Percys Trappa

When going through Stockholm’s Old Town, Gamla Stan, it is almost mandatory to have dinner or at least a drink at Aifur, the Viking-themed bar and restaurant. It’s located in a gated-off alleyway that leads down a pair of stairs to the basement entrance. But this passage was not always used as an entranceway to a restaurant. It is actually a 400-year-old street that was only recently walled off from general use.

The alleyway can be seen on maps dating as far back as 1650, but it did not get a name until 1940 when an attorney named Percy Ahnhem bought some of the surrounding buildings for himself to live in. He restored them and also the narrow alleyway between the buildings, jokingly naming it after himself with a homemade sign. 

The alley remained open until the 1980s when a building was erected on the other side of the street, using up the space and turning the alley into a dead end. The front end of the pathway was then gated off and turned into an entranceway to the building’s party halls, which are now occupied by Aifur. The street sign is still up, however, and the name stuck: The alley is still called “Percys Trappa” (roughly translating to “Percys Stairs”) on official city maps.