We hadn’t been to Sweden for four years and were really keen to get back to this beautiful country. We weren’t disappointed. With snow overnight on our first night it was like stepping outside into a Swedish calendar.
The beautiful little church in Karlsborg A 'forest piccy' they're everywhere after a snowfall!
A wonderful thing about Sweden is ‘today’s lunch’ which is a ‘special’ offer at various restaurants where you can enjoy a hot lunch for as little as $A10. That includes an entree, main course, dessert and coffee and as it is a buffet meal you can of course go back again if you are still hungry. Highly unlikely as the food is delicious and very satisfying. Wherever possible we took advantage of this tradition.
The other tradition though is the odd hours of eating. Mind you when you get up late things tend to be a bit behind!!!
As in previous trips, we like to re-visit places we’ve enjoyed and this trip was no different. First stop was the little town of Karlsborg with its beautiful little church and lakeside location. A visit to the fresh fish caravan on the lake shore (Lake Vättern) was a freezing experience.
The lake by the fresh fish caravan - partly frozen. One of the gorgeous little houses in the forest
The lake, the second largest in Sweden, with an area of nearly 1900 square kilometres, is 129 kms long and 28 kms wide. Lake Vättern is in the lower third of this huge country, lying north east of Gothenburg on the west coast where we landed and south west of Stockholm, the country’s capital, on the east coast.
As an aside Sweden has 97,500 lakes of more than two acres in area! The largest lake, which happens to be next to Lake Vättern, is Lake Vänern - it’s 5648 square kilometres, 140 kms long and 80 kms wide. The country is an amazing store house for water. The country itself covers almost 450,000 square kilometres.
Down at the fresh fish caravan we could see the lake freezing around the edges. The lake looked like a sea with small white- capped waves forming in the wind. It looked really strange with the ice a significant distance into the water from the shore.
A funny experience we had on exploring the country side was walking on a completely frozen lake. After the snowfall the night before there was about six inches of very dry powder snow on top of the ice. If you happened to step through the powder you had to watch out as it was very slippery underneath. Although the ice was 70 cms thick we could hear it cracking under us so I didn’t hang around for the thrill of walking on water!
Good fishing? I don't think so... The ice cracked with a loud creaking even though it was about 70 cms thick!
While the snow is beautiful and fine for us as it is a novelty, for the locals the novelty wears off quite quickly when the winter starts as it creates a lot of work. Everyday life becomes an effort. Before you can drive to the supermarket you have to shovel the snow away from your parking space on your property and to the driveway to the road. If you don’t keep up with this task the snow gets deeper and deeper and you can’t get out! There’s a fine line between access and not. And then you find in the morning the snow plough has been through during the night and left a great wall of snow across your driveway!
Whilst the roads are kept as clear as possible by the use of salt, grit and ploughing sometimes it’s hard to keep up. We were lucky in that there wasn’t any huge dumps of snow which interfered with our travel plans. The second night it was -18 degrees and clear skies so no worry about snow blocking roads. We went for some lovely walks in the forest.
Walking through a Swedish calendar!
One of the lift bridges over the frozen canal near Karlsborg. Not a lot of traffic expected!
Our next trip was to a city on the north east end of Lake Vättern called Örebro. We visited an Ikea store - compulsory in Sweden - you'd swear we were in Victoria Gardens in Richmond, Melbourne! Later on we had a late lunch in a restaurant on top of a very tall mushroom water tower which overlooks Örebro. The views on such a stunning day were incredible. We were able to see for miles including a very clear view of Sweden’s third largest lake, Hjalmanen, just nearby.
From the top of the Mushroom Water Tower
Örebro from the top of the tower
Örebro Castle
More driving through more snow to visit a friend in the countryside near Örebro and a beautiful Swedish supper watching a lovely sunset across the snow in front of the house. It was great being included in a family situation and appreciated the warm welcome and sincere hospitality.
The early morning drive to Gothenburg Airport was in temperatures as low as -18 degrees.
The trees were frozen right to the top.
Our morning flight out showed the frozen lakes around Gothenburg at their clearest
No comments:
Post a Comment