# Freki presents Sweden



## madonnagirl (Aug 7, 2011)

great photos of your road trip.
nice rural scenes and the cities are equally nice and neat.


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## Linguine (Aug 10, 2009)

Beautiful photos of Sweden, thanks for sharing them FREKI...:cheers:


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## FREKI (Sep 27, 2005)

Thanks guys! :cheers1:


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## Skyprince (May 2, 2006)

Like this. Would be interesting to know, coming from a neighboring country how does Sweden feel immediately after crossing the border ?

And Swedish pronounciation must be hard... I think vast majority of us cannot say "Linkoping" and "Goteborg" correctly at first attempt


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## FREKI (Sep 27, 2005)

^:cheers:


Skyprince said:


> Would be interesting to know, coming from a neighboring country how does Sweden feel immediately after crossing the border ?


The Scandinavian nations are very similar ( all used to be Danish ) so it's not a major change, especially not right after the border as that part have been Danish much longer than it ever has Swedish 

For most outside the Nordic countries I don't think they would notice any major differences - generally it's more details such as different road signs, shops and of course the spelling differs as Danish and Swedish have gone in different directions such Norse was spoken..

Overall the main difference between the nations is the nature:

Denmark is flat farmland scattered over a ton of islands with lots of sandy beaches..

Sweden is hilly, covered in forest with lakes with rugged coastline with lots of rocks..

Norway is mountains, mountains and more mountains..




Of course there are other differences such as urbanity, work rights, wages etc.. but for the tourist outside of the Nordics I think the only real noticeable difference is nature..


Skyprince said:


> And Swedish pronounciation must be hard... I think vast majority of us cannot say "Linkoping" and "Goteborg" correctly at first attempt


Yeah 

Danish differs quite a bit in pronunciation too - but growing up with Swedish TV available and with news from our neighboring country we get used to the names, even though they would be pronounced very differently if read in Danish 

For an non Nordic tourists it's usually better to use English as all speak that then trying to pronounce any of the Scandinavian languages - while much of English originates from it, time and French influence have separated the languages some..


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## manba (Jul 23, 2009)

Freki very interesting journey, beautiful photos of landscapes, it's nice to be surrounded by nature, forest and farm animals.
Besides seeing these beautiful and peaceful towns of Sweden, which are a delight to the view.


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## T3amgeist (Sep 23, 2008)

Great pics. Sweden is my favorite country, have been there for 2 weeks this year. Its so peacefull und natural.


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## FREKI (Sep 27, 2005)

Thanks guys! :cheers1:


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## yabbes (Sep 18, 2011)

thanks freki nice pictures.. 
i also like the ones you took from your car  how did you do it that they are so sharp? very nice. i like this region, too.. ive only been to the very south of sweden where people still speak a weird variety of danish : scania  i liked ittttt

but yeah most people say sweden gets really beautiful north of stockholm^^ which i can understand but it is sad cause it is soooo far up there, even from scania to stockholm is like crossing germany north to south, how can i possibly get that far up?!?!  i will never see 

i think sweden is one of the most favourite countries of all germans. everybody loves weden and wants to go there for holiday... my experience is that italians or spaniards go to paris on holiday to visit the city while germans like to go camping in swedish countryside and be happy


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## Moridin2002 (Aug 8, 2011)

Beautiful pictures! But i must correct you on the part that Sweden have
belonged to Denmark. Sweden was in an union with Denmark and
the king of the union was from Denmark


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## -nixon- (May 14, 2009)

Wonderful pictures and what a great tour of the Swedish landscape. 
The thing that strikes me the most is how similar the cities look, not in a bad way but still it feels like its the same small scale architecture with cute and small pedestrian streets in all swedish mid sized cities.


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## FREKI (Sep 27, 2005)

Thanks all! :cheers1:



Moridin2002 said:


> Beautiful pictures! But i must correct you on the part that Sweden have
> belonged to Denmark. Sweden was in an union with Denmark and
> the king of the union was from Denmark


Sorry mate but not true.. 

Not only was it never a Union ( that was made up by historians later, it was a treaty as in the "Treaty of Kalmar" ) but Sweden was never a real nation prior to the Kalmar, just a long list of tribes ruled by a large clan..

The Swedish lands become a part of Denmark under the Danish royal family who ruled sovereignty completely - the Swedish lands had no sovereignity whatsoever..


It was made an independant nation after a civil war were an non royal local politician was made King by the break away region - this is also the day you celebrate yearly as it was your birth as a nation..

So while it can be tempting I would advice against romantizing the past regarding Sweden as a nation pre the Kalmar - it was clan fighting and tribal warfare mixed with the black death Denmark accepted you guys and brought control and civilization to your lands, in return your ironming backed insurgents waged wars against us for centuries... for shame..
( while at the topic there were no real Swedish vikings either, only traders following the Geats and Goths into Russia while we were conqoring France and England and discovering new continents )


But oh well - the ending was pretty happy for us both - only the Geats got f**cked over big time, but hey it's not the first time they got that :cheers1:


In any case I had a great trip and will be visiting our breakaway region again in a matter of weeks


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## Jennifat (Aug 7, 2005)

What a fascinating thread, Freki! Everything looks top-notch and idyllic in Sweden. I love all of the brightly-colored buildings and cityscapes. It's too bad you didn't make it through Lidköping, where my great-grandparents are from.

The countryside in Sweden looks _exactly_ like Minnesota where I live, with the spruce forests and the lakes. I can see why so many immigrants from Sweden decided to make Minnesota their home.


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## Expat (May 25, 2005)

Looks like paradise! Beautiful pictures!


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## Adde (May 8, 2011)

FREKI said:


> Thanks all! :cheers1:
> 
> 
> Sorry mate but not true..
> ...


Ha ha that's such bullshit (no offense). I'm an archaeologist and yeah, not true. 

First of all, the Kalmar Union was a union, Sweden did not "belong" to Denmark. The union was ruled, for a time, by a single king, by treaty agreed upon by nobles from all three kingdoms. The first king of the union was Erik of Pommern, who wasn't Danish, Swedish or Norweigan. He was the son of Count Vratislav VII of Pommern (which lies mostly in present day Poland). The reason he was chose was because he was the son of queen Margareta's neice, and queen Margareta adopted him. 
Margreta was of course a Danish princess who married the king of Sweden and Norway, Håkan Magnusson (who was the grandson of the legendary Swedish king Magnus Ladulås). Margareta became queen of Denmark, Norway and Sweden after her father (the king of Denmark), her son (the king of Norway) and her husband (the king of Sweden) all died. 

Margareta died without an heir, and so the nobles of all three countries met at Kalmar castle in 1397 and elected Margareta's adopted son Erik king of all three countries. Each country kept its own laws and customs. 

The union only lasted until 1448, when Erik of Pommern's successor Kristofer died, and Sweden and Norway chose their own regents. After that, Sweden and Norway only chose to be part of the Union intermittently, and Sweden finally broke with the union for good when the Union king Kristian II went to war against Sweden because the Swedish nobles decided to not recognize him as king. Kristian II eventually lost and Gustav Vasa was chosen king of Sweden in 1523. 


As to Sweden not being a unified kingdom before the Kalmar Union? That's just not true either. As early as the 970's, Erik Segersäll ruled over large parts of modern day Sweden (Mälardalen, Västergötland, Östergötland). During the first 150-200 years, there were some wars and internal struggles, but there were several kings who ruled over a unified Sweden during that period. After Birger Jarl, who ruled during the first half of the 1200's, "Riksbyggandet" was pretty much done, the Swedish monarchy was well established and the core of the country unified for good. 

And sorry to burst your bubble, but all germanic-speaking people of the Nordic countries are considered "vikings". In fact, there are more rune stones mentioning participation in viking raids (including raids in England) to be found in Mälardalen than any other part of Scandinavia. Yeah, people in Scandinavia generally went in different directions depending on where they lived, but they were all "vikings". The Swedes (people of Mälardalen) for instance, supposedly founded Kievan Rus, which later developed into Russia, and there are 9th century descriptions by Arab travellers of "Rus" warriors (the Swedes were called Rus in Eastern Europe) travelling the Russian rivers looking for slaves and riches. 

(If we're gonna be technically correct though, only those who went on raids were "vikings". Those who stayed behind and worked the farm should not technically be called vikings. But since the period of ca 750-1050 is called the "Viking age" in Scandinavian archaeology, we usually call all Norse people of the period vikings.)


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## FREKI (Sep 27, 2005)

^you not recognizing the ruling family or the nation you were part of back then is your choice but it doesn't change the past... Kalmar was under the Danish kingdom, under Danish rule and the land ours, that is what drove locals to rebal and why it ended up breaking up..


And the same about recognizing reality or not goes for whom you call "vikings" or not..


Anywhoo.. just came back from another trip to Sweden today.. we visited the former capital of Denmark "Lund"


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## Adde (May 8, 2011)

FREKI said:


> ^you not recognizing the ruling family or the nation you were part of back then is your choice but it doesn't change the past... Kalmar was under the Danish kingdom, under Danish rule and the land ours, that is what drove locals to rebal and why it ended up breaking up..
> 
> 
> And the same about recognizing reality or not goes for whom you call "vikings" or not..


Come on, this is my job - I spent six years at the University studying this stuff. The scientific consensus is not on your side, it just isn't. Denmark was certainly very important in the Kalmar Union, because Denmark was the richest and most powerful country in Scandinavia at the time, but you just can't characterize the Kalmar Union as "Sweden and Norway being part of Denmark". 

The fact that Norway and Sweden kept their laws and customs, and took part in choosing the king of the Union (remember, this was not a hereditary kingdom, but a elective one where the king had to be elected by the nobles of each country) clearly shows that the three countries didn't form "one country" under the absolute rule of one part of it. 

The danish royal family before the Union ended with queen Margareta. The subsequent kings of the Union were generally not danish but taken from outside of Scanidinavia (Erik was from Pommern in present day Germany, Kristofer was from Bavaria, and Kristian I who founded the subsequent danish royal family of Oldenburg, was born in Oldenburg in Germany and was count of Holstein through his mother). 

And Kalmar was never danish. Kalmar lies in Småland, which always belonged to Sweden. One of the reasons Kalmar castle was built by the swedish king Magnus Ladulås in the 1280's was because it was the Swedish town that lay closest to the border between Sweden and Denmark. This central position in Scandinavia was probably the reason that the town was chosen as the place where the Kalmar Union was created. 

And the viking thing is just silly. Open any text book in the world about the viking period and they will all say the same thing - all germanic speaking people of the nordic countries (Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Iceland) are referred to as vikings. They had the same material culture, virtually the same language, an elite that was tightly connected through marriages and family ties, and they all sent out raiding (as well as trading) parties towards the west, south and east.


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## SthlmSöder (Jul 29, 2009)

^^ Nice one mate! Adde


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