Day 476: Gammelstad Church Town

This WHS is a church town, where basically the entire town exists around the church. But in an unusual sense - because of the vast distances covered by the parish here in this sparsely populated area, people had to spent an entire day or more travelling to church for festivals and Sunday services. So they would have a small cottage in the town which they only stayed in before or after church, then headed home.

There were a few villages like this up in the remote north of Sweden, but this is the only one which survived as it didn't burn down, and also because the town had to move! It was partly a river port but due to land uplift (see earlier entry!) and silting, the river changed course and the entire town moved a few kilometres downstream (and is now Lulea). So it never got modernised, the old wooden town is just sitting there much as it always has done. And interestingly, although the houses are privately owned (and some though not all have water and electricity), owners are prevented by law from living in them for more than a couple of days a month.

We spent a good couple of hours wandering around and filming - it's not a huge town but quite interesting. Very spooky and quiet as nobody lives there! Quite well preserved though, and the church was nice too.

Though we were finished by lunch time, so we had some supermarket salads and then headed back to the campsite where we chilled out for a couple of hours in the TV room. Late afternoon we took Schnitzel to the vet since he needs a worming tablet recorded in his pet passport before heading to Finland and Norway. Got that done very cheaply, then headed to McDonalds for the evening to use more wifi!Read more