Five things worth doing in Stockholm before the month is out.
The Culture Festival runs Wednesday to Sunday across central Stockholm, and admission is free to all of it. Stages in the squares, programme from lunchtime until late.
The best way to do it is to not plan. Pick a direction, walk, stop at whatever you can hear. If you want one fixed point, the Royal Opera performs outdoors on the square in front of the opera house on the Thursday, also free, which is the only week of the year that happens.
Stockholm Under Stjärnorna puts a screen on its rooftop terrace for the whole of August and charges nothing to sit in front of it. La La Land on the Sunday, at nine, which in mid-August is roughly when it finally gets dark enough to bother.
Bring a jumper. Fifty metres up, the temperature is not the one on your phone.
Eken takes over Slakthusområdet for two days at the end of the month: curated second hand, vintage, crafts and records, with food stalls and DJs running through both days. Sixty kronor in, free for under twelves.
They are expecting ten thousand people. Go Saturday morning if you actually want to buy something, rather than queue behind someone who is still thinking about it.
One of the better Swedish bands of the last few years, playing the Live Sessions slot at Trädgården in the last stretch of the season.
Trädgården in late August is a different place from Trädgården in June. Shorter queues, colder nights, and everyone there slightly aware that this is nearly it. Worth losing a Thursday morning over.
Hop & Vine runs an open board game night every Wednesday. Free, doors from two, games from four.
Their own listing says come solo and make new friends, which is what every venue says and few mean. This one means it, because the format does the work rather than the hosts: nobody plays a four player game alone, so the room sorts itself out within about twenty minutes.
It runs every week, so there is no wrong Wednesday to try it.