Hi Ho, Hi Ho, It’s Off to Hjo They Go, for Fun in Sweden

HJO, Sweden —  The folks here in Hjo tell of a nearby town called Gronkoping where the people are all charming, with a good sense of humor. There’s no crime, no illness, low taxes and the citizens, at least the women, never age.

Hjobos (as the people of Hjo are known) will even tell you how to reach Gronkoping, although they’ve never been there.

You, too, may never get to Gronkoping, which means “Green Village.” The “green” refers not to the beautiful forests surrounding this area in south-central Sweden, but to the naivete of Gronkoping’s residents whom less charitable Swedes look upon as country bumpkins.

If you can’t find Gronkoping, return to Hjo on the shore of Vattern, Sweden’s second largest lake. Chances are that you won’t be disappointed because Hjo is right out of a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale.

Its stately Victorian villas recall the days when Hjo was a famous health spa. The 19th-Century combination bathhouse and ballroom is an aquarium with individual tanks for the 30 varieties of fish found in Lake Vattern. Upstairs are a beehive behind glass, mounted and live butterflies, and microscopes for visitors to examine seeds and insects.

Here Rests Peace

Hjo claims about 5,000 residents but really doesn’t seem that large. It took its name from initials of the Latin saying, Hic jacet otium (here rests peace). Folks used to come here for the cold mineral baths. Now they just come because they love Hjo (pronounced “You”). Bumper stickers here proclaim “I LOVE HJO.”

Midway on Vattern’s western shore, Hjo serves as a takeoff point for daylong drives to some of Sweden’s most picturesque countryside. Within a few hours are an archipelago of small pine-covered islands, huge Ice Age boulders, prehistoric ruins and medieval churches.

At Karlsborg, 20 miles north, we interrupted our dinner in a small hotel overlooking the Gota Canal to shoot photos of the locks opening for barges and excursion boats. Impressive Karlsborg fortress with its endless walls, one of the world’s great construction projects in its day, took 90 years to complete.

Across the lake at Hastholmen are Bronze Age carvings made from 1,500 to 400 years before Christ. Also along the eastern shore lie idyllic towns with narrow cobblestone streets, a 9th-Century fortress, a castle, and beginning at Huskvarna a stretch of highway considered one of the most beautiful in Europe.

At the bottom of this long lake lies one of Sweden’s oldest cities, Jonkoping, amid wooded highlands with a park where wild animals graze.

Living National Treasure

A few miles south at Riddersberg in the park surrounding the home of Calle Ornemark, a living national treasure, stand the huge wooden caricatures he’s sculpted out of old barn sidings and railroad ties. Ornemark has produced such statues as his more than 300-foot high “Indian Rope Trick,” said to be the world’s tallest sculpture, the “Pop Musicians,” “the Demonstrators,” and a full-size re-creation of Capt. Bligh’s ship Bounty.

During our visit he was working on a 260-ton interpretation of the creation of the world called “The Goosecamp.” Based on an American Indian legend, the sculpture will have 24 mobile eagles gliding nearly 200 feet above it. Already this remarkable man has composed a ballad for this monument scheduled for completion early next year. Ornemark also writes books and music, and permits visitors to roam the grounds and view his giant originations.

Between Hjo and Jonkoping at Habo a timbered church built in 1723 was the scene of a wedding rehearsal for four attractive sisters and their fiances who were to be married in a single ceremony. As we were looking at baroque wall paintings done in 1741-42, the vibrant young vicar took time from the rehearsal to explain how in Sweden, where nearly everyone is a Lutheran, all residents of an area are church members. “In my parish there are 7,000,” he smiled, “but that doesn’t mean they all attend. Only 200 came to church this morning.”

After three months in the region, Mark Twain wrote to a friend, “I have seen about 60 sunsets here . . . and at least 40 of them have surpassed anything I could have imagined.”

Weekly Comes Out Monthly

Twain did not mention Gronkoping, or even Hjo, in his letter, because Gronkoping may seem mythical to outsiders. But the town is very real to Swedes, especially those in Hjo. Gronkoping represents every and any small town in Sweden. The residents, Hjobos insist, operate businesses, pay taxes and even publish a newspaper, The Gronkoping Weekly, which comes out monthly.

Because newspaper editors are such Doubting Thomases, we bought a copy of the weekly ($1) and will take it home. Its stories are a bit tongue-in-cheek, but so is Gronkoping. The monthly weekly lampoons everything from bureaucrats’ control of the town to crooks who sell army boots as health shoes for persons with foot problems.

“The Gronkoping Weekly has been reporting on Gronkoping for at least a half-century,” says Volger Thesslin, retired stapling machine manufacturing executive and one of Hjo’s leading citizens. Its counterpart is the Hjo Tidning (meaning “newspaper”) whose motto reads, “Godliness, Sobriety, Tradition . . . Within Reason.”

When he headed the Hjo Tourist Assn., Ralph Lundh brought Hjo closer to Gronkoping 20 years ago. The Lions Club then launched its annual Hjovial Fair and Lundh suggested that Hjo embrace Gronkoping.

Hjo prides itself on being the site for the Ornemark wooden statue of the father-founder of Gronkoping, His Majesty Erik, the Lisp and the Lame. Erik was king of Sweden in the 13th Century when Sweden included Norway.

More practical Hjobos admit that this mythical town, dear to the hearts of Swedes, was born in 1912 when Albert Engstrom, a Swedish writer and painter, began publication of what was called the Gronkoping News to gently poke fun at Swedish society.

Honorable Members

The Esteemed Society for the Preservation and Commemoration of Gronkoping has its headquarters in Hjo. Among other activities, this society organizes the Days in Gronkoping festivals. Its honorable members include the chief editor of the Gronkoping Weekly, Gunnar Ljusterdal.

The group has bestowed honorary citizenship on Sweden’s King Karl-Gustav XVI and important visitors from Andorra, Luxembourg, Japan, the United States and 29 other countries. As an honorary citizen of Gronkoping, each must demonstrate a good sense of humor. He is permitted to vote and he pays “no community tax, dog tax or other taxes.”

Gronkoping is so real that each August the Society of Hjo selects a “Miss Gronkoping” at the annual White Fish Festival. White fish, which inhabit Lake Vattern, is the favorite delicacy in any of Hjo’s several restaurants. The contestants wear, not bathing suits (although Swedish girls especially should), but 19th-Century dresses. Entrants must be from one of five Lake Vattern towns, Skvoda, Tibro, Tidaholm, Karlsborg or Hjo.

Without cracking a smile, Monica Karlsson, the present head of the Hjo Tourist Assn., insisted that she and Lundh, her predecessor, are members of the Gronkoping Journalists Club. “As a member,” Monica averred, “I never become older than 27.”

Gronkoping is searching for a sister city in the United States. Its only requirements are that the American city has a big heart and low taxes.

If you’re interested, Mayor Bradley, write to the mayor of Gronkoping, c/o the Major of Hjo, Sweden. We’re sure the Hjo mayor will see that your application reaches Gronkoping.

It’s safer than hand-carrying it. But if you do go to Hjo personally, remember that Gronkoping is somewhere between Hjo and Skovde. Local skeptics may tell you that there is nothing between Hjo and Skovde, merely displaying their ignorance of local geography. The very fact that Hjo invited Gronkoping to become part of the Hjo urban district explodes any such absurdity.

Love at First Sight

While searching for Gronkoping, you’ll likely stay overnight in Hjo. And because anyone who visits Hjo loves the resort on first sight, you may stretch your stay and forget about Gronkoping. Some folks here believe that’s what the Hjobos had in mind when they embraced Gronkoping in the first place.

If you can’t find a hotel room, for Swedes love to visit Hjo, enjoy Allemansratten. This is an old Swedish law that gives everyone “the right to be out in nature and enjoy the woods, fields, mountains, rivers and lakes.” You are permitted to walk, bike or ski--but not drive (even on private roads) and “to make camp for one night almost anywhere within reason,” according to the Hjo Tourist Assn.

By all means visit the tourist association on the corner of Bangatan and Floragatan. Set back from the street in a two-story school built in the 1850s, it’s a little, but not much, easier to find than Gronkoping. There the handsome Monica Karlsson will direct you to a fine upstairs museum that shows how Hjobos lived many years ago. And she will tell you about Hjo and, of course, how to get to Gronkoping.

If you fail to reach Gronkoping, you can get to Hjo via SAS to Goteborg, Sweden, from Los Angeles or San Diego. Best then to rent a car at or near the airport and drive the 2 1/2 hours to Hjo. You also can take the train from Goteborg to Jonkoping, then bus to Hjo, for about $15 total.

Dominating the tiny resort is the sprawling Bellevue Hotel, Bangatan 2, S544 00 Hjo. It offers golf, tennis, sailing, windsurfing, canoeing, pool and sauna. The Bellevue also rents rooms in renovated old villas on the grounds of the city park overlooking Lake Vattern.

Rates are lower mid-June to mid-August, doubles with breakfast going for $40, during the rest of the year for $70 in the hotel. Bathless rooms in the two-story houses rent for as low as $15 per person in summer. Meals in the Bellevue’s restaurant cost $8 and up. Try the fresh alpine char, a type of salmon, with morel sauce.

Down the road at the Hotel Strand you can get a double without bath or breakfast for $22 all year. The Hjo Gastgivargard restaurant serves entrees for $4.50 and up. Its specialty is whitefish and potatoes in white sauce with dill.

For additional information contact the Scandinavian Tourist Board, 8929 Wilshire Blvd., Beverly Hills 90211, phone (213) 854-1549.