Götene

Today is proper stay-indoors weather. We spend a cosy morning in our loft while there is strong wind and heavy rain outside. But we really can’t complain. We have been pretty lucky with the weather so far. Only yesterday we drove here from Läckö Slott in sunshine. The modern loft with the sauna in the bathroom and the small balcony is in Götene in Västergötland, and we are staying three nights.

We keep planning our journey home to Switzerland, which is not that easy with the current Covid rules. For three days now we have known that we will have to quarantine for ten days after we arrive. On top of that there is the test. Under the Swiss federal government’s rules, anyone who has to quarantine, as we do, needs a negative PCR test no more than 72 hours old to enter from Sweden. On the way out, a rapid antigen test was enough for Sweden. We take the PCR test later, on our last day in Stockholm, at the Quality Hotel Friends in Solna.

In the afternoon we drive to Lidköping, the nearest larger town, and go into a few shops. The town lies west of Götene at the mouth of the Lidan on Lake Vänern, about 24 kilometres by road, most of it on national road 44 (Riksväg 44). Gamla staden, the old town on the east bank, received its first known town charter in 1446. Opposite, on the west bank, Magnus Gabriel De la Gardie, the lord of Läckö, whose castle we visited yesterday, had a town of his own built from 1672 to a strictly geometric plan he had designed himself. After that, Lidköping was two small towns, one on each side of the river. In 1683 it came back under the Crown as a single unit.

In the middle of the new town’s large square, Nya Stadens torg, stands the red Gamla Rådhuset, the town’s landmark. It was originally the count’s hunting lodge or summer house on Kållandsö, the island Läckö also stands on. It was taken by boat to the mouth of the Lidan and rebuilt as the town hall from 1672 to 1676. Today the ground floor houses the tourist information office and a café.

We spend the rest of the day in our loft and plan our journey home again. Since the weather is just right for it, we treat ourselves to a session in our sauna before dinner.

Towards evening the weather does get better after all. After the sauna we start the evening with an aperitif on the small balcony. We have non-alcoholic sparkling wine and ginger beer with nuts, crisps and olives.

After that we have pasta salad and soup.