🙂 Sleepy town. Crayfish safari!
🙁 Too many murders for a small town! 🙂
Close to the border with Norway and a 90-minute drive from Gothenburg, Fjallbacka has some of the country’s most spectacular scenery and is a hugely popular holiday destination for Swedes. Our hotel was so gorgeous and right on the harbour.
Ingrid Bergman (Swedish Actress) loved it here too – she spent every summer on the nearby island of Dannholmen. There’s a small tribute to her by the harbour. There is a photograph of a boy receiving a prize from Bergman for a sailing regatta, Ingemar. who now runs boat trips.
Fortunately, away from Lackberg’s Nordic noir novels, the only screams in summer are of children by the waterfront angling for ice creams and excited Lackberg fans spotting the locations for murders.
As summer ends, the lobster season gets under way. Fishermen in the nearby village of Grebbestad run crustacean safaris. We set sail under cloudless skies with brothers Per and Lars. In these parts, lobsters are known as ‘black gold’ and each one sells for about £40 a kilo.
They are highly prized since the cold water means that they grow slowly and have exceptional flavour. Since this is an orderly society, every lobster is measured and the small ones and the pregnant ones (where eggs can be seen) are put back in the water. And since this is a civilised safari, we have fika – coffee and biscuits – during a break. Another passenger brings out some schnapps and I feel myself becoming more Nordic by the minute!
We did manage to bag a few crabs and crayfish to cook back at the hotel.
After disembarking we were quite cold so the warm fire in the hotel was very cosy and welcome!
