We’ve done a number of road trips over the last few years, kicking off during the first covid year to the west coast of France, that I’ve learned that there are only so many hours in a day that I want to drive. I don’t like Josh’s driving, despite his excellent driving record, and so I take on the lion’s share of driving. Ok, I do all the driving.
Continue readingSweden – Falkenberg Family Reunion! (Day 10)
Today was incredibly special to me. And I appreciate Josh indulging me since I know genealogy is not his passion, but mine. You won’t see a lot of photos in this post because I don’t like to post other people’s faces, but know that a great time was had by all. Today we met a branch of my extended family.
Most of my dad’s family is from Sweden. And over the last several years, I’ve become quite the genealogy buff, even working my way through my certification (which is going to take a LONG time at the rate I’m going). I’d always loved history and learning about my own family history, thanks to my dad always driving around our home town and telling me all about our family’s generational time there.
Continue readingSweden – Smögen (Day 9)
Today we only had a one hour drive to Kungshamn where we are staying the night. But the trip for today was just over the bridge from Kungshamn to Smögen Island. I couldn’t find accommodation on Smögen but it was only a 20 minute walk for us to get there.
Smögen is one of the most popular of the western Swedish archipelago and you could see that right when you cross the bridge. Smögen was night and day from South Koster where we were yesterday. Unlike Koster which was filled with dirt roads and fewer, smaller homes and not a car to be seen, whereas Smögen was much more populated and busy with regular paved roads and plenty of cars (after all, there is a bridge from the mainland). Koster was wild, rustic and covered in trees and greenery.
Continue readingSweden – Koster Islands (Day 8)
Today we are going to the Koster Islands. We’ve got our bike rentals and are ready to go.
We biked the 20 or so minutes to the harbor and waited for our ferry. The bike ride involved a lot more incline than we are used to in the Netherlands, but the wind…well, the wind was more or less the same that we get back home in that it was strong and miserable.
The 45 minute boat ride was comfortable, clean and picturesque. Little islands, mostly of rock, dotted along the way. We’d booked the tickets through the campground but actually, it was pretty easy to manage and very efficient. Finding the ferry was easy too – just too bad that it was super windy and a lot of hills. It was like biking in the Netherlands but worse!!
Sweden – Quick Stop in Norway and on to Strömstad (Day 7)
The night in the glass house was lovely. And this morning our plans were to kayak in the area. But the air was so chilly and windy that we decided instead to just hang at the house instead and eat our breakfast down at the dock (where it was also quite cold) before starting towards our next destination- Strömstad.
Because we skipped the kayak and couldn’t check in til early afternoon, we needed something to do. A quick Google map search showed us we could actually in Norway in no time without really straying off our route too much. Here we’d visit the Elgåfossen (Älgafallet in Swedish) waterfall which literally straddles Norway and Sweden. Ironically the Pilgrim’s Trail that we started in Upperud actually goes through here.
Continue readingSweden – Dalsland (Day 6)
Today we had to check out of Upperud 9:9. I’m really sad as we loved this place. The food amazing, the people friendly and the landscape reminding us so much of home. It’s quiet, peaceful and I think we could have spent days just enjoying the nature around us. We aren’t done with nature though on this trip, far from it…
Sweden – Upperud (Day 5)
We are still in Upperud today. And we were supposed to do a 15km hike of the Pilgrim Path. The Pilgrim Path is over 100km long and starts in Vänersborg and ends in Edsleskog – Upperud is around the middle area and it literally crosses in front of our hotel, part of why we ended up here. The internet surprisingly has very little about this trail and even in writing this entry, I had to really search for information again. Basically there were pilgrimages in Sweden that lasted about 500 years, from 1050 to 1550 but they were banned by Gustav Vasa in 1527. The trail hadn’t been used in some years but now there has been a restoration effort.
We started with a fabulous breakfast at the hotel, though Josh had already gone out and done a small trail on his own because he didn’t suffer from stomach pains all night… and I have zero interest in being up at 5AM on vacation.
Sweden – Upperud (Day 4)
We only had about 2 hrs of driving today from Gothenburg to Upperud. We are heading a bit inland today to embrace the nature we don’t get a lot of in the Netherlands. Yes we live on a lake but I mean no people kind of nature. We stopped at a super center similar to Walmart or Target to charge the car and they had a massive American section (we may have bought a few things – and no we didn’t buy the twerk pong but just thought it was hysterical… I did buy the puzzles though).
Sweden – Gothenburg (Day 3)
Today – Sweden!! We had an early start of around 745/8AM. We stopped just outside Gothenburg to charge and got to enjoy a massive grocery store. For those who know me, know I love a good foreign grocery store and bonus points if it’s far superior to my local Albert Heijn. Not a hard challenge. Though the whole fish cake thing… no, just no…
Sweden – Driving to Copenhagen, Denmark (Day 2)
We got an early-ish start around 730 to drive to Copenhagen. Today we need to take a ferry from Germany to Denmark. We stopped to charge just before the ferry and I can tell we are close to Denmark just by the amazing danish at a roadside cafe…
The ferry was incredibly efficient. We got there just as they were loading up which was perfect timing. I’m glad I paid extra for the flex ticket so that we didn’t have to have a specific time slot because we originally thought we wouldn’t be here til much later in the day back when I booked the ticket. It was a beautiful day out and a smooth sail and only about 45 minutes.
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The Expat Chronicles 