Where Denmark is warmly and reassuringly familiar, Sweden remains, for me at least, excitingly exotic. Before I studied Swedish and got to know Sweden better, I was unconsciously tainted by the Danes' unreflected prejudices about their neighbour-rival. " Svenskerne, de er bare tysker klaedt ud som mennesker!" [Swedes, they're just Germans disguised as human beings] This was my grandmother's double-swipe condemnation, unhesitatingly expressed despite the fact that her own mother was Swedish! Her views, like those of her whole generation, were influenced by the German occupation and the Swedes too easy accomodation of the Third Reich. Younger generations don't have the same excuse, but the old habits of mind linger on. Probably, the Danish folk-consciousness has never come to terms with Sweden becoming "top nation" in the Baltic in the 17th century. The attitude that persists in today's Denmark is of Sweden as sort of impossibly sensible, quite possibly rather dull elder brother, stolidly amused at the wacky antics of his garrulous but not quite reliable sibling. Swedes see Danes as "sophisticated" and "continental", which, basically, is their over-generous interpretation of Denmark's relatively lax drinking laws!
With these distinctions in mind we crossed the Sound. We were headed for Gotland, Sweden's celebrated holiday isle in the Baltic. On the way we travelled to Smaland to take in the charming wooden town of Eksjö. One of my secret fantasies is to live in a tastefully run-down, Falun-red-painted timber cottage in a lonely forest by a lake, where I will find the quiet of mind to write great works of literature and engage in perceptive correspondence with like-minded writers and intellectuals from around the world. I found just the place in an estate-agent's window. It seemed incredibly cheap - just the job. Needed some work - well, a bit of occupational therapy between poems would be entirely appropriate to the Renaissance man that I shall become. No electricity - not to worry, those old paraffin lamps are so wonderfully romantic. There was the matter of the "Utedass" or outside toilet. An integral part of the authentic rustic experience - in fact I would insist upon one. Carol brought me down to earth with a jarring bump. "Don't be bloody stupid. I know you. You'd be bored out of your mind after five minutes. I couldn't bear it. Anyway, I'm not going anywhere with no TV and proper plumbing! And there's nowhere to shop!!"
My artistic soul severely bruised by this brutal battering, we headed on to Kalmar, a place I had always wanted to visit. It was in this former frontier stronghold on June 17 1397 that the Kalmar Union was signed, establishing a union of the crowns of Denmark, Sweden and Norway. Denmark became the dominant partner of a northern empire which stretched from Finland in the east to Greenland in the west, embracing also Iceland , the Faroes, Orkney and Shetland as also the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. This explains the apparently eccentric anomaly whereby the huge landmass of Greenland is still held by the Danish crown. Now, that's the book I could be writing in my idyllic sylvan retreat: "The Decline and Fall of the Danish Empire!" The parallells with Gibbon are glaringly apparent. In the same way that Christianity's concern for the individual soul sapped Rome's vital tradition of civic responsibility, so the worm of hedonistic consumerism gnawed away the virile fibre of a once-noble viking race... hmm, we'll see. The Union held for over a hundred years, but the Swedish nobility were never happy at Danish dominance and it broke up when Gustav Vasa became king of a seperate Sweden in 1523. We looked round the castle, spectacularly situated at the water's edge, dominating both sea and land with its authoratitive presence. What is the irresistible attraction of these old stones? Is it not the primitive intuition that time past has in some mysterious way been absorbed into the fabric of these ancient constructions, the sense that, through direct contact with these material remains, we can enter into a subliminal bond with persons now long gone who once lived, moved and had their being in their immediate proximity? I suspect that this sort of magical thinking is far more widespread than we realize or would even care to admit. I am convinced that many of the things we own, for example, are far more personal fetishes than they are objects of value or practical use. Anything we have had about us for any length of time becomes impregnated with our vibration or smell or whatever it is. Thus they become an extension of ourselves, which presumably is why we accumulate so much junk that we cannot bear to part with for "sentimental reasons", the allowed euphemistic expression for the essential, magical link which exists between ourselves and our stuff. When my mother died, her vibration lingered on in her flat for a long time afterwards. In the end my brother and I were happy to clear out the place and sell. A profound instinct within us knows that life must go on. But it is easy to understand how parents who lose a child are tempted to leave the child's bedroom exactly as it was. Not really a "shrine" as is often suggested, but a magical link with the dear departed. I remember once being deeply moved reading in a novel (sorry, can't remember title or author) of a recently bereaved husband putting on his dead wife's favourite dress in order to be closer to her.
The next morning we bussed across Öland and caught the ferry to Gotland. Arriving in Visby we were astonished. We had been prepared to be disappointed. Often the camera-angles of the tourist brochure involve some judicious editing, implying that the very best views are typical, which mostly isn't the case. But in Visby we were confronted with an integral and authentic medieval townscape, where the overall impression was so much more than just the sum of individual buildings or sights. We looked forward to spending a few days in thorough exploration, but meanwhile we had to find our hotel. Picking up our rental car, we headed south out of town. I'd booked into what, on the web-site at least, seemed a charming "pension". A beautiful ex-royal pavillon constructed entirely of wood, painted in traditional yellow with decorated balconies, set in delightful parkland with spectacular sea views. Photos of the accomodation hinted at simple, but tastefully appointed appartments in the finest Scandinavian manner. We arrived and were shown up to our rooms. Our hearts sank. It was a complete dump. It was like a cross between a spartan youth hostel and an old lady's chintz paradise gone to seed. Any gesture in the direction of "improvement" had been ill-conceived and counter-productive. Naff sub-Ikea furniture blocked passages and windows. To hide worn floor-boards, wood imitation lino had been inexpertly laid. Worst of all, everything stank of carbolic soap. [In all honesty, my reference to carbolic soap is no more than a literary convention - a portmanteau expression which seeks to convey that all-pervasive odour of antiseptic puritanism which destroyed the very last vestiges of what we might just have permitted ourselves to have construed as bohemian charm.] For a few minutes we struggled inwardly in an attempt to find it OK. Then we abandoned the struggle. The girls smuggled our cases out to the car, while I went to face the management. I addressed the rather stuck-up ladies in my eccentric Swedish. They obviously had some royalty-snobbery thing going on. They were wearing funny little crown badges in their lapels. I refused to be impressed. " We've changed our plans. We won't be staying here." Too quickly perhaps, I offered, in fairness, to pay for one night. They accepted this arrangement rather too readily, I thought. Clearly, they had a certain familiarity with walk-outs, some, doubtless, less soft-hearted than myself. So far, so good, but that still left us needing a place for the night - well, four nights actually. With utter predictability we ended up in the swankiest joint in Visby, in a beautiful and beautifully comfortable room, mini-bar et al. To hell with the expense! We were on holiday!
And what a great holiday! Gotland is a very "holidayish" place and Visby is definitely the best place to be based. The town itself is a feast for the eye, comparable to other preserved medieval towns like Bruges or Rothenburg ob der Tauber, but with the added charm of being on the sea.
It became fabulously rich in the early middle-ages as a result of its monopoly of the fur-trade with Russia. Conspicuous consumption as a vehicle for growth! At its apogee it rivalled London and Paris. But the German Hansa towns gradually mananged to muscle their way to a share of the action and Visby began its gradual decline. This was only accelerated by the Danish invasion of Gotland in 1361. Under the Danish king Valdemar Atterdag, the invading force perpetrated a notorious massacre of armed peasants beneath the walls of Visby and then proceeded to exact tribute of the town's rich burghers. But what finally did for Visby, apparently, was the silting up of its port. "Silting" might be too generous a term. It seems that Visby had a relatively advanced sewage system which, however, led out into the port. The centuries' build-up of faecal deposits ultimately made it impossible for the the newer deep-draughted vessels to anchor at the dock-side. Visby's commercial fate was sealed. But in that failure the seeds of a new birth lay dormant. Visby is now Sweden's greatest tourist draw after Stockholm! But it is a short season. By mid-August we are already in what is known as "sensommaren", the late summer, when, for most Swedes, the holidays are at an end. At no stage was our pleasure marred by anything like thronging crowds. We wandered happily about the town and around the walls, taking in the poised charm of the place. We also had a good look around the island, visiting innumerable medieval churches, each testifying to the wealth of the peasantry, prospering happily out of supplying Visby. We cycled along the coast and swam from perfect sandy beaches under the high, wide Baltic sky. Truly a holiday.
And finally on to Stockholm. Is Stockholm Europe's most beautiful capital city? Certainly its situation is incomparable. The interplay of land and water, buildings and boats is quite unique. Gamla Stan, the Old Town, is the jewel in the crown. Our favourite hotel is located there. We reacted rather huffily when, upon our arrival, the receptionist ushered us to the annex, but as it turned out, the annex was a perfect bijou apartment just off Stortorget, the main square in the heart of the old town. The area is extravagantly picturesque. The Sunday we left, I got up early to take in the streets of Gamla Stan in the quiet of the morning. I walked alone on the square, down past the Tyska Kyrkan, on through the maze of narrow streets, past tastefully decrepit buildings in dark green, siena red and yellow ochre. What rendered it all so magical, however, was the light, the, I would almost say, intelligent Baltic light, that subtle, delicate, angled illumination, which, without brashness, without the slightest hint of force, allows the object of vision, however modest, a wall, say, or a door, to reveal itself as it truly is - a part of God's mysterious but ordered creation. In such moments it is not too much to say that true beauty is food for the soul.
With these distinctions in mind we crossed the Sound. We were headed for Gotland, Sweden's celebrated holiday isle in the Baltic. On the way we travelled to Smaland to take in the charming wooden town of Eksjö. One of my secret fantasies is to live in a tastefully run-down, Falun-red-painted timber cottage in a lonely forest by a lake, where I will find the quiet of mind to write great works of literature and engage in perceptive correspondence with like-minded writers and intellectuals from around the world. I found just the place in an estate-agent's window. It seemed incredibly cheap - just the job. Needed some work - well, a bit of occupational therapy between poems would be entirely appropriate to the Renaissance man that I shall become. No electricity - not to worry, those old paraffin lamps are so wonderfully romantic. There was the matter of the "Utedass" or outside toilet. An integral part of the authentic rustic experience - in fact I would insist upon one. Carol brought me down to earth with a jarring bump. "Don't be bloody stupid. I know you. You'd be bored out of your mind after five minutes. I couldn't bear it. Anyway, I'm not going anywhere with no TV and proper plumbing! And there's nowhere to shop!!"
My artistic soul severely bruised by this brutal battering, we headed on to Kalmar, a place I had always wanted to visit. It was in this former frontier stronghold on June 17 1397 that the Kalmar Union was signed, establishing a union of the crowns of Denmark, Sweden and Norway. Denmark became the dominant partner of a northern empire which stretched from Finland in the east to Greenland in the west, embracing also Iceland , the Faroes, Orkney and Shetland as also the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. This explains the apparently eccentric anomaly whereby the huge landmass of Greenland is still held by the Danish crown. Now, that's the book I could be writing in my idyllic sylvan retreat: "The Decline and Fall of the Danish Empire!" The parallells with Gibbon are glaringly apparent. In the same way that Christianity's concern for the individual soul sapped Rome's vital tradition of civic responsibility, so the worm of hedonistic consumerism gnawed away the virile fibre of a once-noble viking race... hmm, we'll see. The Union held for over a hundred years, but the Swedish nobility were never happy at Danish dominance and it broke up when Gustav Vasa became king of a seperate Sweden in 1523. We looked round the castle, spectacularly situated at the water's edge, dominating both sea and land with its authoratitive presence. What is the irresistible attraction of these old stones? Is it not the primitive intuition that time past has in some mysterious way been absorbed into the fabric of these ancient constructions, the sense that, through direct contact with these material remains, we can enter into a subliminal bond with persons now long gone who once lived, moved and had their being in their immediate proximity? I suspect that this sort of magical thinking is far more widespread than we realize or would even care to admit. I am convinced that many of the things we own, for example, are far more personal fetishes than they are objects of value or practical use. Anything we have had about us for any length of time becomes impregnated with our vibration or smell or whatever it is. Thus they become an extension of ourselves, which presumably is why we accumulate so much junk that we cannot bear to part with for "sentimental reasons", the allowed euphemistic expression for the essential, magical link which exists between ourselves and our stuff. When my mother died, her vibration lingered on in her flat for a long time afterwards. In the end my brother and I were happy to clear out the place and sell. A profound instinct within us knows that life must go on. But it is easy to understand how parents who lose a child are tempted to leave the child's bedroom exactly as it was. Not really a "shrine" as is often suggested, but a magical link with the dear departed. I remember once being deeply moved reading in a novel (sorry, can't remember title or author) of a recently bereaved husband putting on his dead wife's favourite dress in order to be closer to her.
The next morning we bussed across Öland and caught the ferry to Gotland. Arriving in Visby we were astonished. We had been prepared to be disappointed. Often the camera-angles of the tourist brochure involve some judicious editing, implying that the very best views are typical, which mostly isn't the case. But in Visby we were confronted with an integral and authentic medieval townscape, where the overall impression was so much more than just the sum of individual buildings or sights. We looked forward to spending a few days in thorough exploration, but meanwhile we had to find our hotel. Picking up our rental car, we headed south out of town. I'd booked into what, on the web-site at least, seemed a charming "pension". A beautiful ex-royal pavillon constructed entirely of wood, painted in traditional yellow with decorated balconies, set in delightful parkland with spectacular sea views. Photos of the accomodation hinted at simple, but tastefully appointed appartments in the finest Scandinavian manner. We arrived and were shown up to our rooms. Our hearts sank. It was a complete dump. It was like a cross between a spartan youth hostel and an old lady's chintz paradise gone to seed. Any gesture in the direction of "improvement" had been ill-conceived and counter-productive. Naff sub-Ikea furniture blocked passages and windows. To hide worn floor-boards, wood imitation lino had been inexpertly laid. Worst of all, everything stank of carbolic soap. [In all honesty, my reference to carbolic soap is no more than a literary convention - a portmanteau expression which seeks to convey that all-pervasive odour of antiseptic puritanism which destroyed the very last vestiges of what we might just have permitted ourselves to have construed as bohemian charm.] For a few minutes we struggled inwardly in an attempt to find it OK. Then we abandoned the struggle. The girls smuggled our cases out to the car, while I went to face the management. I addressed the rather stuck-up ladies in my eccentric Swedish. They obviously had some royalty-snobbery thing going on. They were wearing funny little crown badges in their lapels. I refused to be impressed. " We've changed our plans. We won't be staying here." Too quickly perhaps, I offered, in fairness, to pay for one night. They accepted this arrangement rather too readily, I thought. Clearly, they had a certain familiarity with walk-outs, some, doubtless, less soft-hearted than myself. So far, so good, but that still left us needing a place for the night - well, four nights actually. With utter predictability we ended up in the swankiest joint in Visby, in a beautiful and beautifully comfortable room, mini-bar et al. To hell with the expense! We were on holiday!
And what a great holiday! Gotland is a very "holidayish" place and Visby is definitely the best place to be based. The town itself is a feast for the eye, comparable to other preserved medieval towns like Bruges or Rothenburg ob der Tauber, but with the added charm of being on the sea.
It became fabulously rich in the early middle-ages as a result of its monopoly of the fur-trade with Russia. Conspicuous consumption as a vehicle for growth! At its apogee it rivalled London and Paris. But the German Hansa towns gradually mananged to muscle their way to a share of the action and Visby began its gradual decline. This was only accelerated by the Danish invasion of Gotland in 1361. Under the Danish king Valdemar Atterdag, the invading force perpetrated a notorious massacre of armed peasants beneath the walls of Visby and then proceeded to exact tribute of the town's rich burghers. But what finally did for Visby, apparently, was the silting up of its port. "Silting" might be too generous a term. It seems that Visby had a relatively advanced sewage system which, however, led out into the port. The centuries' build-up of faecal deposits ultimately made it impossible for the the newer deep-draughted vessels to anchor at the dock-side. Visby's commercial fate was sealed. But in that failure the seeds of a new birth lay dormant. Visby is now Sweden's greatest tourist draw after Stockholm! But it is a short season. By mid-August we are already in what is known as "sensommaren", the late summer, when, for most Swedes, the holidays are at an end. At no stage was our pleasure marred by anything like thronging crowds. We wandered happily about the town and around the walls, taking in the poised charm of the place. We also had a good look around the island, visiting innumerable medieval churches, each testifying to the wealth of the peasantry, prospering happily out of supplying Visby. We cycled along the coast and swam from perfect sandy beaches under the high, wide Baltic sky. Truly a holiday.
And finally on to Stockholm. Is Stockholm Europe's most beautiful capital city? Certainly its situation is incomparable. The interplay of land and water, buildings and boats is quite unique. Gamla Stan, the Old Town, is the jewel in the crown. Our favourite hotel is located there. We reacted rather huffily when, upon our arrival, the receptionist ushered us to the annex, but as it turned out, the annex was a perfect bijou apartment just off Stortorget, the main square in the heart of the old town. The area is extravagantly picturesque. The Sunday we left, I got up early to take in the streets of Gamla Stan in the quiet of the morning. I walked alone on the square, down past the Tyska Kyrkan, on through the maze of narrow streets, past tastefully decrepit buildings in dark green, siena red and yellow ochre. What rendered it all so magical, however, was the light, the, I would almost say, intelligent Baltic light, that subtle, delicate, angled illumination, which, without brashness, without the slightest hint of force, allows the object of vision, however modest, a wall, say, or a door, to reveal itself as it truly is - a part of God's mysterious but ordered creation. In such moments it is not too much to say that true beauty is food for the soul.
posted by asbo at 2:38 PM
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