Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Danish attacks on Öland (and a ten-month
occupation in 1612) made matters worse,
with seven hundred farms being destroyed.
A succession of disastrous harvests in the
mid-nineteenth century was the last straw,
causing a quarter of the population to pack
their bags for a new life in America. In the
twentieth century, mainland Sweden
became the new magnet for Öland's young
and, by 1970, the island's inhabitants had
declined to just twenty thousand, around
five thousand less than today's total.
Trollskogen
(trolls' forest)
Neptuni
åkrar
Långe
Erik
Byxelkrok
Böda Sand
BÖDA
CROWN
PARK
Böda
Byrums raukar
(limestone pillars)
Mellböda
Löttorp
6
Högby
Ormöga
Källa
Sandvik
Knisa
Geology and flora
Öland's geology varies dramatically due to
the crushing movement of ice during the
last Ice Age, and the effects of the
subsequent melting process, which took
place 10,000 years ago. To the south is a
massive limestone plain known as alvaret ;
indeed, limestone has been used here for
thousands of years to build runic
monuments, dry-stone walls and churches.
The northern coastline is craggy and
irregular, peppered with dramatic-looking
raukar - stone stacks, weathered by the
waves into jagged shapes. Among the
island's flora are plants that are rare in
the region, like the delicate rock rose
and the cream-coloured wool-butter
flower, both native to Southeast Asia and
found in southern Öland. Further north
are the twisted, misshapen pines and oaks
of the romantically named trollskogen
(trolls' forest).
Föra
Ormöga
Borgholm
Borgholms Slott
Solliden Park
Halltorp
GärdsIösa
Möllstorp
Färjestaden
Ölandsbron
Vickleby
Mörbylånga
Borgholm
As you walk the simple square grid of
streets that makes up Borgholm , Öland's
“capital”, it becomes clear that tourism is
the lifeblood of this small town. But despite
being swamped by visitors each July,
Borgholm is in no way the tacky resort it
could be. Encircled by the flaking, turreted
and verandahed villas that were the pride of
the town during its first period as a holiday
resort in the nineteenth century, most of the centre is a friendly, if bland, network of
shops and restaurants lining the roads that lead down to the pleasant harbour.
Eketorp
0
10
kilometres
Ottenby
ÖLAND
Borgholms Slott
Sollidenvägen 5 • Daily: April & Sept 10am-4pm; May-Aug 10am-6pm • 70kr
The only real attraction in town is Borgholms Slott , several hundred metres southwest
of the centre. A colossal stone fortification with rows of huge arches and corridors open
 
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