Whoa…It’s now been almost three months since my trip to Sweden and I’m still not done with my trip report.
I got to spend a couple of days in Öland, which has a lengthy history and fantastic views. The whole place has a rural feel, with the large towns having less than 5,000 people in them. The island is a popular tourist destination for Swedes but it was pretty empty when we got there. That happened to be a fairly lucky coincidence since the island was about to be packed with celebrations of the Crown Princesses’ birthday.
Two brilliant places to check out are the castles of Ektorp and Burgholm. One of the great things about museums and exhibits in Sweden is that most of them aren’t walled off and sterilized leaving you to view them behind a wall of plexiglass and crowd control barriers. You can actually touch the stuff which, to me, makes the experience much more interesting and informative.
Eketorp is an excavated iron age fort and the reenactors have done quite a good job of setting the scene. It’s a bit off the beaten track (you don’t have a car it’ll be a headache to get there and back) A number of homes (hovels?) have been constructed as well as working areas and the reenactors go about their daily business. They try to be interactive, allowing you to do a bit of archery, cooking bread, etc but probably the thing that was the most authentic about the place were the goats and pigs they had wandering around loose on the grounds. The sounds (and smells) of the animals helped to make it more of a historical and less of a theme park experience. It was also interesting to see how small these forts were. They guess that there were approximately 150 people living in the fort (including women and children) meaning you didn’t have tons of men-at-arms just hanging about doing nothing.


Borgholm castle is a a beautiful ruined castle that was used from the 12th to the 19th centuries before it was destroyed in a fire. Yet again, there is virtually no part of this castle off limits to those who want to explore every nook and cranny of the place. It’s got tons of atmosphere and you can even go check it out after the place closes down (I don’t know if you’re suppossed to or not but I’m one of those ‘If it isn’t strictly forbidden, it’s permitted’ type of guys).

These two alone make Öland worth the trip, even if you have to go a bit out of your way. But there’s plenty more to see, especially if you dig windmills. My favorite…the blue cow.
