Vadstena

Vadstena is a locality and the seat of Vadstena Municipality, Östergötland County, Sweden with 5,612 inhabitants in 2005. From 1974 to 1979 Vadstena was administered as part of Motala Municipality.

Above all the city of Vadstena is noted for two important artefacts of Swedish history: it was in Vadstena, in 1350, that Saint Bridget of Sweden founded the first monastery of her Bridgettine Order; and Vadstena Castle is one of Sweden’s best-preserved castles from the era of Gustav Vasa in the 16th century. Today the surviving buildings of the monastery are occupied by a hotel: the Vadstena Klosterhotel, and the castle houses the provincial archives, and a museum of 16th and 17th century furniture, portraits and paintings.