St. Olof Church ruins — Attraction in Sigtuna kommun

Sigtuna was the ancient capital of Sweden and St Olof Church was the most important Church at that time. During the Reformation time the Church was destroyed and lost its glory. It was demolished and now it is in ruins and it has been kept as a place of importance and part of ancient heritage. The present Vicar of the place Rev Dr. Jakob Thronet showed me around narrating it's heritage and history. Rev. Jakob is a regular traveller to the Walsingham Our Lady Pilgrimage centre and a statue of our lady is also kept in the Church. To me a Catholic Priest it was a surprise since the Reformed Churches normally venerate Blessed Mother. Rev. Jacob wrote his thesis on ecumenism and brings together the different streams of the Church into an ecumenical strand. It was such a joy to stay with Rev. Jakob and to get acquainted with this ancient...

Who doesn’t love a stone church ruin? Especially if you live in Norway where the Norwegians of the past only liked to build with wood, so the churches double as saunas?.. Maybe. Here in Sweden, they seemed to accept the use of stone as a better material for everything except the saunas.

St Olaf was of course “the fat one” from the Netflix series Vikings, and has churches all over Scandinavia dedicated to him, since he is credited with converting the barbarian hordes to Christianity.

You probably won’t bump into him here, although I did feel that this ruin lacked a good story of being haunted by a Viking ghost, so I might start a rumour…. After all, I did feel a chill pass through me as I wandered under one of the archways, and thought I saw the outline of a large, bearskin covered Viking “converting” a local milkmaid wench over in...

Sigtuna is one of oldest towns in Europe.

The history of the place is very old and unique.

There are many hidden stories about the town and forgotten.

The best timing to go is sunny weather because most of locations are open door.

There are many free parkings for 2 hours, and the one close to the lakeside is for 4 hours.

The people of the town are so friendly and welcoming with simplicity.

I recommend to park at the lakeside, then start your waking circle to church and castle, then museum and the Town street markets till having some bites and coffee at the 200 years old cafe "Tant...