It’s not every day you get to see an overhead projector in
use. We arrived in Söderköping (pronounced Serdersherping) yesterday and walked
around the charming town on the banks of the Göta Canal. We noticed an
extremely long queue to, what we thought was, a regular restaurant but turned
out to be a very famous ice cream shop (must grab one today if queue has
disapeared), and a poster announcing a talk on town history at 1900 hrs.
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| rune stone outside the church |
We duly arrived at the museum at 1900 only to find we were
his only attendees. This did not deter the effervescent Ola Lönnqvist whose
enthusiasm for Söderköping was only outweighed by his knowledge of the place.
It was a little disconcerting to see the overhead projector on the table as we
were ushered into the old schoolroom but he flashed his transparencies with a
flourish as he answered one open ended question over a period of 45 minutes.
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| the Soderkoping bunnies - helping a baby bunny cross the river |
Söderköping was an important town in the medieval period but
as the land rose and the harbour diminished its importance declined and it now
survives on the tourism which came with the popularity of the canal. There is a
large rune stone outside the church which is not mentioned in any of the town
literature. Ola suggested it was from around 1050 AD.
...............................
Loved the ice cream from Smultronstallet - can now understand the queues! After a stroll around the town looking at the gorge houses we headed off for Berg, further along the Gota canal. It was very touristy and packed so we continued on to Borgansberg which has a manually operated lock - a rarity on the canal.
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| munching on an ice cream |
We were told of a rather fab farm shop out of town so decided to cycle out for a bottle of cider. Twenty six kilometres later we found it. We had missed it - clearly - on the way out but found it on the way back with five minutes to spare before it closed. The aforementioned cider was 0.5% alcohol so not exactly 'getting off one's tits' material.
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| loving a lock |
Further along the canal tomorrow as we explore the central lakes of Sweden.
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