Blogs from Sweden, Europe

Today I traveled to Sweden by train over the very long bridge to Malmö. I checked before I left to make sure I had my passport and for the second time (or third?) helped someone with directions. I apparently look like I know what I’m doing so I guess that is good? This couple was from Istanbul and had a nice conversation with them while waiting for the train. Wouldn’t you know that it was my luck that border control came to check everyone’s passports? This does not happen every time. Just for the lucky people I guess.. They were walking down the aisle checking as I was getting mine out and wouldn’t you know, it wasn’t there! Yes. I had my wallet for my passport WITHOUT my passport because I had some bright idea of ... read more

Gravel roads in Portugal, nah, not me I prefer a nice smooth tarmac road with many corners, no way. Wait, did you say Portugal and gravel for wimps? Ok I'm in not so much for the gravel but the sun and some Douro wine will do nicely A friend told me to take my smallest bike as my behemoth BMW would make it into more of a chore than fun and he also lied to me and said it would be fun. So the small bike is more a home for sundry spiders in my garage, obviously it's great fun for spiders to weave their nets on motorbikes. So I took it from the garage and got some service done and with a new battery is started and ran alright. The company that arranged this, takes ... read more

Checked out of our last hotel room for the holiday. Breakfast at this hotel has been one of the better spreads I have to say. Can’t say I won’t miss packing, unpacking, finding the new hotel or putting up with carrying heavy bags up stairs where there is no lift. We decided to catch the express train to the airport seeing as how it leaves from the station about 50 meters away from the hotel. Got tickets but just missed a train. Never mind. Another one in 19 minutes. Asked the driver what was the best position for terminal 5. Middle carriage stops right at the lifts. Get our seats and all of a sudden the driver pops his head in and tells us that terminal 5 is the second stop. Nice service. By express they ... read more

7 weeks and one day away from home. Countdown is at 3 sleeps if you include the plane sleep….. Today we energized and became tourists again. Had massive plans for walking to city hall for a tour then maybe to the ABBA museum and the Viking museum. Fail at the first hurdle. Got to city hall easily - same way as the hire car place so I was on the money for a short walk. Unfortunately the only way into city hall is with a guided tour. Next tour was 1 hour wait. Bugger that. Ok. Re-schedule plans. Into the old town to do the Royal Palace then other stuff there. As we walked over the bridge we noticed an old building (lots of them) which happened to only be open between 1100 and 1200. In ... read more

Another day in the Kalmar area. Today we crossed the bridge from mainland Sweden to Oland. Reasonable sized island massive sized bridge - about 6 km long. It is relatively flat until the middle section where it rises reasonably steeply to allow shipping underneath. The island is famous for its old windmills. They dot the island everywhere. We stopped at one large windmill which has sort of been turned into a museum. You climb the old timber stairs up 5 levels. The original mechanisms are still in place. The engineering from back in the 1800’s is amazing. We then went on some back roads and along the waterfront. Narrow roads and in some cases dirt. Nice distraction from the main roads we had been traveling earlier. Many interesting things along the way. Our ultimate goal was ... read more