Weekend at Berns - Happy Birthday to one of our Favourite Venues!

One of our favourite venues that we've reviewed in all of the Trippa apps is Berns. The enormous hall plays host to a huge array of events, with wonderful bars and a beautiful terrace providing the perfect location for a quiet drink before the party gets going. The attached hotel is pretty darn snazzy too - probably our favourite in the city.

And we've just found out that Berns is 150 years old today!

Describing itself as "Stockholmers own living room", Berns really does welcome in the whole city to relax. It's a huge, lavish building overlooking the beautiful little Berzelli Park, right on the water's edge, it is a Swedish institution and one of the most respected venues in the city.

Berns has a fantastic history. It opened its doors in 1863. The newly built hall sat alongside the park which had begun construction nine years earlier, turning a "foul smelling ditch" in a run down area of the city into a beautiful public space. Commissioned by Sweden's most skilled pastry chef, Heinrich Robert Berns, who had become very famous and wealthy through his craft, Berns was the most grand hall Stockholm had ever seen.

A concert hall that hosted orchestras regularly, to play to the customers there for balls, parties or just to sit in the cafe with an ice cream, coffee or the latest trendy liqueur, it was one of the city's cultural hubs.

In 1940, already a Stockholm institution for nearly a century, three Chinese chefs were employed to open Sweden's first Chinese restaurant at Berns. Since then it has hosted chorus girls, Arethra Franklin and the Supremes and, in more modern times, a digital art gallery.

Always at the forefront of new cultural projects in the city, Berns is a thriving epicentre of activity. It received a facelift in 1989, adding a fantastic steel and glass terrace on the front face overlooking the park. Even after 150 years, Berns is the main place to go in Stockholm for food, drinks, entertainment, fun and meeting people.

Berns and Berns Hotel will be featured in our upcoming Trippa Stockholm app, which will be available on iTunes along with our other travel guide destinations. Keep an eye out for the Stockholm edition! In the meantime, why not let Trippa take you somewhere stylish? Download our Marseille city guide and let Trippa show you the best places in one of Europe's other most stylish destinations!