Astrid Lindgren

📍Astrid Lindgrens Näs, Prästgårdsgatan 24, 598 37 Vimmerby, Sweden

“I was born in November 1907 at Näs, the farm by the vicarage on the edge of Vimmerby in Småland, and grew up there in the red farmhouse with my three brothers and sisters, our parents, Samuel August and Hanna, and the farmhands and maids who worked the land. My parents loved each other and us, and we were allowed to play almost wildly: we climbed the lemonade tree — an old elm with a hollow where we imagined lemonade might be found — jumped in the hay, played in the woodshed, ran along the roofs, and in the kitchen of our neighbour Kristin I heard my first old legends and fairy tales. I was quick in the legs and the mind, and already a storyteller. I have always said I had the happiest childhood there could be, and almost everything I wrote came out of it: the children of Noisy Village, Emil of Lönneberga and even something of Pippi. As a young woman I left for Stockholm, but I came back to Näs every summer of my life. Astrid Lindgren's Näs is now open to visitors, with my childhood home kept as it was.”

Sources: vimmerby.com visitsmaland.se vimmerby.com