If you for some reason would like to cook fish when in Ystad you should head for the fishmonger at the picturesque main square, Stortorget.

The best stuff is the local catch from the Baltic, like cod etc. Can´t beat the prices or quality.

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There is a market twice a week in the main square, and numerous cafes.

There is a micro-brewery in town, and the best supermarket is Ahlens, near the duck pond and the old monastery that is also an art gallery.

The harbour has been re-designed to allow the huge ferries to Poland to come safely in and out, but there are posh cafes and posher flats there too, trying to compete with Malmo's new status as the best eco-place to live.

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The best thing is just to get a bike and cycle out to swim every day and to wonder at the emptiness of the beach.

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Rent bikes at the shop opposite the indoor swimming pool and ride on the cycle tracks all
through the forest that runs parallel to the beach for miles.

Turn inwards and have coffee and cakes at the Soldier's Cottage (Soldat's Hus) in the middle of the forest, avoiding the real life soldiers doing their military service.

There is also a campsite in the forest, but now this is dominated by mobile homes, with few real tents - but good for kids and full camp shops
that sell buckets and spades, and the long red and yellow liquorice I loved as a kid.

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Stay in the Kantarellen youth hostel right on the beach in the forest - the one that Henning Mankell writes about in One Step Backwards.

Fritidsvagen 27416, Ystad
Tel: 46 411 66566

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The museum has a huge painting of soldiers taking their horses down to the beach for a swim, and a history of the town.

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Ystad has the best beach in Europe, when the sun shines. The beach has long wooden jetties running out so you can dive into the sea rather than wade out. There is mini-golf and a good children's playground at the town end, too.

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Get there easily by flying to Copenhagen, and then getting the train direct from the airport, across the Orosund Bridge, to Malmo and through to Ystad without having to get off. As a child it took us two days of driving to Harwich, taking the overnight boat to Esbjerg, driving across Denmark to Copenhagen, surviving the drunk Swedes and Danes on the tax-free crossing to Malmo by ferry and then driving through the wheat fields to my grandmother in Ystad. Now it takes a two hour flight and one hour train ride.

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