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.