Laholm

Laholm predates every other town in Halland — its market rights go back to the Middle Ages, and the compact old centre, with its cobbled square and half-timbered houses, still feels older and quieter than Halmstad or Varberg. It sits a little inland from the coast, on the Lagan, one of the county's four salmon rivers and the southernmost of them, close to the border with Skåne. That position means Laholm reads less as a beach resort itself and more as the historic anchor for the long sandy coastline — Mellbystrand and Skummeslövsstrand — that runs south from here toward the Skåne border.

The town is small enough to see in an afternoon, which makes it a natural half-day add-on to a beach-focused trip rather than a multi-day base, though the fishing on the Lagan is reason enough on its own for some visitors to stay longer.

Laholm has the most intact old-town feel of any settlement in Halland outside Varberg's fortress quarter, plus a genuinely specialist museum in Teckningsmuseet, and it puts you within easy reach of Laholmsbukten's long beaches without the crowds that build up right on the sand in July. It's also the pick for anyone whose main interest is fishing — the Lagan's salmon and sea trout runs are a serious draw in their own right.

The old town square and the streets around it are the core of a visit — timber and rendered facades, a medieval street plan, and a pace noticeably slower than the coastal towns. Teckningsmuseet, Sweden's museum devoted specifically to drawing, is a genuine specialist attraction and one of relatively few of its kind anywhere. Laholm's church and the surrounding medieval churches of the district reflect the town's Danish-era history, before Halland passed to Sweden in the 1600s. On the river itself, the Lagan is fished for salmon and sea trout with a locally bought day permit; the town sits close enough to the water that you can watch anglers working the pools from several of the bridges.

Laholm's coastline is the northern end of Laholmsbukten, a broad bay backed by one continuous run of sand. Mellbystrand, a few kilometres from the town centre, is part of what's often described as Sweden's longest beach, roughly 12 km of open sand shared with Skummeslövsstrand to the south — the quieter half of the same strand, with more dune and less built-up frontage. Both are wide, shallow and safe for children, and both back directly onto the resort villages of the same names. Inland, the Lagan's valley offers a change of pace from the beach if you want a short walk away from the sand.

Laholm's old town has a small but decent spread of cafés and restaurants around the square, generally more relaxed and locally oriented than the beach-village kitchens further west, which fill up fast on hot afternoons. The area's farm shops are worth a stop if you're driving in or out of town — Laholm's surrounding farmland is some of the best in the county. Anyone fishing the Lagan should ask locally about where the day's catch can be prepared, since river-to-table meals are a genuine, if informal, local tradition.

Laholm is on the Västkustbanan between Halmstad and Båstad, with SJ and Öresundståg trains stopping regularly on the Gothenburg–Malmö/Copenhagen route. By car, the E6 runs just east of the town, with clear turnoffs for both the centre and the coast at Mellbystrand. Local Hallandstrafiken buses connect the station to the beach villages, though a car makes the coast-and-town combination easiest, since the beaches are several kilometres from the railway.