Skogskyrkogården and Birka

Waypoint introductions and full write-ups

1. 1. Skogskyrkogården

   The best cemetery in the world is not a bad claim to make for a forest on the southern edge of Stockholm. Skogskyrkogarden, the Woodland Cemetery, was designed by two young architects, Gunnar Asplund and Sigurd Lewerentz, who won a competition in 1915 with a plan that used the existing pine forest and a gravel pit as the starting point. They built it in stages over the next twenty-five years, and it was inscribed on the World Heritage list in 1994 as a masterpiece of twentieth-century landscape design. The idea was that death should not be shown as a dark hole, but as a return to nature.

   Read the complete Skogskyrkogården write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Skogskyrkogården is where the day begins. Next is Birka and Hovgården.

2. 2. Birka and Hovgården

   Before Stockholm existed, there was Birka. In the eighth century, on a small island called Bjorko in Lake Malaren, a few kilometres west of the modern city, traders and craftsmen set up a market town, and for about two hundred years it was the most important trading centre in Sweden. Merchants brought furs, iron and slaves, and carried back silver, glass, silk and spices. Coins from Arabia and swords from the Rhineland have turned up in the graves, and a Christian missionary, Ansgar, came here around 830 to preach, with limited success. By the end of the tenth century the town had been abandoned, perhaps because the lake had become too shallow for ships as the land slowly rose after the ice age.

   Read the complete Birka and Hovgården write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Birka and Hovgården comes up about 59 km into the recorded legs. Next is Royal Domain of Drottningholm.

3. 3. Royal Domain of Drottningholm

   The Swedish royal family does not live in Stockholm's city palace; since 1981 its home has been Drottningholm, a baroque palace on the island of Lovön in Lake Mälaren, a short ride west of the capital. The name means the queen's islet, and the present palace was begun in the 1660s for the widowed Queen Hedvig Eleonora, designed by Nicodemus Tessin the Elder and finished by his son. With its formal gardens, fountains and an English landscape park, it is often compared to Versailles, though it is far more intimate. Parts of the palace are open to visitors, and the whole royal domain is a World Heritage site.

   Read the complete Royal Domain of Drottningholm write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   about 99 km into the recorded legs you reach Royal Domain of Drottningholm. Next is Birka.

4. 4. Birka

   A thousand years ago, you could have bought a silk scarf, a bag of silver coins and a slave on a small island in Lake Malaren, and a visitor from Byzantium would have felt at home. Birka, on the island of Bjorko, west of Stockholm, was the first real town in Sweden, founded around 750 and abandoned about two centuries later, and it was a market where Vikings met traders from the Frankish lands, the Baltic and as far away as the Arab world. Archaeologists have found coins from the Caliphate, beads from the east and glass from the Rhineland. Several thousand graves lie on the hillsides around the site, most of them simple mounds in the grass, and more of them have been opened than you might think.

   Read the complete Birka write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Birka, about halfway. Next is back through Royal Domain of Drottningholm.

5. 5. back through Royal Domain of Drottningholm

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Royal Domain of Drottningholm write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Royal Domain of Drottningholm sits at 128 km, about halfway. Next is back through Birka and Hovgården.

6. 6. back through Birka and Hovgården

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Birka and Hovgården write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   back through Birka and Hovgården comes up about 219 km into the recorded legs. Next is Skogskyrkogården.

7. 7. Skogskyrkogården

   Return visit. Read the place description above.

   Read the complete Skogskyrkogården write-up.

   Recorded stop-planning note

   May refer to an earlier itinerary; verify against your selected route before riding.

   Planning note

   Skogskyrkogården closes the day.