Umeå, north Sweden’s unassuming city of dark winter days and bright summer nights near the edge of the Arctic Circle takes centre stage this year as the Capital of Culture.
Most people have never heard of the tree-lined city known as “the city of birches” but it does have one claim to international fame in the form of Stieg Larsson, Umeå’s most renowned former resident. The author ofThe Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, and the others from the Millennium book/film trilogy, grew up in the Sandbacka district where he wrote some of his earliest crime stories. He was said to have been seen often obsessively writing into the late hours of the night in his small rented room.
Perhaps Umeå’s tranquil riverside setting, dark winter landscape and small port town atmosphere makes the perfect calm and unsuspecting preamble to the unfolding of a chilling crime novel plot. But the city’s mix of panelled houses with slanted rooftops, modern brick buildings and historic façades, peppered with patches of green spaces, give the city an urban touch with a warm neighbourhood feel, Telegraph informs.
