Blomsdals örtagård

Sweden report, part 3: June 4, 2005.

Right, so next on my list was the herb garden "Blomsdals örtagård", in Marks county, right next to Torestorp.

There's some information on the Marks county tourist pages, including a phone number. I tried to call the herb garden, no reply. Somewhere or other I found an email address, and sent a query: are you guys open? Because their old website address was taken over by a porn squatter, never a good sign.

No reply to the email, either. So in late May I called up the tourist board in Marks county, and got a "yep, they're open" in reply.

After a few detours I found my way to the garden, parked the car, and got out. An elderly guy was sawing things nearby, so I said "hello". He told me that this herb garden was private - I looked at him, puzzled: with a very few exceptions all herb gardens are private, including the one I live right next to. What he meant was, they don't take single visitors. They only take groups. In addition they were closed because they'd taken storm damage.

Right, said I, how come the tourist information told me you're open then? He couldn't tell.
And why do you have a phone number that nobody answers on that tourist information webpage? He couldn't tell, and no, he couldn't give them a phone number that somebody would actually answer, either.

Then he said, hesitatingly, that he'd received my email, but he couldn't send me a reply because I had neglected to include a fax number.

It took a while to recover from that one, but once I did, I asked for clarification: "So you don't accept single visitors at all?" "No." "Only groups?" "Yes." "And while I've come all the way from Finland, and the webpage says you're open for everybody, and the tourist board confirmed, you won't let me look at your plants?" "That's right".

Dunno what somebody that stupid (fax number indeed!) should be cursed with. Hemorrhoids, I think. And hernias.

Me, I drove back to Gothenburg to have another look at the botanical garden.

It's entirely possible that

It's entirely possible that they're cursed enough just by being so completely helpless in the face of current technology. Alas, I'm still feeling vindictive, so hemorrhoids it is.

The folks at Marks county have changed the tourist information page about the herb garden. It now says "the herb garden is open by appointment only". This after I emailed them about my experience; I did point out that getting an appointment might turn out to be rather difficult, what with nobody answering anything at all ...