Stockholm oldest road
Stockholm´s oldest road just outside the main city areas of Stockholm town is still here. Look at my photo below, me standing on it as it passes by the “Årsta” field. Only, theses days no vehicles use it. Mostly people walking and dogs playing and sniffing. Maybe some cutting the grass use it to go from one end to the other end. “Göta landsväg” is its ´name. Its been around for centuries. History about the road goes back even to the medieval times. IN 1600 it lost its importance when the new road, at Hornstull, not far from it was built and in use Hornstull being one of the old gates if you may to the town. Basically unknown among most people. Horse carriages populated it. Ordinary men and women and King’s headed south this way.
Photo by Stefan Lindblad 2013
This is the official sign made by the Stockholm City Museum. The sign by the road unfortunatley often sprayed with Graffiti tags and dirt.
Here the english text as written on the sign above:
“Göta highway
The highway is the oldest known road between Stockholm and south of Sweden. Saved to posterity in only a few places, it can be seen here crossing the Årsta field.
Dating back at least to the middle ages, the road lost importance at the end of the 17th century when the new highway via Hornstull came in use.”
Read more about the road and the sign here http://www.stockholmskallan.se/Soksida/Post/?nid=28439
Interesting information and pictures from Wikipedia, in Swedish http://sv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gamla_G%C3%B6ta_landsv%C3%A4g
And here the Wikipedia in ENglish (Google translate): http://translate.google.se/translate?sl=sv&tl=en&js=n&prev=_t&hl=sv&ie=UTF-8&u=http%3A%2F%2Fsv.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FGamla_G%25C3%25B6ta_landsv%25C3%25A4g
Stefan Lindblad
Illustrator, artist, graphic designer
www.canvas.nu
