What was Sven Svensson famous for?

Day 52 - July 15^th 

For something different, Stockholm decided to rain the next morning, however, we decided to go for a run as our gear could do with a wash anyway. 

In typical Swedish fashion, the rain stopped after an hour or so and cleared up to a fine day, so we decided to take a look at the changing of the guard at the Royal Palace before heading north. 

Unfortunately, we lost track of time while trying to get groceries and ended up getting to the changing of the guard a little late and stuck behind a mass of people so couldn’t really see much and decided to depart. 

From Stockholm we made our way northwest towards Sweden’s oldest surviving town – Sigtuna.

The town was founded somewhere around 980, so it was pretty old, although had burnt down at some stage during it’s history so could not be considered completely in tact, except the town hall which managed to avoid the ravages of fire.

Sigtuna did have a large amount of Runes, which are quite interesting although illegible. Runes are large pieces of stone with carvings on them describing a person or people from the Viking era. They are quite large in size and rather than being tombstones are more of a permanent obituary to give credit to a particular person. For example, you might find one that said – ‘Sven Svensson was a great father and husband, could drink like a fish and the best rower this town has ever seen. It will be a long time before another Sven Svensson comes around’. 

Sven Svennsons Rune Stone.

 

Downtown Sigtuna.

Sigtuna Town Hall which didn't burn down at all during the towns history and also doubled as a police station in the 1930's until they closed it due to some issues with hygiene in the prisoner cells. 

After a quick walk around town we decided to continue driving northwest as we were not too keen on going to Uppsala, which was another Swedish city. 

Over the past couple of months, our desire to go to cities has gradually reduced as we find that the best spots are in smaller towns and off the beaten track. It’s also a little more relaxing in the less populated places as you don’t have the world and his wife walking past wondering what you’re up to.

We managed to get a decent amount of kilometers under our belt later that afternoon and ended up at Leksund, which is in the Lake Siljan region of Sweden.  

Coming over the bridge into town, we spotted a great wild camping spot on the marina front and headed towards it only to find some rather large signs saying no camping. On this occasion there were a number of fisherman and people about so decided to obey the signs and find an alternative location. 

Thankfully, this wasn’t too far up the road in a large car park behind town and it was still a quick walk to the nearby river, where I almost caught a fish that evening…almost!