Stockholm

We arrived at the Stockholm campground in early afternoon, just after it stopped raining and just before it started raining again. During the dry spell we managed to set up our tent and have something to eat. We went into the city in the evening, taking the Metro and heading straight to Gamla stan, the old town. After strolling around for a while we settled in a pub that displayed hundreds of different kinds of beer, many of them on tap. We asked the bartender for some Swedish beer but he just frowned and told us that all he had was a lager and an ale from a microbrewery. That’s it? In a pub with hundreds of beers they don’t have any good local beers to offer tourists? But we already knew that, Scandinavia is not known for beers or wines.


We spent the next two days sightseeing, mostly museums. The first on the list was the Vasa museum with the Swedish version of the Titanic. The Vasa ship sank when it first sailed out to sea and remained at the bottom of the sea until 1961 when it was raised, restored and moved to a museum. I was quite impressed with the museum as it displayed so much more than just the ship. A section of the museum is a reconstruction of one of the ship’s decks since the ship itself is off limits to tourists. Another section presents the results of a research project to determine what colors were painted on the decorations on the ship. And my favorite part is a section with bones of the ship’s crew and passengers, complete with facial reconstructions and whatever facts the researchers were able to gather from examining the bones. Obviously watching the TV series Bones had a huge impact on me; previously I would definitely have run away from human remains, but now I was curious to see what Bones would see.


Another interesting sight in Stockholm is the Ericsson Globe. It is just a sports arena, but with a circular dome and a funicular that runs up to the top on the outside of the globe. While nothing special really, they make a big show of how it was manufactured and it looks quite cool and futuristic so I had to go on a ride up there. It made me wonder why other sports stadiums don’t come up with the idea to generate additional income by making tourists pay so they can go up to the roof?


There was also a cute music museum with lots of musical instruments and instructional videos on how to use them so visitors could play them. I was thrilled that among the various styles of music that were on display, ABBA had its own category, with a display of the drums and keyboard that was allegedly used by the band.

After two days of wandering around the city we were tired and it was time to turn back for the long drive back home. On our way back we stopped at a roadside stop for lunch where I picked up a flyer advertising a moose safari. That was something that I would have liked to see but unfortunately it was too far away from where we were and we probably wouldn’t make it there before closing. I was sorry to have missed an opportunity to see a live moose, but who knows, perhaps next time?

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.