Day 7, The Day We Didn’t Try Fermented Herring!

Well I said I felt cooler yesterday, that translated into feeling freezing overnight! I did the classic lazy thing of laying there freezing for too long, rather than get up in the cold and get another quilt and warmer pjs! When I actually did that I fell asleep, but ended up with less than 4 hours sleep and a banging headache when I woke up.

Lyn was up early at 6am and did a 6.5 mile run around the island of Sodermalm. It was long and flat! When he got back at 7.30am I was up and dressed as it was time to leave Stockholm and head north.

We have both loved Stockholm. It is a really interesting city, and spotlessly clean. We saw a total of two beggars in the 3 days we were here. The public transport system is second to none, and the SL app and travel card are phenomenal; you type in where you want to go, and it tells you the best way (bus, ferry, train, metro etc), and all the timings to the second; we used it a lot. We always felt safe using the public transport and walking around, even late at night. There is a good selection of museums, restaurants etc as you would expect from any capital city, but it feels far less busy and crowded than most. There is plenty of green spaces and places to relax. The locals obviously love being active, and it is reflected in the number of cycle lanes, jogging paths etc. English is spoken widely and on a lot of notices. One unusual thing to note is that cash is not widely accepted; card is king.

We left at about 9am to drive towards our next stop for the night. We wanted to head up the E4, to the Höga Kurstan, the High Coast. This is a part of Sweden on the Gulf of Bothnia, and pretty unique as an area where the land is rising annually at a rate of about 8mm a year as a result of glaciation and post glacial retreat. It is a World Heritage site, stretching over 100km with the Skuleskogan National Park at it’s centre. It’s best explored by foot or bike, but we did get pretty good views of it’s coastline, forests and lakes as we drove through it. It has Sweden’s second largest hike; the High Coast Hike which stretches over 40km. The delicacy of the area is fermented herring. We didn’t try it!!

Lyn has driven 322 miles today, stopping off for lunch by the side of one of Sweden’s 95000 lakes. We then stumbled across a Harley Davidson dealership in Sunsdsvall, so popped in for a little visit. They sell skidooos and jet ski’s in there, plus all the motorbikes you could imagine. Lyn was in heaven.

We are now at our rest stop for the night, and it is worth all the travelling. We are in a quiet free car park, right on the shore of the Gulf of Bothnia, (the Baltic Sea.) We have a million dollar view out of our window, and home made pizza for dinner. Sat here now with a beer and a gin. Life is good.