Tiveden, more than just hiking

Last spring, we only had time for a quick stop at Tivedens National Park during spring gastronomic road trip, but it added more flavor and that's why we steered the bun here once more. We booked three nights at Askersund Outdoor as a starting point for our trip. Although Tiveden is a popular destination, there are relatively few campsites in the immediate area. However, Askersund Outdoor turned out to be a real stroke of luck and at a reasonable distance, you can read more about this and our hiking days in Tiveden here.

As always when we're out on a trip, we need a coffee shop on the way, and right between Karlstad and Askersund is the small community of Svartå. Svartå is so small that you almost miss it if you blink as you pass, don't. Here lies namely Sur-Anna's home bakery. We have passed here before but have always managed to miss the somewhat limited opening hours. Now we finally got the chance to taste both rolls and buns. Strategically located next to the bakery is a deli cart where you can buy cheese and other goodies. We took our purchases down to a rest area that is beautifully located by the water. A really good start to our trip!

When you do visit the national park, you must not miss the community of Tived. Here there is, among other things, a restaurant with a funny name, Luripompa, which means slightly drunk in Visigothic. This is reportedly supposed to be a great restaurant but our purpose for this detour was to visit Tived's coffee roastery. Oh oh, what good coffee, and what a nice shop. The roastery is owned by a couple from Germany who a number of years ago took their passion for coffee and beautiful nature and moved to Tiveden to run a coffee roastery. I think Henrik could have stayed and talked over coffee with them all afternoon if I hadn't dragged him on towards our final destination, Askersund.

Askersund is a real summer town that comes alive as soon as the sun comes out. We were here earlier this spring, but then the town was almost deserted. Now, however, there was activity everywhere. Askersund is quite small but cozy to walk around in. The houses are mostly old wooden houses, but also many of the newly built houses are built in a slightly older style, which means that Askersund has a kind of old-fashioned wooden house charm. The location by the water also helps.

Like all summer towns, Askersund naturally has its own ice cream factory. Don't miss the Askersundglass café in the center. After a day's hiking in the heat, a hearty ice cream tasted heavenly. The lack of photo speaks for itself, we simply forgot to take a photo of the ice cream. 🙂

In the middle of the forest you will find Tiveden's food, or the pub in the middle of the forest as they also call themselves. The restaurant is only open in summer and the menu is Swedish-French. In high season it can be a bit difficult to get a table, but we managed to book an early dinner. It's so funny that nowadays it is possible to find exciting restaurants out in the country, unlike in the past when most were concentrated in the big cities. The food was fantastic and served in a beautiful setting.

The catch with restaurants in the countryside is that you have to get there by car, which means you can't take wine with your food. The combination of wine and food is actually often a large part of the overall experience. Here they chose to serve a number of alcohol-free wines for those who did not want to drink alcohol. However, my opinion is that it is difficult to find a really good non-alcoholic wine, at least when it comes to red wine. Why not then give up the idea of imitating a "normal" wine and instead go beyond the wine and serve some must or the like? Last spring, when we were at GIN in Norrköping, they had thought completely outside the box and produced a non-alcoholic beverage package for the tasting menu which did not contain any wine type but instead was a good combined mix of musts and drinks that fit perfectly with the menu, some of the musts were also their own, which was extra fun.

To return to Tiveden's food, it must be said that for those of us who didn't have to drive, the wine was excellent.

In order to have a small break in the hike, one day we visited Stjernsund Castle, which is located just outside Askersund.

The current castle building was completed in 1808 and a large part of the interior is from the middle of the 19th century when the castle was owned by the Bernadotte family. The castle is said to have one of the best-preserved interiors from this time in Sweden.
The last private owner died in 1951 and then bequeathed the castle to its current owner, the Royal Academy of Wits, which today keeps the castle and its English garden open to the public. In addition to the castle, there is also a small farm shop, a castle shop, a small carriage museum and, of course, a castle café.

We can therefore state that the area around Tiveden offers much more than just hiking. Here you will find good food and drink, a cozy summer town and even a castle. In our next post, we will tell you about our hikes in Tiveden.