Possibly... Maybe...
Sigtuna - 29th June
Everywhere we go, we come upon one of Sweden’s tallest, largest, oldest, widest feature of some description that we begin to wonder if it’s true.
If you check the wording of travel guides, websites and brochures the features are carefully described as “one of …”, “said to be …”, so therefore the statistical information they are quoting hasn’t actually been proven.
What was proven today was our calculation of a geocache mathematical history equation, we got a green light for the solve.
Our destination today was the lake side town of Sigtuna, about 30 minutes from where we were staying; it has a population of 10,000 people and a lot of presumed history. The old buildings in the town are craft shops, souvenir stores or cafes, so with its history and café culture it attracts a lot of tourists. My lunch today was a vasterbotten, that’s a quiche made with special vasterbotten cheese from a small dairy factory. It came with salmon on top, everything in Sweden either has salmon or shrimp on top, I feel like they are trying to revive the 70s shrimp cocktail or possibly still living in the past. No photo of Roger’s lunch as the baked potato topped with shrimp was off the menu and his substitute was not Swedish.
This is Stora Gatan “said to be” Sweden’s oldest street, in what is “believed to be” Sweden’s first town, who knows for sure but archaeologists have found some artefacts and without any evidence to the contrary we will have to believe them. These days Stora Gatan is 3 metres above the original main street, the land has risen over the centuries and what was sea shore is now a lakefront. There are 5 theories why the town was built where it is including: fiscal, trading, religious, power and transportation advantages, but none of them are proven because the first people obviously forgot to write it on a rune stone.
Sigtuna municipality claims to have 35 to 150 known Rune Stones and a cache owner set up a trail to take you past “15 or so” of them; rather a vague description – did they not count them?
We walked along the lake promenade and found no rune stones and later walked past several. Unless they are sign posted they are hard to detect, and then of course there are still those not discovered or on display.
Another of Sigtuna’s claim to fame is they “possibly” have Sweden’s smallest town hall, as written on the sign outside the legendary building. It has two rooms, once used for the town hall and the police cells, now it’s used for tourism and weddings. The two ladies in the bright dresses were part of a wedding party using the hall so we couldn’t look inside.
Yet another wedding this time at the brick church of St Mary’s, obviously the Italian groom got to choose the wedding car. St Mary’s as you probably guessed is “believed to be” Sweden’s oldest brick church and the only preserved Dominican church.
One of the reasons put forward as to why the town of Sigtuna was established was; a Christian mission to counteract the dominate influence of the pagan temple in Uppsala. The small town of Sigtuna once had a stone cathedral and 6 stones churches built along the same street. Due to fires, wars, reformations and a king who took the stones to build his castle, there are only three surviving ruins, St Pers (Peter), St Lars (Lawrence) St Olof (Olaf). St Pers is “one of” Sweden’s oldest church ruins and “probably built by and for the king”, very subjective history.
A stave bell tower on Klockbacken Hill, the original 17th century belfry burned down in 2016 and was rebuilt “according” to old drawings.
Other firsts for Sigtuna include: the first coins in Sweden were minted here and Sweden’s first female saint was born here.
Today’s ABBA tribute is ‘Kisses of fire’ (1979) for the little town of Sigtuna, whose large population of old declined after the city was burned in the 12th century and 3 times in the 17th century. In 1700 all that was left were 108 people, mainly farmers and fishermen. In 1915 a foundation was set up to resurrect the town from the ashes and it has grown since.
Kisses of fire, burning, burning
I’m at the point of no returning
Kisses of fire, sweet devotions