Every city has one hotel that solves it, and in Gothenburg it is this one. The Radisson Blu Scandinavia sits on Sodra Hamngatan directly opposite the central station, which means the airport bus, every regional train and the tram network all deliver you to within a hundred metres of the front desk. Nordstan, one of Scandinavia’s largest shopping centres, is next door; the Opera House, the Tradgardsforeningen gardens and Avenyn are all inside a ten-minute walk.
The hotel itself is a well-kept piece of 1980s Sweden built around a vast plant-filled atrium, where the bar and restaurant do steady, better-than-they-need-to-be Scandinavian cooking and one of the more generous breakfast spreads in the city. The 355 rooms are standard-issue Nordic calm, all pale wood, decent beds and proper blackout curtains, with suites adding space rather than drama. Light sleepers should ask for a room facing the atrium rather than the street.
What lifts it above the station-hotel norm is the wellness floor: a genuine indoor pool, sauna and steam room that feel like a small spa rather than a corporate obligation, and a serious asset after a day of sideways Gothenburg rain. It is not a design statement and does not pretend to be one. It is a competent, comfortable machine for staying in Gothenburg, and we mean that as a compliment.
