Tag: Sweden

Note to self – avoid Coastal Areas of Sweden during month of July. In all my time I’ve never seen so many motor homes and caravans. I was going to ride up the coast toward Gotenberg, but by the time I reached Varburg, it was a no more of this! The bike trails I followed, for the most part were alongside busy roads or on them. And, whenever there was a beach, it was crowded with shapes of alsorts.

Varburg Castle was best seen from a distance as, close up, it was surrounded with booths, games for kids etc.

So I’ve decided to catch the ferry to Denmark and see if it’s any better there. But on the plus side the weather was sunny, warm without much wind. From talking to locals, the summer so far has been bad, with wind, cold temperatures and rain so I’ve been quite lucky.

Going slow and on country roads affords the opportunity to find pleasant surprises like this seemingly nondescript bank just outside of Gemla.

I noticed a small sign so stopped to check it out. Turned out to be a early or late Bronze Age burial chamber surrounded by a cairn of stones. Originally it was 11 metres in length and about 7 metres high but it was damaged when they broadened the highway a few centuries later. Below is the burial chamber (at least what is left of it). I’ve highlighted it for more easy viewing.

Burial chamber

Apparently there’s some 90 of these around here and I often wondered whether the piles of stones as I rode along were from a farmer clearing a field or cairns.

Another pleasure is the bountiful supply of raspberries beside the road.

There’s interesting difference between the countryside and city. On the whole I find modern Swedish towns rather stark in architecture. Below is the town of Alvesta on a Monday afternoon.

While the country has a more pleasant architecture, below is an old country bridge beside a mill.

The middle bit of southern Sweden is flat and boring. It must be where IKEA design their furniture. However a giant or troll spent time wiggling their toes here as the road was a roller coaster of short ups and downs. There was the occasional visual relief from the pine trees.

I even stopped for the ritual drying of the tent.

Although this is still a more comfortable place to dry the tent out 🙂

I know that summers are short up here in Scandinavia, but it felt like autumn had arrived today what with the cool wind and grey skies. The feeling was further emphasised by the deserted streets of Vaxjo on a Sunday afternoon.