The special Dream of America exhibition brilliantly tells the history of nineteenthcentury Swedish emigration to the empty lands of North merica Poor local agricultural conditions, regular harvest failures and little alternative industrial employment all helped drive a starving peasantry abroad, doubly attracted by offers of great farms and a landscape similar to their own. Around a million people made the crossing between 1850 and 1925 a quarter of the total Swedish population, a fifth of them from the Smiland region. It makes moving reading, and moisteyed American descendants are not a rare sight. The emigrants' story achieved literary and popular recognition in the works of \llhelm Moberg, probably the most widely read novelist in Sweden, and the museum includes a permanent exhibition on his life he died in 1973 with some of the original manuscripts on display. There's a research centre too, where interested parties can try to trace their family connections; apparently not an impossible task in Europe's biggest archive library on emigration. If you're just passing through, a fivekilometre path around the lake in tom can occupy a pleasant hour or two. Or ask at the tourist office about using the tennis courts for the afternoon, remembering not to challenge the locals to a game; Mats Wilander comes from Vaxjo. Practicalities , , utb Vaxjo, a reliable place to spend the night, has one of the country's finest }0 hostels (only closed Christmas & New Year; «0470630 70; 90kr), 6km EVEDAL and boasting its own beach. There's a large campsite there also reach Evedal, take bus #1C from opposite the tourist office to the end of the r Oast bus is at 4.15pm, 3.15pm Sat); or bus #1A, which stops 1.5km short о hostel but runs daily until 8.15pm. ТЪе first #1C bus back into town is at luai VAXJd AND J б N К 0 P I N G I 1Ы I t wn the tourist office arranges private rooms (from llOkr per person, 40kr booking fee), though you 11 need to have your own sheets. As far as f го you may get a decent deal in the summer or at weekends at Hotell ''ifd Norra Esplanaden 21 (®0470225 80; while out of the centre there budget motels adjacent to each other on Storavagen: Bergsnds Motell at 6 ("0470600 71; ®) and Kinnevaldsgdrdens Motell at no. 9 (0470608 87; T)1 • take bus #4. For eating, the Domus store inside the Galleria shopping mall on Storgatan lunches for around 40kr, and there's a cheap pizzeria, the Roma, on Vastra "ntoaden, near the Concert Hall. Across the way, PM is a good deal more upmarket, th dishes from around the world, though you can just stop by for a beer. Jonkoping One of the oldest medieval trading centres in the country, JONKOPING (the "k" is soft, pronounced "sh") has a more modem if prosaic claim to fame in Sweden at least. It's lauded as the home of the matchstick, the nineteenth4;entury manufacture and worldwide distribution of which made Jonkoping the wealthy place it is today.