Exploring the Bohuslän coast, West Sweden

Sarah Baxter returns to West Sweden to explore the coast and islands of the Bohuslän coast

The graceful white villa shone in the early-evening light. Its lawn, confettied with the season’s first fall of leaves, sloped to two Adirondack chairs – I took a seat. Beyond, the land dropped down a forested ridge to the lake-like inner fjord. The sinking sun painted the sky peachy, caught the water’s ruffles, cast shadows on the scattered isles. A spectacular scene.

Ellika Mogenfelt interrupted my moment. “Would you like a glass of champagne?” she asked. “I’ve got a bottle open.” Well, if you insist.

Sarah enjoying the views from Villa Sjötorp with a glass of champagne. Photo: Richard Hammond

Villa Sjötorp was built as a summerhouse by Ellika’s great-grandfather in 1901, when Lyckorna, on West Sweden’s Bohuslän coast, was a newly fashionable spa town. It was sold by the family when Ellika was little but, in 1995, she bought it back. Following a painstaking restoration, it’s now a rustic-chic retreat by the sea, with an exquisite restaurant: food is organic and local-sourced – ethically-reared chickens, grass-fed beef, foraged mushrooms and berries – and served on organic Ekelund tablecloths, woven in Sweden. Not only has Ellika salvaged a magnificent old building, she’s opened it for others to enjoy, year-round.

Villa Sjötorp is also a member of West Sweden’s Stepping up Sustainability initiative, which aims to limit tourism’s environmental impact, ensure the industry works for both residents and visitors, and encourage visits outside peak months. Lazing on that chair, with that view, drinking champagne on a dazzling autumn evening, I felt I’d found green-travel heaven.

Villa Sjötorp was built by Ellika’s great-grandfather in 1901. Photos: Richard Hammond

However, Sjötorp was just one stop on my off-season, eco-focused adventure, hopping between some of Bohuslän’s 8,000 isles and skerries. It was an adventure that had begun a few days before, with a Eurostar ride and a night in Brussels, then a day – book-reading, day-dreaming – on the train to Copenhagen; here, the Capsule Hotel in trendy Vesterbro provided a confined but low-cost sleep. By lunchtime the following day, I was on the ferry from Gothenburg to my first port of call: Styrsö, in the southern Gothenburg archipelago.

The island won me over immediately. It was quiet, leafy, car-free and cost less than £3 to reach – quite the change from the 19th century, when Styrsö was a fancy wellness resort for the city’s elite. Karolina Martinson filled me in on some history as we cycled the winding lanes. But ultimately she wanted to show me something else: the beauty of seaweed.

Karolina Martinson extols the many virtues of seaweed. Photo: Richard Hammond

Karolina is a seaweed diver and passionate advocate for “connecting people with the ocean again”. Her tours can involve foraging by snorkel, then creating beach picnics using this most sustainable of ingredients: seaweeds are full of nutrients, but also nurture biodiversity, improve water quality and store greenhouse gases.

“There are so many things that are tasty, good for us and good for nature,” she told me as we scrambled to a tucked-away bay and she pulled on her wetsuit. “When I first came here, people thought I was strange,” she admitted. “I talked to older people about seaweed; some remembered using it as fertiliser, but they’d never thought of eating it.”

This is a mind-set Karolina would like to change – and it’s an easy sell when you taste the spoils. After harvesting various wracks and weeds, she whipped up a feast of spicy sugar-kelp salad, cheese wrapped in fried gutweed and rose-hip soup with caramelised kelp. Being eco-friendly never tasted so good.

Spicy sugar-kelp salad, cheese wrapped in fried gutweed and rose-hip soup with caramelised kelp. Photos: Richard Hammond

After leaving Styrsö, I hired a hybrid car and headed up the coast, first for a blissful night at Villa Sjötorp, then to meet Janne Bark at Musselbarren, his restaurant in the converted old clocktower in Lyckorna. What Karolina is doing for seaweed, Janne is doing for Bohuslän’s blue mussels: that is, big up the benefits of the ‘blue gold of the sea’.

“They’re packed with vitamins and minerals but have a really low climate impact,” Janne explained when I joined one of his boat trips to the mussel farms offshore. “It’s a no-brainer to eat them – literally, they don’t have a brain.” Janne is also keen to show their versatility: “You can fry them, steam them, do risotto, make mussel meatballs.” Janne even tried concocting a mussel gin in his micro-distillery. “It was… strange,” he admits; however, one of his best-sellers is Fräkne Tång, the distillery’s seaweed gin.

Janne Bark at Musselbarren bigs up the benefits of the ‘blue gold of the sea’. Photos: Richard Hammond

Belly full of blue superfoods, I continued north, and over the bridge to Smögen. The history was starting to sound familiar: like Styrsö and Lyckorna, during the 19th century this small fishing isle became a popular health resort. Smögens Hafvsbad opened as a seaside sanatorium in 1900, but has modernised since, with a large spa and a commitment to sustainability, including the use of geothermal energy. It’s also open year-round, helping to encourage visitors off-season.

This is what Dulce Ahlberg is trying to do too. Dulce is the founder of Island of Light, a light-art festival held here every September. “It’s about beauty, creativity and working not just in nature, but with nature,” she told me. “We don’t pollute anything, and we collaborate with the marine recycling centre, which collects tonnes of discarded fishing gear – at least one artist uses materials from the centre in their work.”

That evening, as darkness fell, I walked the art trail from Smögen’s picture-perfect harbour. It was part playful fluorescence, part shimmering reflections; it was eons evoked in choreographed sound and light. I’ll say no more: it’s better to turn up and be wowed.

Rocks are used as the canvas as Smögen’s Island of Light festival. Photo: Richard Hammond

If the Island of Light festival used nature as a backdrop, my final destination, Kosterhavet, let nature take centre stage. This is Sweden’s first marine national park, where cars are banned, the is pace blissfully slow and the underwater world is home to species found nowhere else.

Sarah on one of severals trips between the islands by ferry. Photo: Richard Hammond

I took the ferry to South Koster and checked into Kläpphagen, a hip retreat that’s upped the food game on this time-warp isle: local, organic and seasonal ingredients are cooked from scratch, over fire, in incredible ways. But that was for later. First, I grabbed a bicycle and rode down leafy lanes to meet Gustav Waldås of Koster Adventures, for a kayak trip into the marine park.

The sun was blazing and there was barely a soul in sight as we paddled amid a maze of islets and skerries. I was glad to have Gustav leading the way – I’d soon have gotten lost. We squeezed through gullies, skimmed oyster beds, poked into crevices and eventually hauled up on a sandy cove. The water sparkled so invitingly that I couldn’t resist a dip. Indeed, the only thing that dragged me out was the temptation of fika. Tucking into hot coffee and a hunk of Gustav’s Mum’s banana bread, I looked out across the white sand, smooth granite and crystal-clear ripples. No champagne this time, but another spectacular West Sweden scene.

Sarah surveying the white sand and smooth granite on the Koster Islands. Photo: Richard Hammond

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Disclosure: Sarah Baxter was a guest of West Sweden Tourism Board. She had full editorial control of this feature, which has been written in her own words based on her experience of visiting the Bohuslän coast. All opinions are the authors’ own.

More information: Karolina Martinson's seaweed tours: www.algblomman.com

West Sweden: www.vastsverige.com/en

How to travel to West Sweden without flying:

Travel flight-free by train from London to Gothenburg in West Sweden with just one overnight stop en route by travelling on Eurostar from London St Pancras via Brussels, Cologne, Hamburg and Copenhagen. Take an afternoon or evening Eurostar to Brussels Midi station (or if you're coming from the East of England, take the ferry from Harwich to Hoek van Holland and then train to Brussels) where you stay overnight then in the morning take the high-speed Thalys or ICE trains to Cologne where there's an easy same-station platform change to take another train to Hamburg and then on to Copenhagen. Alternatively, you could take a morning Eurostar to Brussels to change (within the station) to the train to Hamburg where you stay overnight then catch the morning train to Gothenburg, arriving about 6.30pm. For more details, and to book the trip, see our guide to How to travel flight-free from the UK to West Sweden

For more ideas on where to stay, local food, things to see and do in West Sweden, see our guide to Climate Smart Holidays in West Sweden