen's harbor in the same mix of painted wood houses and rendered blocks as Södermalm's cliff streets. Steep lanes and stone stairways connect the levels exactly the way Södermalm's do between Mariaberget and the water. Bergen's wooden houses run in brighter colors and closer rows, so a single building or narrow lane holds the match better than a wide street view. Try searching wooden houses on a hillside now.
Telegraph Hill's steep pedestrian stairways and cliff top views over the bay match the scale of Södermalm's own drops to the water. Filbert and Greenwich Streets keep small wood framed houses from the same period range packed close against taller apartment buildings. San Francisco's palm trees, painted Victorian trim and wider streets need dressing out to hold a Stockholm period frame. Try searching steep stairway street view now.
Alfama's cobbled lanes climb a similar ridge above the water, with the same mix of small houses and taller rendered blocks pressed close together. The tram lines and pastel tile facades are the giveaway in any wide shot. Keep the frame tight on stonework and ironwork balconies rather than full building fronts to avoid the tile. Try searching cobbled lanes on a ridge now.
