Next up was the crossing from Turku to Stockholm across the Baltic, on another Silja-Tallink ferry (like the one we took from Rostock to Helsinki, what seems like an eternity ago…). Tax-free alcohol is sold on these ferries, which, considering the price of alcohol in Finland has made the crossings a very popular pastime for us Finns, who are not known for spitting in the glass. So this crossing brought back many memories (mostly happy ones ;-); with buffets (where we can stuff ourselves full), the tacky karaoke (where we would make fools out of ourselves, were it not for the fact that everybody; not just the singer, is typically too drunk to make a note of any artistic shortcomings the singer might possess), and the boozing youngsters (let’s not generalise though – there are plenty of boozing adults as well). Ah, those were the days… We contented ourselves with the buffet dinner, and a couple of beers in the karaoke bar (only listening, obviously – I wasn’t drunk enough to actually sing!)
We arrived in Stockholm at a dreadfully early hour. The plan was to stay at Robert’s and Doan’s place (a very nice Swedish couple I met during my studies in Edinburgh), so we decided to drop off our things at their place and borrow a guide book from them for the day. The reunion was a most happy one – I think the last time we saw them (also in Stockholm) was about five years ago. There were two very cute new family members this time around :-).
Since we’d both already seen the main sights of Stockholm, we decided to start the day by exploring the countryside west of Stockholm. Our drive took us across some islands on the Mälaren Lake. The first one was Ekerö, where we visited started off the day by having a walk around an old manor, followed by visit to a nice medieval stone church. A short drive took us to the next island, Munsö, where we visited another pretty medieval stone church.
From there we took a ferry (similar to what is used in the Turku archipelago in Finland) across to Adelsö, a similarly picturesque island, where we visited yet one more medieval church (I’m starting to feel like a broken record...). The main sight on Adelsö is Hovgården, which is one of the main archaeological sites from the Viking area in Sweden. It’s believed to be the site from where the kings and chieftains ruled the region. A lot of imagination is required here, since all that remains are a couple of rune-stones and some mounds of earth (the Kungshögarna – or royal mounds).
On the way back to Stockholm, we stopped for a visit at Drottningholm, which is the residence of the Swedish royal family. I guess you could call it the Swedish version of Versailles, with its vast, well-tended, baroque gardens; and imposing castle. We paid the rather steep entrance fee to visit the interior of the castle – but were too stingy to pay for the guide book. As a result of which we were greeted by the typical succession of imposing rooms with portraits and antique furniture – without any explanations at all about the rooms themselves. A bit cheeky to force people to buy a guide book in addition to paying the entrance fee, if you ask me… In spite of this, there’s no denying the palace is rather splendid – if a bit “over-the-top in a Versailles way” for my taste. After a 15 Euro sandwich lunch (I was starting to feel seriously ripped off), we continued on our way to Stockholm.
We arrived in Stockholm town centre late afternoon, and decided to enjoy the splendid weather in Djurgården. Djurgården is one of the many islands on top of which Stockholm is build, and one of the greenest ones. It’s basically like a big park, but also houses several famous attractions; the Wasa ship (an example of brilliant Swedish engineering – it was the most expensive ship of its time, but sank about 2 kilometres after leaving the harbour, in front of all the cheering masses), the Skansen open-air museum, and the Gröna Lund amusement park. Since we were a bit short on time, we just decided to have a walk around and enjoy the sunshine. After about half an hour spent trying to find a cash machine (strange, considering we were looking in Östermalm; one of the poshest areas of Stockholm), we got back into our car, and headed for Robert and Doan’s flat. Which turned out to be quite a challenging task – apparently there were some pretty major road works taking place, as a result of which we moved about 1 km in 1 hour (I’m not even exaggerating – I checked the GPS!). We then decided to ignore the GPS, drive out of the town centre and sort of take a big detour around the town centre. Which took us another 30 minutes… In spite of our all the hassle we had leaving the place, it can’t be denied that Stockholm is a rather splendid city, especially when the weather is nice, as it was on this day.
Thankfully, we arrived just in time for dinner… And a great dinner it was indeed, especially as it was enjoyed in such good company. It was really good to catch up with Robert and Doan, it’d been such a long time since the last time; the reunion was long overdue. Me and Robert continued our conversation post-dinner over some very fine whisky (I probably had one or two glasses too many for my own good again…), discussing everything from work, the good old times in Edinburgh, life in France to the house him and Doan are having build (looks very impressive, based on the pictures I saw).
The next morning, it was once more time to say bye-bye (with promises we would not wait another five years until the next visit…) and carry on towards the warm south. From Stockholm we headed to Vadstena, very nicely located on the Vättern Lake. Vadstena is one of the most famous historic towns in Sweden, famous for its monastery and well-preserved old town. Turns out the monastery has been converted to a restaurant and hotel, but the impressive, if sombre, church remains. We then spent a pleasant couple of hours walking around the cobble-stoned streets of the picturesque old town, with its wooden houses, enjoying the nice weather. After a nice buffet lunch, we decided to visit the imposing medieval castle, located in the harbour. It was an interesting place to visit, more in my taste than Drottningholm, which we visited the day before (I like good old honest medieval castles; with moats, guard towers and solid walls).
From Vadstena we headed to the other main tourist attraction by the Vättern lake; Gränna. Gränna really only had one thing going for it - its “polkagrisar” (candy/peppermint stick in English?). That fact very quickly becomes obvious to an observant, seasoned traveller such as myself (and everybody else who has eyes, actually, since about every second building in town seems to be a candy shop specialising in this sweet treat). We stopped long enough for a very relaxing swim at the camp site by the lake, and to buy a few polkagrisar (damn, we fell into the tourist trap….) before leaving…
Our original plan had been to stay the night in Göteborg, but realised it was getting a bit late so we decided to head straight towards Skåne instead (from where we were planning to cross over to Denmark, later in the week). We ended up spending the night at a camping in Ljungby, mostly because it was conveniently on the way. I mean, there really isn’t much to see in Ljungby (it reminded me a lot of some of the places we stopped at in Finland), we even struggled to find a decent restaurant (in fact, we ended up having dinner in a cosy, if rather deserted, pub).
After a good night’s sleep in our trusty Decathlon tent, we carried on towards Skåne. Skåne occupies the very southern tip of Sweden, and was until quite recently part of Denmark. So it’s a bit different from the rest of Sweden – and this is particularly noticeable in the way they speak. Swedish is my first language, actually, but I really struggle with the Skåne accent (the Skåne people are kind of similar to the Danes when they communicate; which is to say the people sound like their mouth is full of potatoes, and that they only pronounce about every second letter in each word). It’s supposedly also a very pretty region, so I was rather looking forward to this leg of our journey.
Our first stop in Skåne was the Kullen peninsula. It’s a very rocky, picturesque place, dotted with small and picturesque fishing villages. It sort of reminded me of some parts of Scotland (the weather helped – it was raining). We stopped for a short walk around one of these picturesque fishing villages; Arild, taking in the cute little houses and the fishing boats. From there we drove on to eastern the tip of the peninsula (which is a natural reserve), Kullaberg, with its old lighthouse. We spent some time walking around the this picturesque spot (pity about the rain…), which was at times challenges as I was trying to avoid crushing the numerous ladybirds that seemed to be all over the place (much to Mathilde’s delight). After a quick visit to the small museum that was located next to the light house, we carried on to the main town of the peninsula, Mölle. It’s another very pretty little town, with a big fishing port. We decided it was a nice enough place to have lunch, and naturally this being a fishing village, we lunched in one of the port-side eateries (we both had a kind of Swedish version of fish & chips).
Our stomachs filled, we drove on to Lund, one of the most attractive towns in Sweden (according to our Lonely Planet guidebook). It is one of the most well-preserved medieval towns in Sweden, and certainly one of the most picturesque ones. It’s different from Vadstena, for example, in that it’s more of a real city (it has a big university so it’s actually quite a lively place) than a “museum town”. The architecture is also quite different – Lund being dominated by sturdy stone houses, compared to Vadstena's wooden houses. We had a nice walk around the town centre, which is admirably well-preserved, built around the impressive cathedral (with its famous astonomical clock). I also took the opportunity to buy a few Wallander novels, which I thought would make appropriate travel reading (the Wallander novels take place mostly in Skåne).
Our final stop for the day was actually the town where Wallander walks the beat, so to speak – Ystad. It was getting quite late, so we decided to head for the camping straight away. Since it was still raining, we wanted to stay in a cabin, rather than in our tent (trustworthy though it may be…). Unfortunately, all the cabins at the main camping were taken (German summer holidays being in full swing…), so we ended up renting one at a smaller place across the road (which was operated by a fellow Finn, actually; nice chap). After a decent enough dinner at the local, followed by a bit of Wallander and a good night’s sleep, we headed into town to explore Ystad. Ystad is very picturesque, historic Swedish town. It’s again a bit different from both Lund and Vadstena – Ystad is dotted with half-timber houses. Size-wise it’s also in between the other too – which means it’s more calm and easier to walk around than Lund, while still feeling like a proper town (although it’s clearly pretty touristy). It’s a very nice place to walk around – something that perhaps doesn’t come across the Wallander novels (it was rather hard to imagine this place having a “dark side” as we walked around its cobble-stone streets).
After our all-too brief Ystad visit, we carried on exploring Skåne; heading eastwards to Kåseberga – where Sweden’s answer to Britain’s Stonehenge; Ales stenar; is located. Much like Stonehenge, Ales stenar is a circle (or in this case, more of an oval) of upright rocks – the purpose of which has spawned many theories. It was pretty interesting (and better than Stonehenge in the sense that it’s not surrounded by a big fence!), as much as an oval of upright rocks can be. The location is also stunning, overlooking the rocky Baltic rocky near the edge of a cliff. Having enjoyed the sunshine there for a while, we headed down to Kåseberga harbour to grab some lunch. The thing to absolutely have here is freshly caught fish (salmon or herring) in one of the simple yet welcoming eateries. It was probably one of the best meals on our trip so far, and excellent value for money as well!
From Kåseberga we carried on eastwards through the beautiful farm-dotted Skåne scenery to Sandhammar; one of the prettiest and biggest beaches in Sweden. It sort of reminded me of the Hiekkasärkät in Kokkola, with its vast sand dunes and long beaches. We spent a couple of hours relaxing in the sunshine, entertained by two top-less ladies singing opera for us (welcome to Sweden, eh…?). After a very nice swim in the cool, crystal clear Baltic waters, we felt ready to carry on our exploration of this lovely part of the world…
The next stop on our trip was Simrishamn, another pretty little town (which also features in some Wallander novels), where we spent a while wandering around … After a brief stop a nice little castle near Simrishamn, Glimmingehus (which makes the bold claim of being the “most well-conserved castle in Scandinavia” – wonder on what they base that claim?), we carried on towards Malmö (from where we were planning to take cross over to Denmark the following day). Our next stop, conveniently on the way, was Agneta’s and Mats’ place, where we had been most kindly invited for coffee and cake. Agneta and Mats are friends of Gunnveig, a very dear friend of the family who was visiting Skåne with her companion Anders. We spent a very interesting hour or so chatting away with them – Agneta and Mats are great fun, very cosmopolitan people who have definitely been around a lot (Agneta is an artist), and it’s always nice to catch up with Gunnveig. Nice to finally meet Anders as well! And damn that cake was good…
Our stomachs once more filled to the brim, we carried on, finally deciding to stay the night at a nice camping we found near Trelleborg. Having pitched out tent, we headed into town for dinner. Since Trelleborg is quite a big town, and also a port with ferry connections to Germany, we expected to have plenty of eateries to choose from, but alas, that was not the case. Having spent quite some time checking out various options, we ended up having a very nice, if somewhat lonely dinner at one of the fancier places in town (seems like everybody else in town was at a Turkish pizzeria we had walked past earlier).
We started the next day with a refreshing swim in the Baltic, after which we drove up to Malmo. After booking our hotel in Copenhagen at a Wifi-equipped café at the train station, we headed out to briefly explore Malmö on foot. It is, after all, the main city of Skåne. Based on our short walk around the town centre (which took in the “big square” and the “little square”, as well as the main shopping streets), it seemed like a nice enough place, with plenty of cafes, bars and restaurants.
And then it was time to say bye-bye to Sweden, and take the Öresund Bridge across to Denmark. All in all, it was a very interesting, if short, visit. Stockholm is definitely one of the nicest cities in Europe, especially during the summer. But for me, the real discovery was Skåne. Beautiful countryside, old medieval towns, people who speak like they have porridge in their mouth, long sandy beaches, great seafood, “the Wallander ambience” – what else could one wish for ?
We arrived in Stockholm at a dreadfully early hour. The plan was to stay at Robert’s and Doan’s place (a very nice Swedish couple I met during my studies in Edinburgh), so we decided to drop off our things at their place and borrow a guide book from them for the day. The reunion was a most happy one – I think the last time we saw them (also in Stockholm) was about five years ago. There were two very cute new family members this time around :-).
Since we’d both already seen the main sights of Stockholm, we decided to start the day by exploring the countryside west of Stockholm. Our drive took us across some islands on the Mälaren Lake. The first one was Ekerö, where we visited started off the day by having a walk around an old manor, followed by visit to a nice medieval stone church. A short drive took us to the next island, Munsö, where we visited another pretty medieval stone church. From there we took a ferry (similar to what is used in the Turku archipelago in Finland) across to Adelsö, a similarly picturesque island, where we visited yet one more medieval church (I’m starting to feel like a broken record...). The main sight on Adelsö is Hovgården, which is one of the main archaeological sites from the Viking area in Sweden. It’s believed to be the site from where the kings and chieftains ruled the region. A lot of imagination is required here, since all that remains are a couple of rune-stones and some mounds of earth (the Kungshögarna – or royal mounds).
On the way back to Stockholm, we stopped for a visit at Drottningholm, which is the residence of the Swedish royal family. I guess you could call it the Swedish version of Versailles, with its vast, well-tended, baroque gardens; and imposing castle. We paid the rather steep entrance fee to visit the interior of the castle – but were too stingy to pay for the guide book. As a result of which we were greeted by the typical succession of imposing rooms with portraits and antique furniture – without any explanations at all about the rooms themselves. A bit cheeky to force people to buy a guide book in addition to paying the entrance fee, if you ask me… In spite of this, there’s no denying the palace is rather splendid – if a bit “over-the-top in a Versailles way” for my taste. After a 15 Euro sandwich lunch (I was starting to feel seriously ripped off), we continued on our way to Stockholm. 
We arrived in Stockholm town centre late afternoon, and decided to enjoy the splendid weather in Djurgården. Djurgården is one of the many islands on top of which Stockholm is build, and one of the greenest ones. It’s basically like a big park, but also houses several famous attractions; the Wasa ship (an example of brilliant Swedish engineering – it was the most expensive ship of its time, but sank about 2 kilometres after leaving the harbour, in front of all the cheering masses), the Skansen open-air museum, and the Gröna Lund amusement park. Since we were a bit short on time, we just decided to have a walk around and enjoy the sunshine. After about half an hour spent trying to find a cash machine (strange, considering we were looking in Östermalm; one of the poshest areas of Stockholm), we got back into our car, and headed for Robert and Doan’s flat. Which turned out to be quite a challenging task – apparently there were some pretty major road works taking place, as a result of which we moved about 1 km in 1 hour (I’m not even exaggerating – I checked the GPS!). We then decided to ignore the GPS, drive out of the town centre and sort of take a big detour around the town centre. Which took us another 30 minutes… In spite of our all the hassle we had leaving the place, it can’t be denied that Stockholm is a rather splendid city, especially when the weather is nice, as it was on this day. 
Thankfully, we arrived just in time for dinner… And a great dinner it was indeed, especially as it was enjoyed in such good company. It was really good to catch up with Robert and Doan, it’d been such a long time since the last time; the reunion was long overdue. Me and Robert continued our conversation post-dinner over some very fine whisky (I probably had one or two glasses too many for my own good again…), discussing everything from work, the good old times in Edinburgh, life in France to the house him and Doan are having build (looks very impressive, based on the pictures I saw). 
The next morning, it was once more time to say bye-bye (with promises we would not wait another five years until the next visit…) and carry on towards the warm south. From Stockholm we headed to Vadstena, very nicely located on the Vättern Lake. Vadstena is one of the most famous historic towns in Sweden, famous for its monastery and well-preserved old town. Turns out the monastery has been converted to a restaurant and hotel, but the impressive, if sombre, church remains. We then spent a pleasant couple of hours walking around the cobble-stoned streets of the picturesque old town, with its wooden houses, enjoying the nice weather. After a nice buffet lunch, we decided to visit the imposing medieval castle, located in the harbour. It was an interesting place to visit, more in my taste than Drottningholm, which we visited the day before (I like good old honest medieval castles; with moats, guard towers and solid walls).From Vadstena we headed to the other main tourist attraction by the Vättern lake; Gränna. Gränna really only had one thing going for it - its “polkagrisar” (candy/peppermint stick in English?). That fact very quickly becomes obvious to an observant, seasoned traveller such as myself (and everybody else who has eyes, actually, since about every second building in town seems to be a candy shop specialising in this sweet treat). We stopped long enough for a very relaxing swim at the camp site by the lake, and to buy a few polkagrisar (damn, we fell into the tourist trap….) before leaving…
Our original plan had been to stay the night in Göteborg, but realised it was getting a bit late so we decided to head straight towards Skåne instead (from where we were planning to cross over to Denmark, later in the week). We ended up spending the night at a camping in Ljungby, mostly because it was conveniently on the way. I mean, there really isn’t much to see in Ljungby (it reminded me a lot of some of the places we stopped at in Finland), we even struggled to find a decent restaurant (in fact, we ended up having dinner in a cosy, if rather deserted, pub).
After a good night’s sleep in our trusty Decathlon tent, we carried on towards Skåne. Skåne occupies the very southern tip of Sweden, and was until quite recently part of Denmark. So it’s a bit different from the rest of Sweden – and this is particularly noticeable in the way they speak. Swedish is my first language, actually, but I really struggle with the Skåne accent (the Skåne people are kind of similar to the Danes when they communicate; which is to say the people sound like their mouth is full of potatoes, and that they only pronounce about every second letter in each word). It’s supposedly also a very pretty region, so I was rather looking forward to this leg of our journey.
Our first stop in Skåne was the Kullen peninsula. It’s a very rocky, picturesque place, dotted with small and picturesque fishing villages. It sort of reminded me of some parts of Scotland (the weather helped – it was raining). We stopped for a short walk around one of these picturesque fishing villages; Arild, taking in the cute little houses and the fishing boats. From there we drove on to eastern the tip of the peninsula (which is a natural reserve), Kullaberg, with its old lighthouse. We spent some time walking around the this picturesque spot (pity about the rain…), which was at times challenges as I was trying to avoid crushing the numerous ladybirds that seemed to be all over the place (much to Mathilde’s delight). After a quick visit to the small museum that was located next to the light house, we carried on to the main town of the peninsula, Mölle. It’s another very pretty little town, with a big fishing port. We decided it was a nice enough place to have lunch, and naturally this being a fishing village, we lunched in one of the port-side eateries (we both had a kind of Swedish version of fish & chips). 
Our stomachs filled, we drove on to Lund, one of the most attractive towns in Sweden (according to our Lonely Planet guidebook). It is one of the most well-preserved medieval towns in Sweden, and certainly one of the most picturesque ones. It’s different from Vadstena, for example, in that it’s more of a real city (it has a big university so it’s actually quite a lively place) than a “museum town”. The architecture is also quite different – Lund being dominated by sturdy stone houses, compared to Vadstena's wooden houses. We had a nice walk around the town centre, which is admirably well-preserved, built around the impressive cathedral (with its famous astonomical clock). I also took the opportunity to buy a few Wallander novels, which I thought would make appropriate travel reading (the Wallander novels take place mostly in Skåne). 
Our final stop for the day was actually the town where Wallander walks the beat, so to speak – Ystad. It was getting quite late, so we decided to head for the camping straight away. Since it was still raining, we wanted to stay in a cabin, rather than in our tent (trustworthy though it may be…). Unfortunately, all the cabins at the main camping were taken (German summer holidays being in full swing…), so we ended up renting one at a smaller place across the road (which was operated by a fellow Finn, actually; nice chap). After a decent enough dinner at the local, followed by a bit of Wallander and a good night’s sleep, we headed into town to explore Ystad. Ystad is very picturesque, historic Swedish town. It’s again a bit different from both Lund and Vadstena – Ystad is dotted with half-timber houses. Size-wise it’s also in between the other too – which means it’s more calm and easier to walk around than Lund, while still feeling like a proper town (although it’s clearly pretty touristy). It’s a very nice place to walk around – something that perhaps doesn’t come across the Wallander novels (it was rather hard to imagine this place having a “dark side” as we walked around its cobble-stone streets). 
After our all-too brief Ystad visit, we carried on exploring Skåne; heading eastwards to Kåseberga – where Sweden’s answer to Britain’s Stonehenge; Ales stenar; is located. Much like Stonehenge, Ales stenar is a circle (or in this case, more of an oval) of upright rocks – the purpose of which has spawned many theories. It was pretty interesting (and better than Stonehenge in the sense that it’s not surrounded by a big fence!), as much as an oval of upright rocks can be. The location is also stunning, overlooking the rocky Baltic rocky near the edge of a cliff. Having enjoyed the sunshine there for a while, we headed down to Kåseberga harbour to grab some lunch. The thing to absolutely have here is freshly caught fish (salmon or herring) in one of the simple yet welcoming eateries. It was probably one of the best meals on our trip so far, and excellent value for money as well! From Kåseberga we carried on eastwards through the beautiful farm-dotted Skåne scenery to Sandhammar; one of the prettiest and biggest beaches in Sweden. It sort of reminded me of the Hiekkasärkät in Kokkola, with its vast sand dunes and long beaches. We spent a couple of hours relaxing in the sunshine, entertained by two top-less ladies singing opera for us (welcome to Sweden, eh…?). After a very nice swim in the cool, crystal clear Baltic waters, we felt ready to carry on our exploration of this lovely part of the world…
The next stop on our trip was Simrishamn, another pretty little town (which also features in some Wallander novels), where we spent a while wandering around … After a brief stop a nice little castle near Simrishamn, Glimmingehus (which makes the bold claim of being the “most well-conserved castle in Scandinavia” – wonder on what they base that claim?), we carried on towards Malmö (from where we were planning to take cross over to Denmark the following day). Our next stop, conveniently on the way, was Agneta’s and Mats’ place, where we had been most kindly invited for coffee and cake. Agneta and Mats are friends of Gunnveig, a very dear friend of the family who was visiting Skåne with her companion Anders. We spent a very interesting hour or so chatting away with them – Agneta and Mats are great fun, very cosmopolitan people who have definitely been around a lot (Agneta is an artist), and it’s always nice to catch up with Gunnveig. Nice to finally meet Anders as well! And damn that cake was good…Our stomachs once more filled to the brim, we carried on, finally deciding to stay the night at a nice camping we found near Trelleborg. Having pitched out tent, we headed into town for dinner. Since Trelleborg is quite a big town, and also a port with ferry connections to Germany, we expected to have plenty of eateries to choose from, but alas, that was not the case. Having spent quite some time checking out various options, we ended up having a very nice, if somewhat lonely dinner at one of the fancier places in town (seems like everybody else in town was at a Turkish pizzeria we had walked past earlier).
We started the next day with a refreshing swim in the Baltic, after which we drove up to Malmo. After booking our hotel in Copenhagen at a Wifi-equipped café at the train station, we headed out to briefly explore Malmö on foot. It is, after all, the main city of Skåne. Based on our short walk around the town centre (which took in the “big square” and the “little square”, as well as the main shopping streets), it seemed like a nice enough place, with plenty of cafes, bars and restaurants.
And then it was time to say bye-bye to Sweden, and take the Öresund Bridge across to Denmark. All in all, it was a very interesting, if short, visit. Stockholm is definitely one of the nicest cities in Europe, especially during the summer. But for me, the real discovery was Skåne. Beautiful countryside, old medieval towns, people who speak like they have porridge in their mouth, long sandy beaches, great seafood, “the Wallander ambience” – what else could one wish for ?
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