We walked into town and visited the tourist information centre for confirmation on what to do tomorrow and then a bit of shopping before jumping on a local bus to see if we could get home.
Day 2 was taken up with the city walking tour that you self navigate through and we explored the old Haga district where there were some lovely galleries but none of them open (10 or 11 seems to be the usual start time in most of Scandinavia), Fish markets and other nice old buildings including some nice artisan shops etc Nothing out of the ordinary to report on the day but it was pleasant and rather exhaustive by the time late afternoon came around.
Early start and drive to Malmö. Once again we marveled at the quality of the roads although I suspect Swedes are not quite as law abiding as their Norwegian and Danish cousins, these guys don’t wait for the pedestrian light to turn green before crossing the road and are a little faster than the speed limit in their Volvo’s but at least speed limits are marked so you can be compliant if you choose to! Unlike Denmark where you had to guess. (A n “end 60” sign can mean you have to slow to 30 or speed up to 130).
Malmö is about 3 hours drive but we had to return our car back to Copenhagen airport so after dropping the bags at the hotel we took the bridge and tunnel from Sweden to Denmark, great engineering and pretty easy to traverse despite the high winds that threatened to blow the truck in front of us over. I was pretty sure I saw him go onto 2 wheels at one stage. We caught the train back to Sweden and had some time in Malmö to wander around and get a feel for what our second day might be like. It is a lovely old town with beautiful buildings and nice people so we spent our time strolling around and looking in some Swedish furniture design shops and galleries. We found one of Europe’s largest skate parks and had a couple of great restaurant meals. I am happy to report that our foray into exotic and endangered species including whale!and reindeer may have ended with a meal that included pigs head terrine and pigeon at a restaurant called Bastard. Great food and a nice night out.
Day 3 in Malmö was a train trip down the coast to Ystad. A lovely old village and home to where Wallander and “the bridge “ were filmed. The village boasts the only complete block of half timber half brick houses, complete with internal courtyard area left in Sweden as well as a number of other beautiful old houses and buildings. The oldest house in the village dates from the early 1500s.
After my excitement at getting access to the AFL live screening of the grand final and then my disappointment at the final score it was time to Pick up another car this time a VW Golf with all the features you could imagine requiring me to steer but the speed is pretty well regulated by the vehicle in front of you and some smart cruise control buttons that just make sense. Unfortunately the guy at the rental company needed my passport so 20 minutes later I returned from the hotel with all the paperwork and we were on the road again. Our drive to Kosta was via the south coast to Ales stones to look at a rather large stone ship that had been laid out by the Vikings many years ago. The rather large stones were laid out in the shape of a Vikings ship but in such a manner that you could map the months via the sun including the winter and summer solstice and the autumn and spring equinoxes. Interestingly they had even included a leap year into the design and adjusted the distance between some of the stones to accommodate longer months so the sunsets and sunrises were in line with each appropriate stone and the midpoint of the “ship”. Amazing stuff!
The Kosta area is renowned for its glass blowing with many glass factories scattered around the area. One of the oldest glass factories is very close to where we are staying. So first stop before checking into our accommodation was a stop at the Kosta Boda art gallery to book in for a tour tomorrow and hopefully a chance to have a try at glass blowing. We were able to have a quick look inside one of the factories before they closed. Fascinating to watch!
For the next couple of nights we have an entire house in a very quiet location that looks out onto a nature reserve or similar so it should be a very relaxing spot (although Stu is struggling with the TV at the moment - it seems it will only give him one channel in Swedish!!!) but nice to have some space, do some home cooking again and some much needed washing!
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