Skåne

Our first full day in Sweden was spent discovering Skåne, the southernmost region. We took in some sights such as the city of Lund with an open air museum representing various houses from Swedish history. One of the houses was a reconstruction of the living quarters of a professor and one of the rooms inside was furnished as a library. I couldn’t help noticing that the bookcases looked familiar and sure enough, I soon figured out that they looked like the IKEA Leksvik bookcase. It only remains to figure out what came first, the IKEA Leksvik bookcase that they made to look old and used in a museum? Or, more likely, the museum piece served as the inspiration behind the design of the bookcase.


We also visited a reconstructed Viking fortress in the city of Trelleborg, quickly picking up that in Scandinavia everything revolves around Vikings. We made a short hike up to Ales Stenar, the Swedish Stonehenge. It is a grouping of rocks that is supposed to be aligned with the sunrise and sunset on different seasons of the year. It is not quite as impressive as the real Stonehenge, in my opinion.

Returning to camp, it was our intention to pack up the next morning and move on. I also wanted to run in the morning because I usually wake up early. But the next morning upon waking up I heard the unmistakable sound of rain on our tent. Great! Just what I needed on top of the cold! There was no running that morning (being a relatively new runner I still haven’t grasped the concept of running in any weather, so I wouldn’t set my feet out in the rain). Our stuff got wet, that is what was damp before was now definitely soaking wet. Sure enough, my camping equipment (which was previously mostly used for camping on the Croatian seacoast) includes a clothesline and pegs that I put up outside on a tree and left there during the night, to allow our towels to dry and to hang our bag with dirty laundry. It was all dripping wet now. Actually, looking around the camp, I realized that we were the only weirdos who left their laundry out, no one else used a clothesline. And thinking back, when we checked in the camp two days ago, the girl behind the reception desk suggested that we put up our tent in an area of camp that was higher up because it gets less muddy if it rains. Now I understand why she looked at us with such pity in her eyes, there actually weren’t that many people coming to camp in Sweden in August with a tent. In addition to the cold and the wind, it also rains a lot. A lot, we were to learn in subsequent days.

We managed to stuff everything that was wet into the trunk of our car and fold up the wet tent and moved on for several hours of driving towards Norway. It rained on and off all day long and I was sure glad to be in the warm, dry car. Yes, warm, we used heating in the car. In August.

Scandinavia

For this year's vacation Marko wanted us to go up north, where it is cooler than back home and much cooler than it was on our last year’s vacation. So we went to Sweden and Norway by car. I knew it was going to be cold so I took warm clothes with me but if I had known in advance how really cold, windy and rainy it would be, I might have reconsidered the whole trip. But after driving about 1.400 kilometers to reach the south of Sweden to find out how cold it really was there I didn’t see it worthwhile to turn back and go home.

Although it was my first trip to Scandinavia, I have to say that traveling in Europe is much less exciting compared to traveling in Asia or Africa. Everything seems the same as back home. But there were still a few first impressions so I will take them one by one.

Cold. I know I said it already and I am sure I will repeat it many more times. I was seriously surprised at how cold it really was even though it was August and the average daily temperatures were supposed to be around 20 degrees Celsius. When we arrived, it was cloudy, windy, damp with no sign of the sun and the temperature was definitely below 20 degrees. Sure enough, some of us tourists were dressed in all the jackets and sweaters we brought along whereas the locals were frolicking around in sundresses, shorts and tank tops. I’ve heard before that the Scandinavians have a much higher tolerance for cold and now I saw that it is all true. Thankfully they at least didn’t swim in the lake which would have made me shiver for sure.

We stayed in a campground on a lake near Höör, a small town. There is a beach on the lake and it looked like they were charging admission to the beach on the lake. But the entrance booths were ominously deserted and the gate to the lake was wide open so it seemed that no one bothered to collect admission. It was the last weekend of the high season after all and the beach with small rental boats seemed packed up and ready for the winter. No one was swimming because it was already too late in the season and too cold for beach activities. So much for our summer vacation. I went running to warm up a little and I noticed that even the horses that were grazing around the lake were covered in blankets. I knew I was in a lot of trouble as far as cold was concerned when even the horses needed protection.

Prices. We had been warned about high prices in Scandinavia. That is why we decided to camp with a tent and try to cook our own meals as much as possible. While it turned out true that eating out is outrageously expensive in Scandinavia and a cup of coffee in a restaurant in the city might cost as much as 4 EUR or more, I was surprised to find out that food in supermarkets was comparably priced to what we are used to in Slovenia. I bought fresh fruit and vegetables on the first day and saved the receipt so that I could compare prices when I returned home. It turned out that the 4,11 EUR that I paid at a supermarket in Sweden would have cost me 4,03 EUR in my local store back home for exactly the same items. The next morning we discovered an all you can eat breakfast buffet in a bakery in town for 5,45 EUR per person including coffee and juice which seemed more than reasonable to us. So at least we weren’t going to go bankrupt on food after all.

IKEA. No surprise, a visitor couldn’t possibly miss IKEA in Sweden. The first thing one sees immediately after crossing the Øresund Bridge from Denmark into Sweden is an IKEA store. Each city in Sweden and Norway has at least three IKEA stores. Although I had no intention of buying furniture while I was on vacation I still wanted to visit a store just to see if it was the same as the Austrian one I am used to. The store was much larger but still had exactly the same items on display, only more of them, for example, each piece of furniture was on display in all the various available colors and finishes.