Last week in Sweden, I came across a new 'children’s garden', worthy of the
name. ‘Maja’s garden’, at the fairy tale palace of Sofiero,
overlooks the brooding silhouette of Hamlet’s castle across the sea in
Denmark, and is only a couple of hours drive from
Copenhagen airport.
Sofiero Palace, and the nearby working farm and garden of Fredriksdal, make an
excellent year-round family break for those of us allergic to theme parks.
And they are a lot more user friendly than many of their British
equivalents. There are no stuffy notices about picnics, ball games or
revelling. Visitors are encouraged to walk on the lawns. In fact they are
encouraged to picnic and party there – or they can eat in Sofiero or
Fredriksdal’s cafés.
Sofiero’s café and restaurant are inside the Palace whose pointed turrets and
pretty interior give a taste of the fairy tale story behind its beautiful
gardens. They were made by the Crown Princess of Sweden in the early
twentieth century. Margareta, or Margaret Victoria Charlotte Augusta Norah
Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Princess
of Connaught and Strathearn, was the English granddaughter of Queen
Victoria, adored by the Crown Prince, a devoted mother and highly popular
with the people.
She died aged 38. By then Margareta had started one of the finest rhododendron
collections in Europe and an ingenious tapestry of flower gardens set off by
wide lawns, a royal football ground, a stream garden and managed woodland.
Pictures of Margareta often show her in Sofiero’s gardens surrounded by her
five children, so it seems appropriate that a children’s garden has been
added to her masterpiece. It’s the brainchild of Sofiero’s chief executive
Cecilia Liljedahl.
‘I had the idea of creating a children’s garden and basing it around Maja who
is a popular fictional character in Sweden,’ says Cecilia. ‘The illustrator
and author Lena Anderson helped us to bring Maja to life here. Maja is 7 and
she’s known as “the nature detective”. Her three books cover nature, growing
vegetables and the alphabet. Her friends include Madame Leek, Mr Fennel, Mr
Rabbit - which is why we’ve made life-sized puppets of them.’
Maja and her friends live in a small, airy house inside their quarter-acre
garden which is separated from the surrounding gardens by a green picket
fence decorated by red strawberry finials. Brightly coloured letters of the
alphabet dangle from apple trees and various outsize vegetables, including a
plastic pea pod, are scattered around the lawn.
The garden opened last year and it’s been such a success that the National
Trust has visited with a view to doing something similar in the UK. Children
visiting Maja’s garden can try on her clothes and try out a range of
child-sized wheelbarrows, forks, spades, buckets and watering cans. Inside,
there are tables piled with seeds, flowers, feathers and plenty more from
the natural world that children are encouraged to categorise. Or they can
just play.
The categorisation tables in Maja’s house are a way of helping children to
understand what the Swedish botanist/economist Carl Linnaeus was doing when
he categorised the natural world 300 years ago. Linnaeus was convinced that,
if Sweden could learn to control the plant world, it could become self
sufficient, thereby avoiding trade and all its attendant problems. A more
in-depth exhibition of his work has been created in Sofiero’s conservatory
overlooking the royal football ground. It’s stunning whatever your interest
in Linneaus.
Helsingborg
Just down the road from Sofiero, in the port town of Helsingborg,
the Swedish Botanist Linneaus also features, this time in a hands-on
schoolroom exhibition within the park and working manor of Fredriksdal.
Here, visitors can push their faces into a cardboard cut out of the great
man.
Fredriksdal includes
Lillaryd Farm, a Swedish farmhouse where the ‘family’ (museum guides) dress
in eighteenth century clothes, churn milk, make hay and explain how
servants, children and livestock would have worked and lived together (the
goats used to live in a cupboard under one of the benches at night). The
pigs are particularly alluring although I am told that the young boar is
getting over ‘self esteem problems’. Only in Sweden.
Both Sofiero and Fredriksdal have year-round programmes aimed at the family
from troll tours and Christmas markets to a Santa’s grotto and evenings when
the gardens are lit by lanterns and candles. In summer Fredriksdal gardens
overflow with roses, nature trails and a Linneaus garden, which includes a
love and lust section (a subject dear to my heart at the moment - see
related articles).
Both these places make a lovely family weekend, and a far richer experience
then the curious cocktail of terror and boredom (queuing) offered by other
theme parks. Maybe my family is just odd and therefore not cut out for theme
parks.
Our one-and-only venture into them was a trip to the Tokyo’s
Disney Resort. We fell at the first post - the Cinderella’s castle. My
daughter and I were so spooked that we had to be let out of an emergency
exit.
Fact box
Jane Owen flew with SAS.
For general information about Sweden visit Skane's
website or Visit Sweden. Click here
for information about the best beaches
and a good family restaurant.
Accommodation: Jane Owen recommends the Allt
i Gläntan B&B between Helsingborg and Sofeiro, the Hotel
Maria in Helsingborg, and Hotel
Kullaberg on the beach, 25 minutes from Sofeiro.
