One of our highlights from Stockholm, Sweden was the Kiki’s Delivery Service Walking Tour with Aya from Kiki’s Tour.
Kiki’s Delivery Service is a beautiful film about a young witch, Kiki, who must leave her hometown for a year when she turns 13 to develop her special witch skills. She flys on her broom to the port city of Koriko with her cat Jiji where she starts a flying courier service.
I first came across the work of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli back in film school with Spirited Away but it wasn’t until the last year when both our friends and my niece and nephew introduced the girls to My Neighbour Totoro that the girls fell in love with the films from Studio Ghibli. We love Totoro, Ponyo, Arietty and Kiki’s Delivery Service. ( Ironically not Spirited Away as it seems to scary for now )
I love the films because they are so gentle, artistic and beautiful. Not overstimulating like many of the movies that are made for kids these days. The girls also love the How To Train Your Dragon movies but they can be so loud and dramatic and violent.
If your looking for a calm movie for your kids to watch in the evening while you’re cooking dinner - Studio Ghibli movies are perfect (they’re all on Netflix ).
When I first saw Kiki’s Delivery Service I thought that the city of Koriko that Kiki travels to looked very European but I didn’t recognise any one specific city.
However, when I was researching things to do in Stockholm, I came across a Kiki’s Delivery Service inspired walking tour. Turns out that the city Kiki travels to in the movie is based on both Stockholm and the town of Visby, on the Island of Gotland.
The tour is run by Aya a fascinating lady who was born in Japan but has lived all over the world. She came prepared with coloured print outs of images from the movie, her big witches broom, a toy version of Jiji the cat and red ribbons for the girls.
We haven’t done many walking tours of cities because that would be a lot to expect from kids but this one was really special because we could see locations that appear in the film or have inspired the scenery in the film. Many locations are actually a mix of a few places around Stockholm. For example; a fountain in the film is actually inspired by three different fountains and statues around the old town area.
My inner film nerd found it so fascinating and the girls were very engaged. We had watched Kiki’s Delivery Service the night before we arrived in Stockholm but they wanted to watch it again as soon as we got home. It was a great introduction to Stockholm and we got very lucky with the beautiful clear skies. We’re very grateful to Aya for coming out in the cold to meet us and show us around.