Road Trip 2025 (14) - Eksjö, Part 2

Wednesday. 13 August - Part 1

Eksjö Museum

▲Morning views from my hotel room in Eksjö▼

 

Passing a fancy old mirror on the way down to the breakfast room...

After we checked out, but before we left town, we went for a walk to the museum (which opened at 10). In the square (between the hotel and the church) they were setting up some market stalls.

 

Some photos from inside the museum, showing how people lived in the past:  

Artist's studio

 

Albert Engström (1869–1940) was a Swedish artist, author, and member of the Swedish Academy from 1922. He spent most of his childhood in a small village near Eksjö, where his father was the railroad stationmaster. In 1892 he enrolled at the Valand School of Fine Arts in Gothenburg to study under Carl Larsson. After that he was on the editorial staff for a satirical magazine for a couple of years, and then founded one of his own. 

 

Albert's glasses

 

A collection of old accordions.

Old tins

Old archives of the local newspaper 
 

Road Trip 2025 (4) - Linköping: Garden Park, Cathedral and Castle

In Linköping, we stayed two nights at Hotel Ekoxen ("The Stag Beetle"), situated right by a big park in the central parts of the city. The park goes by the Swedish name of Trädgårdsföreningen (= The Garden Society); as the park was created by such a society formed back in 1859. Here, I've chosen to call it the Garden Park. 

This is the hotel. Its layout inside is somewhat confusing, as it consists of two buildings joined together by a portal across the street. To get to our rooms, we had to first take one lift (or the stairs) up one floor, walk through that middle part across the street, and then take another lift. My room actually overlooked the hotel entrance!

The entrance to the Garden Park was literally just round the corner of the main building, though, so perfect for us to just go for a  first short "introductory" evening walk there after we had installed ourselves in our rooms. 

Sunday, 10 August

The next morning after breakfast we went out again to explore the park a bit further; and now walked up to the highest point of the park (which is also the 2nd highest view over the city). There is an observation tower up there, known as the Belvedere. Looking up the name afterwards, I learned that this is Italian, and means "beautiful view". It was built in 1881. 

We happened to run into a foreign tourist up there, asking us for the way to the city centre. Being tourists ourselves, all we could do was really to point out the direction for her - towards the tower of the cathedral (which we know since a previous visit to be pretty much in the centre). Not of much help to the girl, as she deemed it to be too far away for her - but as thanks, she offered to take a photo of the two of us by the tower (using my phone):

On our way down from the hill, we noticed some dead tree trunks that had been carved into wooden sculptures. (Later, we came across the info somewhere that quite a few trees in the park had died of elm tree disease.)

 

These buildings from the 1740s were moved to the park in 1913.

Someone commented yesterday on my post from "Linköping Old Town" that the colour red seems to be very popular for old buildings here. As you'll be seeing plenty more examples of that in my photos from this trip, I'll repeat my answer to that remark here:

Red wooden houses are very common in Sweden, and this is related to a special kind of paint produced from byproducts of copper mining - Falun Red, named after the town with the copper mine where they developed it. It's been used since the 16th century, and has a special quality of also impregnating wood to better preserve it in our cold climate. At first it was mostly used by wealthy people as it was expensive, but in the 19th century, with industrial production etc, it became more common and increasingly popular. And it's still much used.

At noon, we met our aunt and uncle (our mum's sister and her husband) for lunch at the Garden Park Café. I had suggested that as I know they often go there, and it's on "the right side of town" for them (and with us staying at the hotel so close, it was of course very convenient for us as well). They're 89 and 88 now, so it was not to be taken for granted that our plan to meet up on a specific day would work out - but luckily, it did. :) And the garden café itself turned out well worth a visit, too. It has an exotic outdoors atmosphere even though it's indoors; and the food was good as well. 

Later in the afternoon, my brother and I walked into the city centre, which also wasn't  very far from our hotel. Last time we were in Linköping, three years ago, we visited the Cathedral, and also had a good look inside. (If you like, you can see my photos from 2022 here.) This time it was not open, and a large part of the outside was clad in scaffolding, so obviously there were some major repairs going on. I only managed to get two photos from the outside (leaving out the scaffolding), and they do not really give justice to the whole impressive building: 

 

Linköping Cathedral is one of the largest Gothic cathedrals in Scandinavia. It is situated opposite Linköping Castle, on a site that has been in use as a church since the 11th century. The oldest parts of the present building date back to the 13th century. (Wikipedia)

As we could not go into the cathedral, we continued to the Castle, where we managed a quick tour of the Castle & Cathedral Museum before they too closed for the day.  

 The Castle courtyard. (Difficult to get a good photo with the sun right behind it...)

 

▲ Old liturgical vestments on display in the museum.▼

Model of the Cathedral back in 1300. 
A lot of scaffolding on it back then, too! ;-)

The sign beside this lion said we were allowed to pet it, but not ride on it!

 

(There is a lion in Linköping's city arms.) 

Cotton Mill Museum (Rydal)

 
This cotton mill at Rydal (Västergötland, Sweden) was built in 1853, along the river Viskan - the same river that also flows through the town of Borås (where I live). This is also where the first hydro-electric power station in Sweden was built; and this mill was the first building in Sweden to have indoor electric lighting. 

"Due to the well preserved remains of an old industrial community, this factory, along with several other buildings, have been declared historical monuments. They tell the story of how the Borås region became the textile epicenter of Sweden."

https://digitaltmuseum.se/021015654584/arbetarbostader-i-rydal

A whole community grew up around the cotton mill, with the workers all living in (wooden) apartment buildings along the road nearby. Whole families would work at the mill - also young children, back in the early days. Some people lived their whole life here, in a very closed community.

Inside the mill, the huge machine hall is also preserved pretty much as it was when production stopped. We were able to join a guided tour, with a guide telling us about the history of the place, and demonstrating how the various machines worked, and what they were for - following the process from raw material (imported cotton) to finished product (yarn). 

"The spinning machines in the old spinning hall... represent the production of a novelty yarn that became the main product of the company in the 1920's. It was used in the weaving of rugs, furniture fabrics and as knitting yarn. Production ceased in 2004 [but a few machines are still run for public displays]"

 

The guide only turned on one machine at a time, for a very short while - but that still gave an idea of what an infernal noise all of them going at once must have made together... All day long...!

 

 

An old manual spinning wheel on display, hanging from the roof.
(My paternal grandmother had one like it, but painted green, I never saw her use it but I think it had belonged to her mother, from when they lived on a farm, and had sheep, and spun their own wool.) 

Some old enamelled kitchen items - I remember similar ones in that combination of beige and green from my grandmother's kitchen as well.