Gothenburg at 400: Swedens second city discovers its fun side

Ranked the world’s most sustainable destination, the city has new free swimming pools, extra theme park attractions and is a beacon of Scandi design

It’s a gloriously sunny, if gusty, early-June day at Gothenburg’s new bathing harbour. My son Zac and I are among the first to brave the elements at an open-air complex of swimming and diving pools occupying part of Frihamnen, the city’s docklands that began to fall into disuse in the 1970s.

The unveiling of the pools is part of the city’s 400th-anniversary celebrations, which are taking place throughout the year – delayed from 2021 because of the pandemic. (The same thing happened to its 300-year anniversary plans in 1921 in the aftermath of the Spanish flu pandemic and first world war.) This west coast city began life as a fortified, mainly Dutch, trading colony founded by King Gustavus Adolphus and has grown into Sweden’s main fishing port and second-largest city.