Road Trip

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Emboldened by the success of our first foray out of Stockholm, Rachel and I set off on our next adventure - a 4-day road trip around southern Sweden. I give full credit to Rachel for the excellent planning - all I did was organise 2 days off and book the car! And even that was simply asking one of the guys in the office to sort it out for me... the benefits of working for a travel company 😊

Friday
Stockholm - Västervik - Oskarshamn

Early on Friday afternoon I snuck out of the office and headed towards Medborgarplatsen to pick up our wheels. A quick pitstop for sushi and then to the rental office where I was told that they didn't have the car I'd ordered so would I mind taking a larger model.... Well, OK then. As long as it's not an estate. Hence I end up in a dark garage round the corner trying to locate my Volvo S60 in a line-up of identical grey vehicles. The nice mechanic didn't know which was mine either so just pressed the unlock button and pointed me at the one that flashed! Some things don't require language.

Had anyone been watching, the next 10 minutes would have gone down in comedy history. Thankfully I was on my own! I eventually managed to manoeuvre the beast out of the tiny space and up the tiny ramp (a feat I doubt any American would have managed) and got to the automatic doors. Which wouldn't open. The lady behind me pulled up but also couldn't open them. After a spot of Swenglish and some pointing, I held the pedestrian door open for her whilst she ran out and typed in the code from the outside. Doors now opening I leapt back into the car and sped out of the garage. A little faster than I'd intended, so put my foot on the brake and promptly hit the horn as I catapulted myself towards the windscreen! The brakes were apparently a little sensitive...

Back at my flat, I loaded the car with snacks and supplies and awaited Rachel's arrival. We had hoped to leave mid afternoon but she had some difficulties with delivery men so that didn't quite work. Not to worry, we finally set off out of Stockholm en route to our first stop - Västervik, a pretty seaside town on the east coast.

Unfortunately Rachel hadn't been able to find any accommodation in Västervik so we weren't staying there, but decided to stop there anyway and have a wander around the pretty streets and harbour, and have a bite to eat. The weather was kind to us - having rained on and off throughout the drive, the sun came out when we got there and so we stayed dry. Highlight of Västervik was "Korv Man" - spotted on arrival in the town, he was moving his hot dog stand, apparently on the front of a moped! And was kind enough to look straight at the camera as Rachel perfected the art of drive-by photography 😊

Post pizza dinner the clouds were coming in and we headed back to the car for the final leg of today's journey - to Oskarshamn and our beds for the night. Torrential rain slowed the drive a bit, and our map wasn't the most helpful for finding our hostel, but we got there in the end. And there the adventure started... We had arrived after hours so the normal check-in procedure didn't apply. Rachel had been given an access code for the door and was told to call a number on arrival. We got in through the first door and then called. Having identified herself she was given another number - this time to a safe deposit box on the wall. Typing in that code released one of the little doors which sprung open and revealed our card key! All very cloak and dagger. The room was big and clean and had a choice of 4 beds but sadly no bedding... Never mind, we improvised and got our heads down for a kip.

Saturday
Oskarshamn - Borgholm, Öland

The morning dawned damp but at least not tipping it down. Yet. We decided that Oskarshamn wasn't really a place to spend much time (it's a port rather than a place notable for its beauty) so we packed the car, checked out (at reception this time - how boring) and got on the road. Whereupon it started bucketing down. But we were nice and dry and amused ourselves with the admittedly limited music selection I liberated from my flat. Sadly not to Rachel's taste so we ended up with a disproportionately large number of Robbie Williams tracks! A theme that would haunt me once we moved on to trying the various radio stations - no matter which station we picked, Robbie would pop up within one or two songs!! I have nothing against the man, but everything in moderation as Grandad was fond of telling me...

We headed to Borgholm, where our next accommodation was situated. An excellent set of directions saw us at the Drottning Victorias Vilohem by late morning. Set in beautiful secluded grounds, it's an old house full of antiques... both inanimate and (mostly) animate... Turns out that Vilohem is Swedish for rest home!! Despite that (and the man lounging on his bed in the room below with curtains wide open wearing nothing but his underpants), we had a lovely room in a separate building overlooking the gardens and it proved to be a very pleasant place to stay.

With the weather not so great, we spent our day driving around the island of Öland and seeing what it had to offer. Which seemed to be mostly windmills! We stopped at one for lunch to try the local speciality (kroppkaka - potato dumpling with meat filling - tasty but rather heavy). Some more driving around and we ended up at the lighthouse at the very north of the island. Great views from the top but rather windy!

We also made a short stop to see the neighbours - the royal family have a summer house right next door to Drottning Victorias Vilohem! Of course we happened to arrive after the gardens had closed for the day, and I'm not sure they were even there... Which makes it twice we've missed them. We are rubbish stalkers. But it was a pleasant walk around and the ruined castle was quite impressive.

Sunday
Borgholm - Kalmar - Kristianopoel - Karlskrona

Breakfast provided more comedy as we fought with the little old ladies as to who was allowed to sit at which table. We obviously lost and moved 3 times during our meal. But the food was tasty and plentiful so no real complaints. The weather was a bit better so we set off to locate Ismantorp, a Viking ring fort. Easier said than done as this place is deep in woodland and the signposting was really bad for Sweden. But we got there and had a good wander around, trying to work out what the various ruins were and playing king of the castle on the walls.

Next stop was another ring fort, this time at Gråborg. This one is the largest Iron Age ring fort on the island, complete with grazing sheep in the middle, and a nearby ruined chapel (of much later construction) where they were about to hold the normal Sunday service for locals and cowboys... We didn't ask. They also sold rather lovely locally produced honey, which is now a staple of my breakfast back in Stockholm 😊

Heading off Öland finally we stopped in Kalmar to visit their very impressive castle. For once we decided not to be complete skinflints and actually paid to get entrance and a "free" guided tour. Which was really very interesting, as well as rather amusing when our guide nonchalently leaned against the historic bed that belonged to one of Gustav Vasa's sons, only for a big chunk to break off it! She balanced it back on and carried on regardless, telling us of this particular king's pursuit of our very own Queen Elizabeth. I still think he would have fared better had he not sent a portrait of himself wearing Spanish red...

Having learned our lesson with 2 days in Uppsala, we had a packed itinerary planned so headed off to Kristianopoel, a tiny hamlet (population 38) that has been at the forefront of the numerous wars over territory between Sweden and Denmark over 77 years (not the last 77 obviously). Although today it is Swedish (and unlikely to revert again), the church flies flags of both nations as a reminder of the bloodshed, including when the previous church was burned to the ground by King Gustav II Adolf of Sweden with all the women and children of the village inside. Charming man. At the harbour we were told that we should also be able to see the 3 metre thick, 3km long fortification walls... but we were obviously being unobservant as we couldn't spot them!

Last stop on today's tour was Karlskrona. Of all the places we've stayed, this was the least noteworthy hotel, although they did have free coffee and biscuits on tap, which we availed ourselves of before setting off for an evening walk around the town (following the suggested walking tour from the tourist office), and a rather pleasant dinner and beers on the town square. All in all a very busy day!

Monday
Karlskrona - Gränna

Monday dawned grey and raining but that didn't deter us from our first sight of the day - the fort on Kungsholmen, a short boat ride from Karlskrona. In all the pictures of Karlskrona we'd seen this fantastic circular habour in aerial view... but had failed to find it anywhere in town! A visit to the tourist office put us right and we booked ourselves on the tour boat. The island is actually still a military installation so you can only see parts of it, and always with a guide. Our guide fancied himself a comedian and managed to single out us 2 English girls - I think he thought it odd that we were on the tour, having no connection to Sweden and not much interest in military history! But the circular harbour was impressive and it was a nice boat ride so no harm done. Plus we got to go to the "weapon free zone" that was the cafeteria 😊

Boat trip over, and sun now shining, we started on the fairly long drive up to Gränna. We did a bit of a detour to try to see some glassmaking at Orrefors, as recommended by one of my colleagues. But it started tipping it down making driving difficult, and we were past closing time of most of the places so not as interesting as it could have been. Tiredness also set in so we wanted to find out bed for the night... Which turned out to be a portacabin on a Swedish holiday camp! Very funny... Sadly no en suite bathroom (or towels provided!) so more improvisation needed.

Starving hungry, we headed out to the local seafood restaurant for huge plates of salmon and prawns - delicious! A post dinner wander took us out along the spit of land between the lake and the swimming lagoon... and a narrow miss with a fishhook which lodged itself in the forehead of a young lad who was there fishing. Ouch. Moving swiftly on, we ended up back at the holiday camp bar, where two women were leading some kind of folk karaoke session. We stayed for a while, having a quiet laugh at a couple at one table where the woman was drunkenly seranading her husband, and wondering about the nationality of a couple of guys at the next table who were wearing England and Spain rugby shirts...

I'm not entirely sure how, but we ended up at England and Spain's table (they were both Swedish), chatting with Marianne (Swedish) and her husband (American) before heading over to a Greek restaurant, run by Turks for a late-night lock-in... Bit random, but a lot of fun with dancing on tables and lots of free beer 😊 We even got an invite to Marianne's son's birthday party at their house the next day! Sadly we couldn't go as we had to head back to Stockholm.

Tuesday
Gränna - Vadstena - Örebro - Stockholm

Having been woken before 7am by herds of rampaging children down the hollow corridors of our portacabin and nursing fearsome hangovers we stumbled over to breakfast at the main house. Whereupon Rachel discovered that she'd left her jumper at the restaurant the night before... Oops. So we hung around the area until they finally opened up shop 2 minutes before they started serving food, also rather worse for wear!

Finally we set off - the scenery was pretty but got a bit samey after a while - southern Sweden is very flat. We stopped off at Vadstena for a bite to eat and a stretch of the legs then pushed on to Örebro. Unfortunately I had to dial in for a conference call and we weren't going to make it quite into town so there I was, sitting in a Volvo in a car park overlooking IKEA... I have gone truly native.

When we finally got there, Örebro was also a very pretty town with a rather imposing castle (yes, another one!) complete with Monty Python hand emerging from the moat... But a distinct lack of good ice cream vendors. Which was disappointing as it was the one thing that I simply had to have that afternoon! We found one in the end, right next to where the car was parked... at which point we decided it was probably time to head for home and my "own" bed 😊

Postscript - Wednesday
Lorensbergsgatan, Stockholm - Åsogatan, Stockholm

When parking up near my flat on Tuesday night, I was so busy congratulating myself on reading the sign that said "no parking on Tuesdays between midnight and 7am" that I completely failed to spot the one saying "no parking here ever as it's a turning circle". SEK900 fine, levied at 0523. Who sends out traffic wardens at that time of the morning?!! Anyway, not the best end to the trip. And a rather long-winded effort to get it paid, finally having to go to the money exchange office to pay in cash!

But apart from that, a really good trip! 😊

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