Every design for Marstrand

Carlsten fortress is enthroned over Marstrandsön with its grey stone walls, and below it the wooden town spreads out in pastel colours. This is Sweden's sailing metropolis, the place where the Marstrand regatta and Match Cup Sweden gather sailors every year, and where king Oscar II once made the bathing resort one of the country's finest summer addresses.

The town lies on Marstrandsön and Koön in Kungälv municipality, out in the Bohuslän archipelago. No car takes you all the way – the passenger ferry from Arvidsvik ties the islands together, and around them lie inlets and names such as Grannvik, Lervik and Draget. Up on the heights you find the Danish lookout, and down among the rocks Sankt Erik's grotto hides away.

Herring and shipping gave the town its first wealth, before the sails and the summer visitors took over. On the map it all steps forward: the narrow island, the fortress on the crest and the water surrounding every block. A shirt with the map of Marstrand carries the smell of seaweed and the sound of a mainsail snapping in the wind.