The baroque castle of Läckö is picturesquely situated on the island of Kallandsö in Lake Vänern.
The colourful wooden houses and the sailing ships are just a few minutes behind, when the first cyclist comes from the other direction, a young woman with a heavily-packed touring bike.
An unusual sight in Sweden, according to Johan Odh, who says that people here tend to prefer racing bikes and mountain biking. The wiry man in his mid-40s, a guide and bicycle dealer, is accompanying me as we leave Mariestad, a town on the southern shore of Vänern Lake about 200km south-west of Stockholm. Travelling with touring bikes is less in demand, he says.
Out in the countryside, most Swedes drive cars and there are scarcely any separate bicycle paths. But now this apparently is to change. Each year new long-distance bike paths are being opened, with seven of them already certified as national bicycle tourism trails. And the longest of them by far is the Vänerleden route inaugurated in 2022. The route covers some 640km, circling Vänern, Sweden’s largest lake. Once around the lake by bike takes eight to 10 days.
The aim of the planners was to set down the route close to the shoreline, with as little distance on regular asphalt road as possible. You soon find out the reason why. Just after leaving Mariestad a car passes us aggressively close. Another honks at us. Luckily, guide Johan turns off into a forest trail.
Swedish schmaltz
Virtually every village on the edge of the bike route could serve as a setting for yet another schmaltzy Inga Lindström romantic film: Red wooden houses with white transom windows, overgrown with wild wine and surrounded by flowers are everywhere. After a noontime break we head up to the top of Kinnekulle, or blooming mountain. It attracts many people interested in botany. “This place is sweeter than any other,” wrote the famous naturalist Carl von Linné in the 18th century.
West of Lidköping, a new boardwalk leads through the marsh behind the beach. — Photos: FLORIAN SANKTJOHANSER/dpa
Many rare species are growing on former pastureland. In May, carpets of wild garlic and yellow anemone cover the slopes, while some of the oak trees are many centuries old. Thousands of deer thrive in the mountain forest. Their ancestors were once upon a time set out into the wild by the large landowners for hunting purposes and have diligently multiplied since then. “They eat up everything in your garden,” Johan says.
“I’ve given up planting anything any more.”
The trail rises steeply. An owl, wings flapping, flies over the path while a sea eagle is circling high over the forest. The Kinnekulle is Johan’s home turf, and several times a week he pedals his way up its slopes. The trail goes past a lake in a former stone quarry. A few stand-up paddlers are out in the turquoise-hued waters.
Over the past few years new barbecue pits were built, toilets installed and the hiking trail around the lakeshore extended. The campgrounds are completely occupied. Proceeding past the lake, Johan again energetically pedals onwards.
The 19m-high observation tower on the Killekulle was built in 1892.
The soil trail ends in a forest clearing: The summit of Kinnekulle, 306m high. To help visitors to get a bit of summit euphoria, there’s a 19m-high lookout tower dating back to 1892. From up there, the view is of the steely-blue Vänern Lake, while off in the distance there are windmills and the white towers of Läckö Castle standing in the dark forest of a peninsula. The lake is as expansive as the sea, and even on this calm day you can make out whitecaps in the waters. Johan says that in stormy weather, the waves can be as high as 2m. Last summer two young Germans drowned while trying to kayak to a group of islands in the middle of the lake.
Leaving the summit, Johan pedals through forests and fields on winding paths and narrow trails down to the town of Trolmen. The day ends in a bed and breakfast there, from whose terrace visitors look across sun-drenched pastures where mighty cows are grazing.
In the summer, many Norwegians and Swedes come to camp and swim at Vänern Lake, the young owner of the B&B reports. The lake may be just as clear as the deeper Vättern Lake a bit to the south-east, but it is clearly warmer.
A summer idyll
The next day presents many opportunities to test this. A glistening morning sun makes the waving grass shine, while two storks are stalking across a field. The studded tyres of our bicycles roll over a car-free country road, lined by a few farms with barns the size of halls.
Otherwise, there’s nothing but wide-open spaces. At each intersection or branch in the trail, bright-red signposts indicate the way of the Vänerleden route. Nevertheless, on this day we veer away from the path – but voluntarily and in the best of moods.
For, according to three hikers from Stockholm we met the evening before, you simply should not pass up the bathing area Blombergs Badplats. This shallow bay is framed by rounded slabs of rock along with reeds, birch and pine trees. A chain of rocky mini-islands protects the bay from waves, making for safe swimming conditions.
Relaxed after the swim, we proceed to pedal along among summer houses built atop stilts. Beyond the broad bay the industrial towers of the city of Lidköping can be seen. The biking idyll ends at some railroad tracks, with the route running alongside them straight into the city, past shopping centres and bungalows.
But, Lidköping’s city centre is pretty. The old Town Hall – a four-storey red spire – dominates the spacious Nya Stadens square. Through the harbour, past the Rörstrand Museum of Porcelain and the Vänermuseet Museum, you again cycle out towards the suburbs with their tidily-kept houses. – dpa
