Travels with Spaniels: The Man from Älmhult

He was called Ingvar Kamprad, he started a furniture company when he was 17, and if you can honestly tell me you don't have anything it sold in your house, then you must be living on Mars. Today we spent the afternoon in the IKEA museum, and it was a fascinating introduction to Swedish history, the past of a company that most of us have bought from, and the progress of design over the past 70 years.

We learned that a million people, almost a third of the Swedish population, emigrated between 1850 and 1915. We read about the push to develop better housing and social welfare after WWII, and about a five year old boy who bought matches in bulk from a Stockholm store and then sold them on at a profit. The need to furnish these new homes with cheap and modern furniture, and the entrepreneurial ambitions of young Ingvar come together with the foundation of a furniture store in Älmhult, 90 minutes north of Malmö, and the whole town now revolves around the brand.

A 1970s room display. Yes it is on the ceiling

You may remember seeing obituaries for Ingvar Kamprad when he died last year. A fascinating man, with some brilliant ideas, well ahead of his time, and he has set up an incredibly convoluted foundation structure to ensure that IKEA profits can only be reinvested, or used for philanthropic purposes. His admitted youthful entanglement with a Swedish Nazi is not glossed over in the museum, he says it was the greatest mistake of his life. Whatever happened then, he appears to have wanted to make amends in later life. He also took his entire workforce on holiday to Mallorca in 1957, which must have been a bit of a first.

That man Linnaeus again

Of course, being an IKEA museum we went in there for half and hour, and got so engrossed in the displays that we stayed for two. Fortunately we managed to swerve the marketplace on the way out, and found Max and Elsa having a nap in the car park. They were tired after a lovely walk around Lund this morning, following cycle paths and public footpaths through fields of ripe wheat, along a river, through horse paddocks and back to the windmill.

Sweden, like Scotland, has a deeply held belief in the right to roam, and the public value of land. It means there are footpaths everywhere, and that wild camping (in a tent) is encouraged. While motorhomes don't benefit from the same rights, there is a culture which allows us to spend a single night almost anywhere that is not private land or "off-road". We have yet to really test this, but were undisturbed last night at the windmill.

We could have chosen to stay tonight in the IKEA car park, but decided to drive another 20 minutes into the forest, where we have found a small campsite next to a lakeside bathing area, which is costing us less than £8. For the first time since Germany we have had to pay for something with actual cash, so we had to fall back on Euros. Our host showed us the people on all the Swedish banknotes, which we've yet to use - Ingmar Bergman, Greta Garbo etc. And he told us we are ten minutes away from Carl Linnaeus' birthplace. It seems appropriate, just three weeks after we were in Shrewsbury at the birthplace of Charles Darwin, and a few months after we were at the home of Edward Jenner. Science is just as easy to find when travelling as art, if you look for it.