Photos

Here is one of the canals in Gothenburg/Göteborg, the second city of Sweden with about 450.000 inhabitants (but 0,8 million with all the suburbs). On the right you see the German church from 1672 (I think).

Gothenburg was founded in 1619 by Gustavus the Second Adolphus as a port on the Göta river, by the west coast of Sweden. Today, it also is the biggest port to Scandinavia.

This part was choosen, because the city could be a resistance against the Danes - a big enemy of Sweden at that time, but it was also a response to the high tolls charged by the Danes for using the Sound (the water between Helsingør and Helsingborg), which was a Danish entrance to the Baltic.

To make sure the city would grow rapidly, the king gave immigrants lots of priviledges. As a buisinessmand and a Calvinist, Gustav much admired the Dutch merchants and invited them to come to Gothenburg to live and trade and to help with building canals in Dutch style. But not only Dutch came, also lots of Germans, Englisch and Scottish.

Today, the Gothenburg still feels quite Dutch. And as a Dutch, I had the strange and happy feeling I was coming home again, especially because it is quite I long time ago the last time I was in the Netherlands.

Not only the canals feel very Dutch, but also the pleasant vivid and multi-cultural atmosphere... and even the trams look almost the same as in Amsterdam.

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About this photo: normallly you don't take photo against this still quite harsh daylight, but I wanted to give it a try. The original was much darker, so I gave it more light, but it was hard to find a balance. I also gave the blue a bit more contrasts, I sharpned the photo and rotated it a bit.

The orignal can be seen here.