Victory Hotel, Stockholm, Sweden

Stockholm is a very pukka Saab sort of place, with many of its citizens looking like well-groomed Abba stand-ins. Driving prim, emission-controlled vehicles their lives seem to have been similarly crash-tested to perfection. It's thus a pleasure to amble across a few bridges from the commercial centre of Stockholm and find yourself in the 18th century warren of Gamla Stan or Old Town. Here, history evades — at least for a while — the homogenizing, CCTV-monitored imperatives of 21st century life. Narrow lanes (some no wider than a metre), bumpy cobbles and cafes hidden in arched cellars lure one from modernity towards the chimera of "authenticity".

The Victory Hotel, tucked away on a quiet street near the harbourfront of Old Town, was established in 1987 by Swedish entrepreneur Gunnar Bengtsson who created at considerable expense a hotel that doffs its hat (an old sou'wester?) affectionately towards Stockholm's long maritime history.

The building, occupied by the 48-room Victory Hotel, is over 350 years old and in its basement are the remnants of a medieval "Lion Tower" dating to 1382. Protected by the Swedish equivalent of a World Heritage order, the Victory Hotel has fitted itself cleverly into the architecture of a less expansive era. As a result, the rooms are smaller than those of a modern, purpose-built five star hotel. But name the last luxury hotel you stayed in that had spiral iron staircases, whitewashed walls, vaulted cellars and display cases full of antique scrimshaw, brass binnacles and needlepoint portraits of old clippers?

The door to each guest room could be to a ship's cabin. Inside are more antiques — hand-painted cupboards and models of square-riggers. My room is themed to recall one Swedish merchant mariner, Kapten Carl Rickard Bergstrom (1853-1938), who looks kindly down from a framed oval portrait while I toy with the sort of odd cons he never knew — a very handy trouser press, central heating and the ubiquitous, Orwellian eye of cable TV.

It is no coincidence that the Victory's lobby displays the original of an 1801 letter from Admiral Lord Horatio Nelson to his mistress, Lady Hamilton. Not only is the hotel named after Nelson's flagship, HMS Victory, but in nearby streets are two other hotels — also owned by the Bengtsson family — the Lord Nelson and the Lady Hamilton. Might all these salty old allusions be a little too nostalgic — too much "life of brine"? Not at all.

The Victory is a modern business and conference hotel, not a theme park. There's the very good Leijontornet (Lion Tower) restaurant (specialties: fish, fowl and game), a bar, sauna, business centre, wine cellar, elevators and fully-equipped conference rooms. Plus a library so profoundly upholstered in leather-bound books and armchairs that you could sink into both and disappear without a trace.

Gamla Stan is, for the visitor, probably the most interesting part of Stockholm. The filigreed church spires that look down on its gabled houses, alleys and canals remind you that this settlement, founded around 1252 and once known as "the Venice of the North", was already old before Nelson was even born. Tucked into the foundation of one Old Town building you can see an old Viking rune stone. Nearby, facing the harbour, is the grandiose Royal Palace, completed in 1760, from which cobblestone streets wind up to the old Stortorg, the Great Market. There are bars, music clubs and restaurants on almost every corner.