Europe > Sweden > Stockholm > Gothenburg > Articles > Gadding Around in Gothenburg

The trams glide through Gothenburg with the easy air of well-worn, well-loved things, along boulevards lined with 17th and 18th-century buildings, beside wide canals, past café-lined pavements and bustling shops filled with designer classics both retro and modern.

In a recent opinion poll, over half of Sweden said they wanted to live in Gothenburg - hardly surprising for the country’s most cosmopolitan, walkable, fun-loving city. And that’s without taking account of the best restaurants in Scandinavia and a café culture second to none.

Gothenburg has always celebrated wide horizons and energy, from its early years as the HQ of the Swedish East India Company when exotic goods poured onto the Gota river quayside to its current position as Scandinavia’s most important port (home, too, of the only Swedish companies most people know, Volvo and Ericsson).

Commerce, though, hums quietly in the background while the locals get on with enjoying the good things in life. Now cultured types head to the harbour for its modernist waterside opera house, while tourists explore a trio of ship-based maritime museums or hop aboard pleasure cruises from the Lilla Bomen pier. Pioneering Gothenburgers, meanwhile, are bringing a buzz of regeneration to Norra Alvstranden on the harbour’s north side where old dockland is being turned into a new modern quarter in an echo of the path followed by 80s London and 90s Amsterdam.

All this activity needs sustenance. Gothenburg, not Stockholm, is Sweden's undisputed gourmet capital, with the superb natural larder of the surrounding Bohuslan region - world-class seafood, venison, a panoply of berries - underpinning a wonderful array of Michelin-starred hotspots and atmospheric neighbourhood hangouts alike.

As the weather warms, Sweden's greenest city gives itself over to park life in places like the world-class Botanic Gardens (www.gotbot.se) or Slottsskogen with its herds of elk, observatory and small zoo. The al fresco living culminates in a boisterous "Party Week" (August 5-13 this year) of outdoor celebrations in the midnight sun.

And if things get too hot, the water is never far away. Island-hop through the city's archipelago or head for the brightly-coloured clapboard houses and seafood restaurants of ravishing coastal towns within easy striking distance of the city - Gullholmen, a former herring port turned fashionable resort, Smogen with its restaurant-lined old wooden pier, or Fjallbacka, where Ingrid Bergman came for summers holidays over two decades. And who better to recognise a place where warmth is allied with style?

CAFES
Caffeine helps fuel the Gothenburg buzz. Here are a half dozen of the best places to join in the local ritual of "fika" (coffee and cake):

Café Publik (Andra Langgatan 20) - Funky 60s decor with a tattered edge draws in cooler students alongside the hipsters on Linne's main street.

Isomac (Magasinsgatan 19, www.isomaccoffeehouse.se) - Mies Van Der Rohe’s iconic 'Barcelona' sofas, coffee tastings and lessons in espresso machine technique!

Café Husaren (Haga nygata 26) - Beautiful Jugendstil lights, aged wood panels and the largest cinnamon buns in the city.

Café Brogyllen (Vastra Hamngatan 2) - Canal view, clean-lined modern style plus (reputedly) the best patisserie in town

George du Wal (Kyrkogatan 32) - The coffee's good but locals come here for English-style afternoon tea with an Art Nouveau backdrop

Café Wanselius (Magasinsgatan 5) - A series of pastel rooms, slouchable seating and cool background sounds attract a mixed set of stylish locals.

MUST SEE
Liseberg (Korsvagen, 031 400 100, www.liseberg.se, £4) is northern Europe’s largest amusement park, home to the classic Balder, the largest and highest wooden roller coaster in Scandinavia, plus this year’s newest attraction, the terrifying Kanonen roller coaster (0-50mph in 2 sec plus two 90 degree sections). From mid-November, a superb Christmas market supplies a winter glow.

A half-hour ride on tram 11 brings you to the pleasant harbour at Saltholmen, jumping off point for boats to Gothenburg's southern Archipelago. Regular ferries (www.styrsobolaget.com, returns £4) make the short trip to the most popular islands. The nearest, Branno, features summer houses converted from fishermen's shacks, while the largest island - Styrso - has a permanent population enjoying pine-clad landscape and sandy coves. The furthest of the main islands is Vrango, which has a perfect lagoon with a great beach.

Behind the giant statue of Poseidon at the top of Avenyn, Gothenburg's equivalent to Oxford Street, the Konstmuseum (Gotaplatsen, 46 31 61 29 80, www.konstmuseum.goteborg.se, £4) showcases one of the world's finest collections of Nordic painting, plus good Impressionist and 20th century collections. There’s also regular photographic exhibitions in the museum’s Hasselblad Centre (00 46 31 203 530, www.hasselbladcentre.o.se.

By the Vallgraven canal in the city centre, Trädgårdsföreningens Park (00 46 31 611883, free entry) has a Palm House that pays homage to London's 19th-century Crystal Palace, as well as Europe's largest rosarium, a tropical butterfly house and an eye-catching modernist restaurant (see below).

The East Indiaman 'Gotheborg' (Eriksberg, 031 779 34 50, www.soic.se, £10 - children free) embodies the city's maritime past with a full-sized reconstruction of the vessel which sank in the harbour in 1745 after a voyage from China. In memory of this, the ship will set to sail for a return trip to China in late 2005.

The Rohss Museum (Vasagatan 37-39, 031 61 38 50, www.designmuseum.se, £3.50) is Sweden's only specialist design and crafts museum housed in a simple 1960s brick building, covering 4000 years of design from ancient China onwards but with strong emphasis on modern Scandinavian.

IF TIME ALLOWS
Gunnebo (031 334 1600, www.gunneboslott.se, £10 inc house/garden tour - children free ) is an elegant 18th century summer residence built for John Hall, one of many Gothenburg-based English traders, set in parkland between two lakes south of the city. Its restaurant serves an 18th-century menu - rosemary-baked saddle of lamb with salt-baked beets, seafood in aspic - in the evenings and daytime Saturday - and there are concerts by Swedish stars such as chamber group Corona Artis and theatre performances (Chekhov’s The Bear this year) to liven summer evenings by the lake.

The island of Marstrand (www.marstrand.org) is Gothenburg's favourite seaside hangout, its bright harbourside clapboard buildings set around a harbour overlooked by the Carlsten Fortress. Get there by in about 40 minutes by boat from Lilla Bomen pier or take bus 312.

Once Haga was Gothenburg’s working class district but now its cobbled streets are home to chi-chi shops selling retro design and classic fashion. The Hagabadet spa (Sodra Allegatan 3, 00 46 31 600 602, www.hagabadet.se) is a former 19th-century bathhouse transformed into a plush Art Deco-style spa. Day entry inc pools and one treatment such as aroma massage £45.

EATING OUT
No Expense Spared

Fond (Gotaplatsen, 031 81 25 80, www.fondrestaurang.com) Michelin-starred cooking in a modern glass and steel space by the art museum, where chef Stefan Carlson works wonders with accompaniments in dishes like poached brill with fennel confit and roast salsify. Mains from £25.

Kock & Vin (Viktoriagatan 12, 00 31 701 79 79, www.kockvin.se) Per Jonsson allies dashes of Heston Blumenthal-style molecular gastronomy with more straightforward Bohuslan dishes in a simple white-walled dining room. Tasting menus - smoked eel with a cauliflower foam, reindeer heart with poached quail egg - from £30 for four small courses.

Mid-range

Tradgarn (in Trädgårdsföreningens Park, 00 31 10 20 90, www.tradgarn.se) Closed Sat-Sun lunch The towering glass frontage of this beautiful restaurant provides a view of the surrounding park, though design buffs may focus on the soaring pale wood walls and classic modern lighting. Simple, robust dishes like rack of lamb in citrus broth and celery mash. Mains from £15

Gabriel (Feskekorka, Fisktorget, 031 13 90 51) It takes a town devoted to seafood to have a "Fish Church" - a canalside 19th-century fish market -whose mezzanine restaurant serves a superb seafood buffet as well as simple fish of the day plates such as fried plaice with mushrooms. Mains from £12.

Budget

Alexandras (Saluhallen, Kungstorget, no phone) A Gothenburg institution, Alexandras serves delicious bowl food - rich meat stews, fish soups - to locals who grab a seat at the counter once the handful of check-clothed tables are gone. Mains from £5.

Café Kronhuset (Kronhusbodarna, Postgatan 6-8, 00 31711 08 32, www.cafekronhuset.se) Gothenburg’s oldest building - a wooden gem from 1643 in a cobbled courtyard - offering fine salads and gravadlax in a cosy, fireplace-warmed interior. Mains from £6

NIGHTLIFE
Pustervik (Jarntorgsgatan 12, www.pustervik.goteborg.se) Leftfield arts performances on one floor, regular DJs and raucous bar on another make this seem like a grungier version of London’s ICA

Jazza (Andra Langgatan 4) - A boisterous, friendly 30something creative set and eclectic music make up for plain décor and drinks at this lively hangout in Linne

A.L.5 (Andra Langgatan 5) - More chilled-out than the neighbouring Jazza, this clean-lined modern bar specialises in classic reggae and dub DJ nights for a stylish 20something set knocking back cocktails in a place where the lighting is as low as the bass.

Nefertiti (Hvitfeldtsplaten 6, 031 711 15 33, www.nefertiti.se) Atmospheric jazz club in the heart of the city where you can catch leading Swedish jazz bands over dinner or just grab a drink in the lively bar

Boulevard (Storgatan 47, 031 960 200. www.blvd.se) - 18th-century townhouse transformed into a multi-storey temple to Becks and Posh-style luxury, playing the likes of “Tainted Love” to a trashy, dressed-up Footballers' Wives set. Gloriously naff or cunningly kitsch.

WHAT TO BUY
No Expense Spared

Luxurious elk-print blanket £100 from Nordic Design etc. on ground floor of Nordstan mall (www.nordicdesignetc.se)

Mid-range

Add West Swedish style to mealtimes with a Bohuslan "table runner" - a foot-wide strip of colourful thick-woven fabric to set hot dishes on. From £20 per metre from Bohusslojd (Kungsportsavenyn 25)

Budget

Flavoured Swedish aquavit/schnapps such as OP Anderson (cumin, fennel and aniseed) - perfect with herring. From £15 at Systembolaget in Nordstan mall (NB Alcohol not available at the airport!)

FURTHER INFORMATION
Swedish Tourist Board (00 800 3080 3080, www.visitsweden.com) or www.gothenburg.com.

• More from Norman Miller