Today Sweden changed.
Not dramatically at first, but as we drove north from Karlskrona the open agricultural landscape of the south gradually gave way to something that felt much more like the Sweden we had imagined before coming here. More trees, more lakes, more red wooden houses and, eventually, great stretches of forest disappearing off on either side of the road.
We stopped at Kalmar, because it seemed rather difficult to drive past a castle like that without having a look. Kalmar Castle sits magnificently beside the water and has been doing so, in one form or another, for around 800 years. Its position mattered enormously when the Danish border lay only a short distance to the south, and in 1397 it gave its name to the Kalmar Union, which brought Denmark, Norway and Sweden together under a single monarch. The medieval fortress was later transformed by the Vasa kings into the Renaissance castle we see today.
We had also rather fancied a coffee in the castle park, but Sweden had other ideas. The café didn’t open until 11, by which time we intended to be well on our way. So we drove out of Kalmar and stopped at a service station instead. I can report that, for all the things Sweden does exceptionally well, its service-station coffee is capable of being every bit as bad as service-station coffee in any other country I have travelled through.
Then we turned inland, and the character of the day changed completely.
We were heading into the forests of Småland to meet our friend Göran Hägerdal and to see the place where he grew up. His uncle still owns a house there, and it was at the family farmhouse that we met Göran for lunch. Suddenly we weren’t tourists looking at Sweden from the outside. We were being shown somebody’s Sweden.
Lunch was kroppkakor, a traditional speciality of Småland and neighbouring Öland. They are wonderfully substantial potato dumplings filled with pork and onion and traditionally served with cream and lingonberries. Ours had been cooked in the same kitchen where Göran’s grandmother had once cooked. We ate them in the farmhouse’s light and airy dining room, looking out onto the place where generations of the family had lived. Food, place and family history all came together around one table.
After lunch Göran took us around the village and the surrounding countryside of his childhood. We visited the beautiful church and its graveyard, where Mark and I were struck by just how orderly everything was. Swedish graves appear to know exactly where they are supposed to be. Compared with the rather more free-range approach of many British churchyards, the rows were almost unnervingly precise.
The church prompted memories from Göran too: confirmation classes, childhood Sundays and sermons which, by his account, went on for a very, very long time. I suspect every country has developed its own methods for ensuring that teenagers associate religion with endurance.
Then Göran took us further into the family property, down to a lake hidden among the trees.It was warm, the sun had appeared and the water looked far too inviting to ignore. So Göran and I went in for a swim while Mark, demonstrating considerably more common sense, sat on the bank and enjoyed the sunshine. Swimming in a forest lake in Småland with a Swedish friend who had known the place since childhood felt a long way from yesterday’s rain, cider factories and Soviet submarines.
Once we had dried off, we returned to the farmhouse for fika. This time it was ostkaka, the traditional Småland cheesecake, served with sour cherries and cream. It bears relatively little resemblance to what we would call cheesecake at home: lighter, gently almondy and slightly textured. After swimming in a forest lake, sitting down to Swedish cheesecake in the farmhouse felt like a pretty good way to complete our introduction to Göran’s Småland.
Eventually we said goodbye, although only temporarily, and pointed the Audi east again towards Västervik and our hotel.
And what a hotel.
Slottsholmen sits right on the water overlooking the Västervik archipelago and is the creation of a local boy who left this little town as a teenager, became moderately successful in the music business, and eventually decided he wanted to give something back to the place where he grew up.
His name is Björn Ulvaeus.
Yes. That Björn.
The original Slottsholmen was a much-loved restaurant and entertainment venue dating from 1913. After fire, rebuilding, decline and eventual demolition, Ulvaeus bought the property and developed the present complex. Today it includes a restaurant, marina, spa and floating hotel, with rooms and suites sitting literally on the water.
So after spending much of the day being shown the childhood landscape of one Swede, we had ended up in a place created by another Swede returning to the town of his childhood.
But the day wasn’t quite finished. We had said goodbye to Göran only temporarily. He joined us again in Västervik for dinner at a local restaurant, Smugglaren, together with Lin Ternefors, one of the Chief Scouts of Sweden, who lives locally. It was lovely to meet Lin and, perhaps inevitably, conversation soon turned to all things Scouting. We heard about the enormously successful recent Swedish national jamboree and compared notes on some of the opportunities and challenges facing Scouting in our respective corners of the world. Put three people with that much Scouting history around one table and Mark probably deserves some sort of badge for endurance.
We also achieved another important Swedish milestone: our first Skagen of the trip, and it was delicious. Perch followed for Göran, Lin and me, while Mark chose pork. For once we had no need to point Google Lens hopefully at the menu and wait to discover whether it thought we were ordering fish, furniture or agricultural machinery. Having Swedish speakers at the table made the whole process considerably easier.
And so a day which began with the Swedish landscape changing around us ended over dinner with an old friend and a new one. In between there had been an ancient castle, truly dreadful service-station coffee, Göran’s childhood home, kroppkakor from his grandmother’s kitchen, stories of confirmation classes and interminable sermons, a swim in a forest lake, ostkaka with sour cherries and cream, and an ABBA-connected hotel floating on the water.
Yesterday was a day of unexpected discoveries. Today felt different. We had been allowed, for a few hours, into somebody else’s memories: the kitchen, the church, the lake and the landscape that helped make Göran who he is.
A rather wonderful day in Småland.
