Our trip to Helsingborg

Cameron loves the announcements on the trains:
Öresundståg - Med Lund, Helsingborg

- Essentially, the Öresunds train from Malmö Central goes via Lund to Helsingborg.

So when the other two families from Australia (the second family arrived last week) wanted to go for a drive somewhere to get used to driving in Sweden, Helsingborg seemed like as good a place as any.  It's about 50minutes away and 40 minutes of that is straight along a freeway.

Firstly for the history nerds like me (if you just want details of our trip skip to the line of ===== below):

Helsingborg is one of the oldest cities in Sweden, being formerly part of Denmark.  Its neighboring city across the Øresund (the strait between Sweden and Denmark) is Helsingør and this is the narrowest part of the strait.  When Denmark held both cities (prior to 1657) it allowed them to effectively control the strait and also ship men and supplies between the two land masses.  Skåne (Southwest Sweden - where Malmö and Helsingborg are located) is known as the breadbasket of Sweden as it has very fertile soil and excellent farming.  So that made Skåne and hence Helsingborg very important to Denmark.  The city (as well as the rest of Skåne) was surrendered from Denmark to Sweden after the treaty of Roskilde in 1658 following the Dano-Swedish war of 1657-1658.


Essentially Denmark suffered a major defeat in the war against Sweden (when Sweden captured most of the Zealand region of Denmark) and yielded to the treaty of Roskilde - one third of its land in order to save the rest.


Denmark made several attempts to recapture Helsingborg but failed or were not able to hold it.  Finally in 1710 they landed 14,000 men and attacked the town.  They failed but the town was badly damaged and its population reduced severely.  The next year, the plague spread through Helsingborg, reducing it to only a few hundred citizens.

Since then it has grown rapidly and now hosts a ferry service to Helsingør, which was the main access to Denmark, and hence the European continent, prior to the Öresund bridge.
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We arrived in Helsingborg about 10:30am and the first thing we noticed was the massive Town Hall, dating from the late 19th Century.  (well the first thing was the coffee shop that we needed after a long, cold drive, but the Town Hall was impressive)

Helsingborg Town Hall

Helsingborg Town Hall

Statue of Magnus Stenbock outside Town Hall.  Magnus successfully defended Helsingborg from the Danish in the battle for Helsingborg in 1700, one of the bloodiest battles in Swedish history.

The kids on one of the fountains (dry for winter) in Helsingborg.

Our next stop was Kärnen castle in Helsingborg (translation: The Core).  It is one of the few structures in the city to survive all of the wars with Denmark.  It was built in the 1300s and the main tower and part of the wall remain.

Helsingborg map - 1400s

Plaque on the map

(Translation of the plaque: Helsingborg, Year 1400, The City Model is a gift that was presented by the Guild of Old Helsingborg in 2006 to Helsingborg City.  The owner of the initiative was the guild Alderman Bengt Lindskog, who also served as an expert regarding medieval topography and buildings.  The gift was made possible by the following donors: (list of donors follows).)

There were still a few Christmas decorations up at the Castle:

Christmas Decorations at Kärnen 

Kärnen entrance

Statue outside Kärnen

My photos of Kärnen didn't turn out the best due to the rain, but it was pretty impressive:

Kärnen Entrance, from first flight of steps

Kärnen Tower

Details about the tower:

Kärnen Tower Sign

Steps up to the Tower

The view from the walls was pretty cool - we didn't get the view from the top of the tower as it was closed for Winter.

View from the first flight of stairs

View from the top of the walls

Panoramic view from the top of the walls

Dragon statues on the stair rails

After leaving the tower we headed back into Helsingborg to get some lunch at the ICA Nara.

Streets of Helsingborg

After lunch we decided to head back to our place for some coffee and Christmas biscuits.  Tomorrow Kris, the kids and I are off to Göteborg for a two day trip so we needed to get packing.

We had a taste of Aussie on the Classic Rock Radio Station of the way home