A thousand years ago, you could have bought a silk scarf, a bag of silver coins and a slave on a small island in Lake Malaren, and a visitor from Byzantium would have felt at home. Birka, on the island of Bjorko, west of Stockholm, was the first real town in Sweden, founded around 750 and abandoned about two centuries later, and it was a market where Vikings met traders from the Frankish lands, the Baltic and as far away as the Arab world. Archaeologists have found coins from the Caliphate, beads from the east and glass from the Rhineland. Several thousand graves lie on the hillsides around the site, most of them simple mounds in the grass, and more of them have been opened than you might think.
The best-known one is the grave of a warrior buried with swords, arrowheads, a shield and two horses, which was long assumed to belong to a man. In 2017, DNA analysis showed that the skeleton was a woman, and the finding stirred a lively debate among scholars about the roles of women in Viking society that continues. Birka's most famous Christian visitor was the monk Ansgar, who came to preach in about 829, a mission that had little lasting success. The town's decline may have been linked to the silting of the harbour, as the land rose after the Ice Age, and Sigtuna took over as the main centre. Birka and the nearby royal estate of Hovgarden were listed as World Heritage in 1993.
You cannot ride to the island, which is only reached by boat, and in the summer season there are excursions from Stockholm that take a couple of hours each way. That makes the stop part of a day trip rather than a road, and the mainland side is a pleasure in its own right. From Stockholm, the roads west run through Ekero and the islands of Lake Malaren, with fields, oak woods and red wooden farmhouses, low traffic outside rush hours and a speed limit enforced by cameras. Swedish drivers are courteous, and the roads are well maintained.
Ekero, sixteen kilometres from the site by the map, has fuel stations, supermarkets and cafes, and Stockholm has all you could want. The island itself has a small museum, a cafe and a few waymarked paths, and a visit takes a few hours. Midsummer, in late June, brings nights that are barely dark, and early autumn brings clear air and colour. Take a warm layer, since the breeze off the lake can be cool even in July, and bring your own water.