The best cycling routes in Lindön

One of the best paved countrysode roads around Mälaren!

This road is really beautiful imho!

The Rademachersmedjorna is one of Sweden's best-preserved 17th-century environments and here are Eskilstuna's oldest preserved buildings. The area is unique in many ways. Partly because it is a preserved environment from the working class, and partly because the houses have been allowed to remain in the same place where they were once built. For 360 years, the forges have been used for various types of crafts. The first forges were completed in 1659 and formed part of Carl Gustaf's Stad's ironworks, built and named after King Karl X Gustav. The factory in Eskilstuna was Sweden's first blacksmith factory. The business was state-owned and had exclusive rights to the manufacture of a wide range of forged products. Scissors, awls, knives, locks, veining irons, gun barrels, fittings and much more were manufactured here. In every blacksmith household, in addition to the master blacksmith and his family, there were also journeymen and apprentices. Two households lived in each forge. This meant that it could get quite crowded in the homes. Working in the forge was dirty and sometimes hot, sometimes very cold. Of the blacksmith families who came to Eskilstuna together with Rademacher, about half were immigrants, mainly from Germany. Since the manufactory was state owned, the blacksmiths did not own their tools or the products they made. All goods were handed in to the superintendent. It was determined how much each blacksmith would make each week to receive his wages. However, many sold their goods on the side, secretly. At the beginning of the 18th century, the manufactory passed into private ownership. In 1771, the area became part of Eskilstuna Fristad, where blacksmiths were allowed to run businesses without guild compulsion and customs fees. The name alludes to the idea of a sanctuary for blacksmiths and arose as a reaction to the lack of business freedom that prevailed in Sweden and to the fact that the manufactories were unprofitable. During the latter part of the 19th century, the remaining forges were used as premises for some of Eskilstuna's many rapidly growing industries. The small, individual companies were merged into larger workshops. Of the original 20 forges, six remain today. In addition to the forges from the 17th century, there are some houses in the area that were built or moved to the site later. In 1906, Eskilstuna's first museum opened in one of the forges. In 1959, as part of the city's 300th anniversary, the remaining forges were turned into a cultural reserve where history and tradition are kept alive. Traditional crafts are still performed here today by self-employed people and associations.

The rune stone from the 11th century AD. has the inscription: ... did ... after Boe. Viborg was mother, Sno (was) father (?)

Really cozy garden with great food

Fiholm is a castle-like manor house and former manor as well as fideicommission next to Sörfjärden by Mälaren in Jäder parish, Eskilstuna municipality, approximately 13.5 kilometers northeast of Eskilstuna. Of the castle complex planned by Axel Oxenstierna, only two wing buildings were completed, these were built in the 1640s according to drawings by the architect Simon de la Vallée. Fiholm was already built on in the Middle Ages and remains of the oldest manor can be found in the form of a cellar under the current gardener's residence. However, there has never been any significant building.[6] When Axel Oxenstierna inherited Fiholm in 1617, he planned to have a worthy manor house built for himself and his heirs. He hired the prominent French-Swedish architect Simon de la Vallée to design a large castle complex, while the then 25-year-old Nicodemus Tessin the elder led the construction. The planned castle complex was placed near Sörfjärgen, however, without direct sea contact. From the south, west and east, three avenues extend up to the main building. Stately avenues were a way for the high nobility to underline their social status. The drawings probably existed in the 1630s and the construction work itself was carried out in the early 1640s under the direction of the German mason Herman Floren. Some changes took place in 1642, mainly in the south wing, which was later used as a stable. When the builder Oxenstierna visited the work site in the summer of 1641, the northern wing was walled up while the foundation for the southern wing had been built. He found the houses far too narrow and decided to make the southern wing two cubits (equivalent to 118.76 cm) wider, the northern one had to remain.[7] The castle's two wing buildings were designed in the Franco-Dutch Renaissance style and were completed in 1642. They are two single-storey pink-plastered brick sections under hipped gable roofs, with a section of twenty window shafts. Despite their height, de la Vallée managed to give them harmonious proportions. The sandstone portals were decorated with family coats of arms for Oxenstierna and Bååt, these as well as the sandstone ornaments around the front fireplace and skylights were made by the Stockholm master Heinrich Blume.[8] The main building itself, the high castle, was designed in 1642 by Simon de la Vallée, but it was never built, despite the fact that a lot of building material was laid out, material that was instead used in the remodeling and extension of Jäder's church.[9] Only one shaft still gossips about the construction started. The high castle was to be placed on a slightly elevated courtyard adjacent to the east of the wings. On a depiction in Sueciaverket from the end of the 1690s, the intended main building is seen from the east, in a somewhat idealized form. The four independent wings on the lake side seem to be products of imagination, as does the lake yard. More realistically and without a main building, Fiholm is shown on Gripenhielm's Mälar map from 1688/1689. The entire castle complex would have become a model example of how de la Vallée imagined a man's seat should look and at the same time become a breakthrough in Swedish architecture.[10] From de la Vallée's surviving drawings for the high castle, a two-storey building with two fixed wings facing the courtyard appears. In a degree project in the subject of information design from 2018 at Mälardalen University, an attempt was made to reconstruct the never-built main building.[11] Tradition tells of the background to the interruption of construction as follows. Axel Oxenstierna had decided on Fiholm for his son Johan. When he returned from the Westphalian peace congress, the proud father would show how far the pretentious construction had progressed. But the son was not impressed and thought that the completed wings most resembled stable buildings that he had seen in Germany. "If this is a stable, you can build the farmhouse yourself," replied Axel Oxenstierna in annoyance, and the main building was never built.[7] In his will, Axel Oxenstierna wrote about Fiholm, that this was his "most important seat farm". He also believed that "such large houses bring little benefit to a householder but great expense" (so impractical and expensive).[12] Today, the south wing is inhabited by the owner, while the north wing is empty. The northern one was sometimes used as housing for the farm's workers. The facades are in poor condition pending renovation. (Wikipedia)

On the stone it is written in runes: Ingulv and Visäte erected this stone after Bugge and Sigsten. God help their souls.

Very impressive church interior, brick Gothic at its finest, with numerous grave monuments including Princess Isabella, King Charles IX. And his wife. Christina of Schleswig-Holstein. In 2018, the grave insignia of the two, worth around €6 million, were stolen and found in a rubbish bin in 2019. In the back of the church there is a children's playroom and a church café is served.