Marten Trotzigs Grand

You are about to walk through Stockholm's narrowest street, and honestly, if you are claustrophobic, maybe just have a look from the entrance. At its tightest point, this alley is ninety centimetres wide. That is about the width of a standard doorway, except the walls are three storeys of medieval stone pressing in on both sides and the ceiling is open sky. Thirty-six stone steps lead from Vasterlangatan up to Prastgatan, and somewhere in the middle you will find yourself turning sideways to let someone pass the other way. It is named after a German merchant called Marten Trotzig, who was born in Wittenberg in fifteen fifty-nine and immigrated to Stockholm in fifteen eighty-one. He bought properties in this alley in fifteen ninety-seven and fifteen ninety-nine and set up shop here. Trotzig made his fortune trading in iron and copper, which was a very good business in a country that had enormous amounts of both. He died in sixteen seventeen and his name stuck to the alley, though it was not made official until the nineteen forties, three hundred and twenty-odd years after his death. For centuries this passage was just an unnamed gap between buildings that people squeezed through. What makes it fascinating beyond the tight squeeze is how it reveals the medieval street plan of Gamla Stan. These alleys were not designed for carriages or commerce. They were shortcuts between the main streets, rat runs for people who knew the neighbourhood. In the thirteen hundreds, Gamla Stan was considered a slum, and these narrow passages were everywhere. Most were filled in or demolished. This one survived, and now tourists queue up to photograph it.