Karlsborg fortress and Göta canal

Hello,

Well, well, who could have thought it? This week will see two newsletters, because the one I intended to write was too long. I hope this compensate for lasts week lack of mail. It seems we have done a lot of things, because I still have things to write on the last couple of days.

For now, we have are staying by a small lake in the Tiveden National Park. It is so beautiful, although there is a little bit of rain. We decided to stay two nights, and tomorrow, Friday when you read this (hopefully) we will go more deeply into the park. It is supposed to be very beautiful and magical with giant stone blocks, trolls and even a white sand beach.

Karlsborg

When you speak about Karlsborg today you speak about the huge Fortress that was constructed there during the 19th century. It was meant to serve as Sweden reserve capital in times of trouble. In 1808-09 Sweden lost Finland to Russia and Stockholm suddenly became a vulnerable city. The plan was to have an emergency plan to move the capital inland, which would give Sweden more time to mobilise. The construction period was planned for 10 years, but it took almost 90 years before it was ready.

The entrance to the fortress

In 1819, Carl XIV Johan (former French marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte who became the Swedish king in 1818, having been the crown prince since 1810) gave the order that a fortress should be built on Cape Vanäs on the western shore of lake Vättern. The place was also chosen due to the building of Göta canal who would facilitate transportation.

It is not a fortress as we are used to see it. There is a city inside the walls with housing, hospitals, workshops, hotel, cafés etc. You can walk around the whole area. It is, today, another peaceful and quiet area, and where they offer housing for people to live inside the walls.

We visited the museum which had various exhibitions. I must admit, I am not so interested in military history, but there are certain information which is fascinating. Not only the military would move to Karlsborg, but also the gold reserve. In the beginning of World War II the government initiated a move of the gold reserve to Karlsborg for security reasons. As the war began they decided to move it again, this time to a bank in New York, and it was secretly transported via Norway and Finland. I could not find any information how it found its way back to Sweden, but I presume it did at one point.

Göta canal

The canal was constructed between 1810 and 1832. It is 190 km long, but is part of a 390 km long waterway, linking a number of lakes and rivers. This is the biggest civil engineering enterprise ever taking place in Sweden. The route covers Gothenburg on the west coast to Söderköping on the Baltic Sea. However, this is done via the Trollhätte canal and Göta river, through the lakes Vänern and Vättern. The two canals are not linked.

Once an important water way transportation route, today it is mainly used for tourism purposes. We have been thinking of taking a trip on the canal. You can make shorter trips or trips over several days. It should be a nice, slow way to travel through the canal with its 58 locks. You can also go along the canal with your private boat. We had to be satisfied by looking at other boats using the waterway between two lakes.