Gävle’s main claim to fame is that every Christmas the citizens put up a huge straw goat and every year someone tries to burn it down (including American tourists, who are then surprised to be arrested for arson). Gävle milks this for all its worth – the goat is everywhere, on posters, in shops, and painted statues are all over the main shopping precinct. We visited the city way back when we first came to Sweden on our 15th wedding anniversary, stopping off here on our way up to Lake Siljan. It was a great disappointment back then and it hasn’t improved in the intervening years. The sixties and seventies have left their mark, as they have on so many Swedish towns, but even before the urban planners got there hands on it, it seems to have had a Mancunian approach to architecture, with lots of industrial grandeur and red brick. We couldn’t even find a decent supermarket, which is why we are eating bean soup tonight. But it was nice to get off the boat and walk around after three quarters of a day of rain.