Göta Canal
Sweden · Östergötland · 90 m
Description
The Göta Canal took fifty eight thousand soldiers twenty two years to dig by hand and opened in 1832, five years before the railway that made it commercially pointless. It runs a hundred and ninety kilometres across Sweden with fifty eight locks, and the finest of them is the staircase at Berg, where seven chambers lift a boat nearly nineteen metres in one flight beside a monastery church. Boats still work through in summer and take four days end to end. A towpath runs the whole way from coast to coast and cyclists now outnumber the boats by a wide margin, which nobody planning it in 1810 would have predicted.
Length of stay
Recommended length of stay: 1 to 4 days (optimal 2 days)
Travel season
Best time to visit: July – August
- Jan
- Feb
- Mar
- Apr
- May
- Jun
- Jul
- Aug
- Sep
- Oct
- Nov
- Dec
Highlights
- Carl Johan lock staircase at Berg
- Canal boat through the locks (May - September)
- Cycling the towpath from lock to lock
- Vreta kloster abbey church beside the locks
- Motala and the canal workshops(Day trip)
- Lake Roxen and Lake Boren
- Borensberg and the hand worked locks
- Canoeing the canal reaches (May - September)
- Lock keepers' cottages and the canal cafes
- Kolmården wildlife park on Bråviken(Day trip)
- Berg to Ljungsbro canal walk