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https://www.theguardian.com/travel/2026/aug/13/soderasen-national-park-sweden-forest-far-south>
"From the bus window, the ridge looks like a giant slumbering beast stretched
deep green across the flat farmland. “It feels alive,” I say to the woman
beside me. “Yes,” she answers. “It is where you would run for safety, don’t you
think?”
I am in southern Sweden to explore Söderåsen national park, established in 2001
to protect more than 1,600 hectares (4,000 acres) of the larger Söderåsen
ridgeline. Shaped over millennia by immense geological collisions, fractures,
volcanic eruptions and ice ages, today it is one of northern Europe’s largest
continuous protected broadleaf forests, and only 90 minutes by car from
Copenhagen or, in my case, two hours by public transport.
The little village of Röstånga at the gateway to the park is where travellers
stop for supplies from the supermarket before disappearing into the forest on
foot, bike or horseback, and people gather for food, live music and art.
My room for the first night is in Villa Söderåsen, a grand timber-framed yellow
and white guesthouse, which has stood at the park’s entrance since 1904. It was
built for tourists arriving via the new railway in search of connection to
nature. Sebastian and Åsa, the owners, want to continue that tradition. “We
humans are as loud as elephants in the wood,” says Sebastian. “Sit quietly for
half an hour and see what happens.”
That evening, I eat with strangers at long wooden tables outside the hip
restaurant and live music venue Stationen. Music drifts out of open doors,
adults chat around the fire, children run circles around us.
A hiker’s boots and pack sit under a tree next to a lake in the forest.
The next morning, Åsa recommends I take a dip in Odensjön (Odin’s Lake). “Some
say it is bottomless,” she says. It’s almost perfectly round, edged by steep
beech-covered slopes, and fed by underground springs. Fifteen minutes into the
forest and I am there.
A woman making her way back to the village says: “There is a rock in the water,
heated by the sun, sit there, let your body adjust.”
Grasshoppers trill, spider silk trails from branches, noble chafer beetles
glimmer like the aurora borealis, a dragonfly rests electric-blue on my now
empty walking boots. I swim, the circle of blue sky rippling, and emerge ready
for anything."
Via Susan ****
Share and enjoy,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
