Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
INGMAR BERGMAN
From the mid-1960s until his death in 2007, Sweden's best-known film director and
screenwriter,
Ingmar Bergman
lived for much of the time on the island of Fårö, off
northernmost Gotland. He was born in Uppsala in 1918, the son of a Lutheran pastor. The
combination of his harsh upbringing, his interest in the religious art of old churches and the
works of August Strindberg inspired Bergman to constantly consider the spiritual and
psychological conflicts of life in his films. The results - he made forty feature films between
1946 and 1983 - are certainly dark, and for many, deeply distressing and/or depressing. He
made his first breakthrough at the Cannes Film Festival in 1944, winning the Grand Prix for his
film
Hets (Persecution)
, based on his school life. Among his best-known movies are
The Seventh
Seal
(1957), starring Max von Sydow, and
Wild Strawberries
(also 1957). The two most prevalent
themes in his films were marriage and the motives for marital infidelity, and the divide
between sanity and madness. One of his finest films,
Fanny and Alexander
(1982), portrays
bourgeois life in Scandinavia at the turn of the twentieth century; it's actually based on the
lives of his own maternal grandparents and is the last major film he made. Bergman married
five times, divorcing all but the last of his wives, who died in 1995.
6
loveliest place in town, serving delicious, top-notch
Swedish specialities, such as pan-fried salmon with potato
salad and wild garlic crème; its large, open-air terrace is
beautifully placed for a drink right on the sand.
Mid-June
to mid-Aug daily 10am-midnight
.
Lummelundagrottor and Jungfruklint
Thirteen kilometres north of Visby on Route 149, or by bus #61, are the
Lummelundagrottor
: limestone caves, stalagmites and stalactites that are
disappointingly dull and damp despite being marketed as Gotland's most visited
tourist attraction. The cave adventures here are of interest if you enjoy clambering
around in the damp, and are not recommended if you suffer from claustrophobia
(minimum age 15).
There's a more interesting natural phenomenon 10km to the north, where you'll see
the highest of Gotland's coastal
raukar
(see p.204). The remnants of reefs formed over
four hundred million years ago, the fact that the stacks are now well above the tide line
is proof that sea levels were once much higher. This particular stack, 11.5m high and
known as
Jungfruklint
, is said to look like the Virgin and Child - something you'll
need a fair bit of imagination to discern.
Bro
Instead of taking the coastal road from Visby, you could head around 10km inland
along Route 148 towards the village of
BRO
, which has one of the island's most
beautiful
churches
. Several different stages of construction are evident from the
Romanesque and Gothic windows in its tower. The most unusual aspect is the south
wall, with its flat-relief picture stones, carved mostly with animals, which were
incorporated from a previous church that once stood on the site. On the whole,
though, it's better to press on further into the eminently picturesque north, where
many of the secluded cottages are summer-holiday homes for urban Swedes.
