We have done quite a lot of walking on this holiday, but today managed to combine a gentle morning stroll to the End of the World with an afternoon involving a palace, fika, some impromptu foraging, rocky forest paths, an observation tower and several extremely wobbly suspension bridges. Sweden continues to deliver.
We began in Trosa itself. One of the pleasures of staying here is that you can simply set off from the hotel and follow the Trosaån as it meanders through the town towards the sea. Wooden houses and gardens line the river, boats are moored almost outside people’s front doors, and little bridges connect one side with the other. It is all almost suspiciously picturesque.
Our destination was Världens ände – the End of the World. This is not merely something invented for tourists: Trosa really does use the name. The explanation is wonderfully practical. Historically, there was essentially one road into Trosa and, when you reached the harbour, there was nowhere else to go. At the end of the pier is the stone circle known as Smörbyttan and, once you have reached it, you simply have to turn around and come back. The end of the world, quite literally.
We did exactly that, returning along the river and calling into Trosa Stadskyrka. Mark has a great gift for striking up conversations with people wherever we go, and the church was no exception. Within minutes he was chatting to some people who were inspecting the wooden bell tower and checking it for woodworm. It was one of those tiny encounters that makes a place feel lived-in rather than simply visited, and Mark came away considerably better informed about the maintenance of Swedish bell towers than either of us had expected to be when we left the hotel that morning.
The church itself was worth rather more than a quick look. Trosa Stadskyrka is a handsome medieval church, but what caught our attention was the model ship hanging near the pulpit. It is one of those details that can easily be missed if you are concentrating only on the architecture, yet it immediately changes the atmosphere of the interior. The ship is a votive offering, part of the long Scandinavian tradition of hanging model vessels in churches as gifts of thanks or prayers for protection. For communities whose lives were closely tied to the sea, a ship suspended above the congregation was both a religious symbol and a very practical reminder of the dangers faced by fishermen, sailors and travellers.
There is something particularly affecting about seeing one in a church in Trosa. The town’s history, harbour and identity are all bound up with the water, and the model ship seems to connect the quiet interior directly with the Baltic outside. It is not grand or theatrical. It simply hangs there near the pulpit, a small wooden vessel carrying a great deal of local history. I always like these church ships because they make faith feel tangible: not abstract theology, but gratitude, anxiety and hope given a physical form.
We had originally hoped to take a boat trip while we were in this part of Sweden. Trosa sits on the edge of such a beautiful stretch of archipelago that it seemed the obvious thing to do, but by late August the season is already beginning to wind down and the boat trips we had looked at were no longer running. Hence our decision to head instead for Stendörren Nature Reserve — which, as it turned out, gave us a rather more energetic way of getting out among the islands.
Before lunch could become an issue, we retrieved the car and set off, taking the coast road south towards Nyköping. In truth, we have rather fallen into the habit on this trip of forgoing lunch altogether in favour of a decent fika later in the day, which seems to me an entirely defensible Swedish adaptation.
The drive itself was lovely, through forest and farmland, with glimpses of water and the occasional grand estate appearing between the trees.
One of those was Nynäs Slott, where naturally we stopped. It is less a fairy-tale castle than a substantial Swedish country house, sitting at the heart of an estate with some 700 years of recorded history. Unfortunately, our timing was impeccable: the house had already closed for the season, so we contented ourselves with admiring the exterior and grounds before continuing towards the coast.
Stendörren itself is rather special. Established as a nature reserve in 1972, it protects a mixture of old farming landscape, forest, rocky coastline and archipelago. Crucially for those of us who have not brought a boat, a series of suspension bridges allows walkers to make their way from the mainland onto some of the islands.
Before attempting any of that, however, there was the important matter of fika.
Beside the Naturum visitor centre is a tiny café kiosk. Sadly, the cinnamon buns had gone. This was a serious blow after more than a week in Sweden, during which we have become accustomed to the idea that a cinnamon or cardamom bun is less a treat than a basic human right. We coped. Our consolation prize was a gloriously Swedish collection: a coconut-covered chokladboll; a startlingly green, chocolate-ended dammsugare, or “vacuum cleaner”, made from marzipan wrapped around a cocoa-and-cake filling; and a substantial slice of golden berry-topped cake. The cakes were the recommendation of the young woman behind the café counter, and she had chosen well. She felt they were good Swedish substitutes for cinnamon buns. Sitting at a wooden picnic table overlooking the water, with Stendörren’s red timber buildings behind us, it was difficult to feel too deprived.
Suitably fortified, we headed first for the observation tower. It rises above the trees and gives a wonderful panorama across the Sörmland archipelago, all rocky islands, water and forest stretching towards the horizon. What particularly amused me was discovering that the platform was designed to accommodate an entire school class. Once a teacher, always a teacher: other people apparently climb an observation tower and think about the view; I found myself considering its suitability for a class visit. I suspect there are some instincts you simply never lose.
From there we picked up the yellow trail, the four-kilometre Upplevelserundan, or Experience Trail. Calling it a “path” doesn’t quite convey what walking here involves. It winds through pine forest, scrambles over exposed rock, negotiates tree roots and stones, rises and falls repeatedly and occasionally emerges onto smooth slabs of granite, with the Baltic appearing suddenly between the trees.
It was interesting to compare it with yesterday’s walk in the national park near Stockholm. Yesterday’s route had been a longer, more sustained woodland walk: a proper excursion through the forest, with the landscape gradually unfolding as we moved through it. Stendörren was shorter but much more concentrated. Instead of simply walking through woodland, we were repeatedly being asked to climb, scramble, balance and then stop to look out across the water. Yesterday had felt like a walk in the forest; today felt like a walk through the meeting point of forest, rock and archipelago.
Again, there is remarkably little attempt to tame the landscape. Compared with Britain, where anything remotely awkward might acquire steps, a handrail, a warning notice and possibly a risk assessment, Swedish paths seem to operate on the principle that you have chosen to walk through a forest and therefore may reasonably expect to encounter a forest.
Occasionally, where the rock becomes particularly steep or potentially slippery, somebody has attached a rope.
That’s about it.
No elaborate staircase. No barrier. Just a rope which seems to say: This bit is a little awkward. You’ll work it out.
I rather like it.
I also undertook a little foraging of my own. Having encountered lingonberries repeatedly on Swedish dinner plates over the past week, I was rather pleased to spot them growing wild beside the trail and try them at source. There is something particularly satisfying about recognising something you’ve been eating throughout a country and then suddenly finding it growing under your feet.
For part of the route we found ourselves sharing the trail with two women and their three dogs: two Rottweilers and one considerably smaller terrier. The terrier seemed blissfully unaware of the disparity in size and proceeded with all the confidence of a dog who regarded the two Rottweilers as merely unusually large members of its own entourage. We periodically overtook one another as the trail twisted through the forest, so they became temporary travelling companions.
The yellow route also gives you the opportunity to veer away from the circuit and head towards the water and Stendörren’s famous suspension bridges. They allow you to walk surprisingly far out into the archipelago without ever getting into a boat.
They are also extremely wobbly.
Crossing one on your own is entertaining enough. Crossing one when somebody else steps onto it is an entirely different experience, because their rhythm and yours immediately combine to produce movements that neither of you appears to have requested. Looking down through the bridge to the water below while the whole structure bounces gently from side to side concentrates the mind wonderfully.
There were, naturally, rules. You could have only two people on a bridge at any one time, and they were required to remain 150 centimetres apart. There were officious signs to make this clear. It was all most unswedish: usually, Sweden manages to make even its rules feel calm, sensible and quietly cooperative. Here, the signs seemed determined to supervise our wobbling.
Beyond them, though, the reward is magnificent: rocky islands, twisted pines, little sheltered inlets and the open Baltic beyond. It is the Sweden of postcards, but without feeling remotely manufactured for visitors. Stendörren gives you the rather magical sensation of having walked out into the archipelago under your own steam.
In the end, perhaps it was a rather good substitute for the boat trip we hadn’t been able to take. We may not have sailed among the islands, but by the time we had crossed the bridges and scrambled over the rocks, we felt as though we had got much closer to the archipelago than we might have done from the deck of a boat.
Eventually, we retraced our steps, found our way back through the forest and returned to Trosa, pleasantly aware that our legs had done rather more work than anticipated.
The day wasn’t quite finished.
A few days ago, our friend Anders Frick spotted a rather lovely coincidence. He knew that we were going to be in Trosa and also knew Sven Otto, who lives here. Anders knows us through rather different routes but realised that Sven Otto and I share a slightly improbable number of interests around young people, employment, skills and international affairs. So he introduced us electronically with the suggestion that, since we happened to be in the same small Swedish town at the same time, we ought to meet.
And so this evening we did, over drinks.
I love encounters like that. Two people who have never met, connected by somebody who knows them both and thinks, you two should probably talk. Sven Otto’s career has included serving as Sweden’s Minister for Employment from 2006 to 2010, international work around labour markets and human capital, and, rather unexpectedly, a spell as a Street Pastor in London. There was, unsurprisingly, plenty to talk about.
Then came dinner.
Trosa in late August turns out to have one small drawback. By evening, virtually everywhere appeared to be closed.
After a day of the End of the World, bell-tower woodworm, a Swedish palace, vacuum-cleaner cakes, Baltic islands, wild lingonberries, Rottweilers, suspension bridges and a former Swedish cabinet minister, haute cuisine finally gave way to practicality.
We had pizza.
And actually, after walking to the end of the world and back, climbing an observation tower, scrambling over Swedish rocks and wobbling our way across suspension bridges, pizza seemed absolutely fine.
