The Hallwyl Museum

This guide to the Hallwyl Museum in Stockholm centers on Countess Wilhelmina von Hallwyl, who built this winter palace with her husband between 1893 and 1898 and ran her household by a strict rule: only three grand dinners a year, packed into a single week each February. You'll hear how the kitchen below stairs planned a nine or ten course menu with the cook, argued wine with the butler, and repeated the same lavish dinner year after year for the same guests. Look for the copper pans and cast-iron stove still standing exactly where the staff left them.