Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
today. Approaching from the south, the beautiful Gränna Valley sweeps down to your
left, with the hills to the right, most notably the crest of Grännaberget, which provides
a majestic foil to some superb views over Lake Vättern and its island, Visingsö. On a
hot summer's day, the trip here from Jönköping has something of the atmosphere of
the French Riviera, evoked in particular by the winding roads, red-tiled roofs and the
profusion of flowers in the old cottage gardens - not to mention the equal profusion of
Porsche and Mercedes cars.
6
Brief history
Per Brahe , one of Sweden's first counts, built the town in the mid-seventeenth century,
using the symmetry, regularity and spaciousness of planning that he had learnt while
governor of Finland. The charming main street, Brahegatan , was subsequently widened
and remodelled, allowing the houses fronting it to have gardens, while the other main
roads were designed so Brahe could look straight down them as he stood at the
windows of his now-ruined castle, Brahehus . The gardens along Brahegatan remain
mostly intact, and until the 1920s, there were no additions to the original street layout.
Even now, there's very much a village feel to the little town.
Grännaberget café
Grännaberget • May-Aug daily 10am-9pm • T 0390 101 09
True, it's a bit of a climb (243 steep steps, to be precise) but there's a view from
Kaffestugan Grännaberget which should not be missed: from the sloping main square,
walk over to the church then south for 100m to the junction with Parkgränd and the
wooden steps in the hillside to your left. Outside seating affords a fabulous vista over
the lake. Better still, you can explore inside a range of ancient grass- and thatch-roofed
buildings brought from the surrounding areas.
The Grenna Kulturgård: Andrée Expedition Polarcenter
Mid-May to Aug daily 10am-6pm; Sept to mid-May Mon-Fri 10am-4pm • 50kr • W grennamuseum.se/polarcenter
Within the Grenna Kulturgård on Brahegatan is the fascinating Polarcenter ,
dedicated to Salomon August Andrée, the Gränna-born balloonist who led a doomed
attempt to reach the North Pole by balloon in 1897. Born at Brahegatan 37, Andrée
was fired by the European obsession of the day to explore and conquer unknown
areas; with no real way of directing his balloon, however, his trip was destined for
disaster from the start. After a flight lasting only three days, during which time it
flew more than 800km in different directions, the balloon made a forced landing on
ice just 470km from its departure point. The crew of three attempted to walk to
civilization, but the movement of the ice floes meant they made no progress; after six
weeks' trekking, they set up camp on a floe drifting rapidly southwards. Sadly, the ice
cracked and their shelter collapsed, and with it their hopes. Finally they died from
the effects of cold, starvation and trichinosis, caught after they ate the raw meat of a
polar bear they had managed to spear. It would be another 33 years before their
frozen bodies and their equipment were discovered by a Norwegian sailing ship. They
were reburied in Stockholm at a funeral attended by a crowd of forty thousand. The
museum exhibition poignantly includes a diary kept by one of the crew and film
taken by the team, which makes for pitiful viewing: the men are seen with the polar
bear they'd hunted, and other sequences show the three hopelessly pulling their
sledges across the ice sheets.
The newly renovated museum has extended its remit to cover exploration of the polar
region in general, with exhibitions centring on the Arctic and Antarctic historical
expeditions, using Andrée as a springboard to a wider picture.
CLOCKWISE FROM TOP LEFT ÖLAND (P.203); LIMESTONE STACKS, FÅRÖ (P.238); GLASS-BLOWING AT KOSTA BODA (P.212) >
 
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