Swede dreams are made of this

By -
We've been in Sweden a couple of days now. We drove over the Øresund bridge to get here – there's a road tunnel under the sea and then the majestic, sweeping bridge that connects Denmark to Sweden – and I'd been excited about this moment since before we left the UK. I had the idea of videoing this momentous journey, so Claire got the video camera out and we started filming as we emerged from the tunnel up onto the bridge itself. I'd forgotten to charge the battery, however, so we got 90 seconds of footage of us driving out of a tunnel. It's probably just as well though, because it's quite a long bridge and after a while it got a bit "samey". Nobody would have wanted to sit through that.

After leaving Mälmo, at the bridge's end, we headed to Ystad, which is the home town of depressing fictional Swedish detective Wallander. He wasn't there. We then went on to Ales Stenar, near Kåsberga, which is the site of some bronze age standing stones – like Avebury but boat-shaped – up on the cliff tops. That was mighty impressive. We also visited Kungagraven (King's grave) a burial sight that looks like the Tellytubby house but built of boulders. That, too, was quite special.

Our first impressions of Sweden were that it was a bit bleak and run down and grey compared to Denmark. I seem to remember a possibly made up fact that Sweden has quite a high suicide rate and we could certainly feel the fun ebbing out of our lives as we trundled through the depressing landscape of the south. And that was in bright sunshine. The countryside as we move north is better – probably because we are seeing lakes and forests and all the things you expect of a Scandinavian country. We've seen warning signs for moose, deer and even boar which brings an air of excitement to the journey as you eagerly anticipate having to take evasive action as some beast of the forest hurls itself into the road. None have made an appearance yet sadly.

Sweden seems to have a lot of bike gangs. We've met several chapters of the Swedish Hell's Angels cruising around – and they ARE just like the gang in those Girl Who Set Fire To A Dragon's Nest films. Swedes also seem to be very fond of big gas-guzzling American cars, so our Ebay van feels right at home.

Just had my first go at laundry for this trip. Any confusion I may have had with English washing machines (I always use the same setting – colours, 40°) has just been amplified ten-fold by the Swedish machine I was confronted with. Not one word or symbol is remotely recognisable – only numbers. Worryingly "9H" flashed up when I switched it on and I'm worried I'm going to be sat here for 9 hours…

We are currently camped somewhere unpronounceable by a lake with an old ruined castle on an island in the middle. Views don't get much better than that!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The coast with the most

By -
Image
I’d always assumed that the famous leaning tower of Pisa was once straight and that it had gained its unusual tilt over centuries of subsidence. Turns out that it was just a dodgy building job and has been an almighty cock up all its life. One thing is for sure though: it’s one of those landmarks where it is better to be outside looking up at it, than up it looking out. That little gem of wisdom cost Claire and I 18 euros each in entrance fees. You see, aside from the arduous climb up the stairs seeming a bit steeper in places and ever-so-slightly easier in others, all you get at the top is a view of the rest of Pisa which, apart from the neighbouring cathedral, is pretty dull. There are a few bells up there (it is, after all, a bell tower) and some annoying tourists, whose sole job is to get in the way of every single photograph you want to take, but otherwise there’s not much going on. The best views are to be had down on the ground and they are actually best viewed with the tower b
Read more

Cowboys and engines!

By -
Image
We were driving from Yuma towards Tucson when we got stopped by a US Border Patrol officer. We are very near the Mexican border down here so we have seen hundreds of these patrols up and down the highway. Once this one had ascertained that we were neither Mexican nor illegal he seemed to lighten up a little and fancied a chat. He was perplexed as to why we were in this part of the country and not at the Grand Canyon or Las Vegas. "There ain't much to see down here," h e quipped. Oh, but there is... We got to Tucson and found ourselves a nice little spot in a proper trailer park where people actually live full-time. We met a guy there called John who had one arm, three teeth, a yellow beard and a poodle. He was very friendly and gave us lots of tips for things to do in the area, as well as sharing the very comprehensive list of nicknames he has for his dog. We didn't do everything on John's list (mainly because we couldn't understand all that he was saying)
Read more

Captain cook

By -
Image
At this time of year a lot of the campsites have started closing for winter so, as we made our way back towards the Alps, our choices of where to stay became a bit limited and we ended up choosing campsites that we might not normally stay at. Which is how we ended up staying at a fairly surreal place in a little town called Torre Daniele. It’s not a massive town but we still had difficulty locating the campsite itself and, even after spotting it, couldn’t find a way in and somehow ended up driving over a sort of rickety old foot bridge. The place was full of old knackered caravans and looked abandoned, apart from a single dog who was barking loudly. Claire hopped out to see if she could find someone in charge and approximately 20 seconds later was back in the van with the barking dog hot on her heels. We drove a bit further into the camp and an elderly couple emerged from one of the caravans. They were Dutch, very friendly and told us that they came here for two months every year to he
Read more