Kategorie: Blog: Summer Trip 2021

20 – 25 July 2021

Time flies far too fast here in Fellingsbro!! Before breakfast Maria always goes for a short, sharp walk through the forest. I take to the idea and join her. I love this mixed woodland, there are pines, birches with their white bark, maple and other trees whose names I actually don’t know. There are also fields of fast growing willow, which is cut into wood chips and used as sustainable fuel.

The ground is covered by blueberry bushes and suddenly I spot this moss which we used for Christmas decoration back in the seventies – actually it is rather lichen (Flechte) than moss. I love these morning walks through peaceful Sweden.

On the way back we pass barley, oats and wheat fields. There are elks in the surrounding forests and they love eating oats. They come out of their hideouts at dusk and you might have the chance to spot some of them.

And we do! Maria and Per (her husband) take me on a „elk safari“. We spot a whole elk family, two calves and another single elk. Unfortunately they are rather far away and the telephoto lens on the mobile phone is not really good while the telephoto lens on the camera is of no use at all with these extremly limited light conditions.

It might have been on the way from this elk-spotting when I totally fell in love with Sweden. I find it so enormously peaceful here. I like the combination of tradition and modern style the Swedes are very skilled in executing and I love the long stretches of seemingly unspoiled nature. There is seldom a high-voltage line impeding the view of a lovely scenery, or an ugly building horribly clashing the picture.

While it’s getting darker and darker lamps have been lit in windows to greet the repatriates and the wayfarer. And there it is – almost full – red, almost Swedish falun red, gorgeous, a red ball hanging above the countryside – a moon at almost midnight.

Anna’s hus – that’s what the guesthouse is called – is a wonderful old Swedish house. I do not stay in the guesthouse, though, but in my camper van, which is parked next to the vegetable garden. I love picking red currant or gooseberries and sugarsnaps and eating them off the bush.

I’m surprised about the constant breeze here in the middle of Sweden. I would not have thought there would be a lot of wind in the middle of this vast country. But it is very pleasing as temperatures rise up to 29 degrees these days – what summer! In Switzerland, meanwhile, there are new thunderstorms announced, with hail and inundations. So, rather stay in Sweden. I also observe the Corona situation consulting online newspapers – here, I have almost forgotten that Corona has ever existed. You hardly see someone wearing a face mask . It’s absolutely relieving to live this way again.

One afternoon we go to Örebro where Maria studied and one of her daughters is working in a café to earn some money. We have lunch in that café and I leave the two to a mother-daughter talk. When walking down the streets here in Örebro I am surprised again about the expertise with which Swedes combine old and new.

Wadköping is a cluster of really old house mustered next to the town’s beautiful park. We stroll through the small shops with their handycraft outlays and have „fika“ (afternoon tea or rather coffee and cake) in the park’s greenhouses – one of them being converted into a lovely restaurant.

I am very happy these days and I actually do not want to leave – one thing is for sure, though, this will not be my last visit to Sweden. I’ve really grown to like it a lot.

21 July 2021

The sun is shining – every day. Even though the nights are a bit cold, the days are splendid. Maria and me always go for a walk in the morning, then I read my English books. At the moments it’s Jon Krakauer’s „Into the Wild“ which I need to finish. It matches the scenery, Alaska – Sweden, at least parts of it. But I do not feel as secluded as Chris Mc Candless alias Alexander Supertramp at all. As I have already mentioned in my last post I have not yet felt very lonely here in Sweden, even though farms and houses are widely scattered.

In the afternoon Maria and me visit some places. Yesterday it was the second of the three towns with old wooden dwellings, Nora (Eksjö, Hjo and Nora make the trio). Nora is famous for its church. The interior is kept in green and falun-red. The interior of Swedish churches is normally kept in rather whitish colours. But Nora is colourful. The silver organ highlights the place wonderfully.

Then we had ice-cream at the lake-front, the famous Nora ice-cream. The day’s flavours were vanilla and limoncello. And finally I am able to capture a jackdaw, these birds that follow you all around in a rather persistent and importunate way. I had seen lots of them in Vimmerby, it actually looked a bit scary, remembering me of Alfred Hitchcock’s „The Birds“. They would bluntly pick the seeds of your plate.

I’ve noticed by now a few times: Sweden is space, Sweden is unspoiled landscape, Sweden is where you travel back in time. For example Nora’s train station. The waggons have become a youth hostel, the ticket hall an tourist information centre.

Time stands still in Pershyttan as well. This is an open-air museum and tells the story of all the iron mining places here in Sweden. The mine was as deep as 300 meters. The iron ore was melted in the furnace and to get the high temperature you had to add air to the fire with the help of bellows. To make those work people used the about 6 meter wide blade wheel which again was put into motion by water.

20 July 2021

The night is cooler than the nights before. I have to take my down quilt as well as my sleeping bag, but sun is greeting me again in the morning – what weather! I somehow have grown to the little town of Eksjö and Småland, this campsite right at the lake. Yet it’s time to get going!!

Today I want to travel up north to my friend’s place. Maria lives on a farm near Fellingsbro. When I got closer to Vedstena located at Vättern, one of Sweden’s largest lakes in Östergötland the thick forest gets slowly replaced by a more open landscape. Forest and wide fields take turns here. For the first time it takes me a bit of an effort to find a parking space, especially with my rather long vehicle – more touristy. Yet, I find a perfect one right at the lakefront. I go for a stroll in the small town of Vedstena, catch a glimpse of the Vasa-Castle and have lunch sitting on the bank of the large Vättern lake.

Hollyhock – one of my absolute favourites! – grows here a lot. I love these ones!

Then I hit the road again and after about a 2 hours drive I’ms in Närke and get closer to Örebro and thus Fellingsbro. And here I am now. I camp next the wonderful farmhouse, read the whole morning in the wonderful sunshine, take a shower in the wonderful guesthouse and pick red currant with Maria. We’re having a great time talking about whatever.

She tells me for example that Småland used to be the poorest region in Sweden and between the beginning of the 18th centrury and around 1940 more than 1 million Swedes emigrated to the States and most of them came from Småland. The Swedish writer Vilhelm Moberg recalls and describes these events in his four volume novel „The Emigrants“. I feel tempted to read this story. It also reminds me of Liam O’Flaherty’s „Famine“. The Irish writer depicts in this touching novel how poor Irish farmer had to fight in those dark days of the potato plight. They were starved to death on purpose as the English landlords did not open up the granaries to help the poor Irish people. Thus, lots of the left for America, either died upon the ships or otherwise never came back. It’s kind of a similar story and once I’ll have a bit more time I really want to read Vilhelm Moberg’s „Emigrants“. It’s the kind of story I have always been fascinated by – poor people fighting to get out of the gutters (one of these topics that I share an interest with my Swedish friend.)

I also ask Maria about the way Swedish houses are built. They are built from timber, planks outside, plastered inside. And obviously they insulate quite well, as Swedish winters are cold and long.

But now it’s summer and I will stay another few days here with her and just read my books, relax, talk and maybe go on an excursion to Örebro. It’s nice to settle down for a moment after so much traveling.

19 July 2021

It was described as a nice one hour walk through forest, up a hill and down a canyon. Skurugata turns out to be a rather nice walk, and I’m actually not alone, there are other people as well, some of them completely badly equipped, walking in sandals or even barefoot!! I’m wearing my hiking boots and have even taken the lower pole-part of a parasol replacing my left-at-home walking-stick – and I’m glad I have it even though it may look l a bit ridiculous! The part in the canyon is truely over sticks and stones.

I then continue on a small gravel road through very peaceful Swedish landscape, past a few farmhouses, all painted in the same falun-red colour and have lunch in the very small village of Rydsnäs next to a wonderful, clear lake.

I’m sitting there for a long time, lying in the grass looking onto the lake imagining what it might be like to grow up in such a place. There is space, but there is also the feeling of lostness, at least to me, who has never experienced to live in such a place for long. Interestingly enough exactly here I get approached by a guy with a Border Collie – in Swiss German: „Da gseht mehr nöd viel Schwitzer, scho gar nöd Zuger,“ he says and tells me he was retired, from Lucerne and happens to live in the next hamlet because he has found a house there. He has been living here for the last four years or so. Eksjö, when I’m back in the evening, seems to be a „big town“.

It is a pensive evening, I’m thinking about Sweden, how some parts of it, like the forest path in Skurugata or also the lake I have had lunch at recalled pictures of Switzerland. Yet, there is this abundance of space which you feel immanently and everywhere. So far there has never been a parking problem, for example, which I am always so afraid of, especially driving into towns, and places are not crowded – Sweden is pure space compared to crowded Switzerland. But what makes it special is that even though there is so much space you never feel lonely or forlorn, as there is always a farmhouse somewhere nearby. And there are actually people living in these farmhouses scattered about the countryside. I recall places for example in France where there is lots of space, too, yet the villages seem to be abandoned and thus there is a gloomy, oppressive feeling lingering in these places. You wouldn’t want to settle down there.

I’m glad when Maria calls me and we fix details for the next day. I will be happy to join her company after these days on my own in a friendly, vast, beautiful, yet for me still inapproachable country.

When I’m lying in the toproof of my van in the evening I hear the deep rather stuttering reverberation sound of an old American car driving off followed by the high pitched screaching sound of the renowed two-stroke engine of a 125-motor-cycle.

In the morning my heart is pounding.

18 July 2021

What comes to your mind when you see this?

Exactly! Emil, or German Michel, from Löneberga sitting in his shed as a punishment for his bad behaviour, cutting his figurines into wood as a pasttime occupation. And what about this?

Exactly! Michel’s small sister Ida being hissed up the pole so that she could see the market-place Mariannelund. This is the farm Katthult, well it is the place where the famous Emil or Michel films were shot in the early seventies. The place is actually called Gibberyd. But nobody calls it that way anymore. Another one? What about this?

Yep! Bullerbyn (Bullerbü), another place where the famous Astrid Lindgren films where taken. This is in fact the place where Astrid Lindgren’s father lived and she built the story about the children of Bullerbü from those memories of her father’s and her own childhood. Wonderful! Also my old memories have come back alive.

Today is an „Astrid Lindgren“ day, a splendid day, with lots of sunshine but not as hot and humid as the last few days. And – I find out that I can do 1100kms with one tank.

I’m back at Eksjö campsite and the boys with their 125 motorbikes are revving their engines again – but a motorbike is everthing here, when you live remote from each other and the surroundings look like the big void of Alaska or so. Now it’s summer with long days and lots of light. What about winter time, when the days are short? Today, I’ve come to the conclusion that Sweden is not my favourite place or country – but I still like it here!

In the barnshop of Bullerbyn I’ve found a wonderful Gotland sheep skin. Its wool is almost as soft as silk.

17 July 2021

The night has been rather short – I have had a long and wine-y conversation with my neighbour, Michael, who tells me he works as a pedagogic kindergarten councellor in København, looking after families with family problems, divorce, ADHD, kids with any kind of displaying behavourial problems. He knows quite a lot about psychology and it’s interesting to be talking with him. He very quickly finds out that I’m on a ‚trip to find myself‘. Yet, I cannot share some of his convictions. He seems to have had times where he was foreseeing things, and he’s actually getting the more foreseeing the longer the evening and the more wine he has drunk. He strangely enough reminds me of Pascal, a Frenchman, who I met in Sénégal, Africa in 1995. I travelled back to Dakar with him and later visited him in Paris twice. His girlfriend was South Korean. Michaels wife is South Korean, too, he has got somehow the same shape, beard and even moves similarly. Funny.

I have difficulties deciding what to do in the morning: Shall I try to get into København and spend the afternoon in the citycenter because the weather is so nice? Should I go over to Sweden – if yes, take Oresundbridge or by ferry? In the end I decide to get over to Sweden. But before that I want to have a look at the Roskilde, the red church in Roskilde – it’s a place listed as World Heritage site. Unfortunately, there’s a funeral, so we can’t get in. We – yes, the French couple from La Rochelle (my favourite town in France!) is there again. I met them when checking in at Roskilde campsite last night.

Driving over Oresundbridge is special after I have enjoyed the Netflix series ‚Bron‘ with Saga Norén from Kripo Malmö. Fortunately, I don’t find any female body on the bridge, neither is there a handsome Danish inspector waiting for me – huu! The bridge is impressive all right – 8 km long and before you get onto the bridge you have to pass a 4 km long tunnel. On top the whole thing is costly! I pay 67 Euros – one way. Yet, driving on motorways is free both in Denmark and Sweden. That’s ok then, I think.

And then I’m in Sweden. And Sweden is different. While Denmark is all hyggelig, Sweden is … Sweden is … what is my first impression of Sweden? Ok, let’s put it these ways:

• motorway service stations are a cluster of McDonald, KFC and Burger Mac. Another one consisted of a fish smoke house, where you actually could buy smoked fish rather than coffee and cake.
• when I want to go to the bathroom there’s a young father with his two small daughters. He has long, blond hair, is wearing a beard and a jeans skirt! Yes. LGBTQ.
• the sign ‚Empty your car yourself!‘ makes me feel slightly nervous.
• and then there is this wonderful Chevrolet – well, actually there ’s not only one, there are so many wonderful old cars. Within the four hours driving through almost no-man’s land I see a bundle of at least 5 of them – one more beautiful than the other. The Swedes seem to have a soft spot for old, big American cars.
• have you ever seen a bus-stop on the motorway in Switzerland?
• the sign ‚elk crossing‘ made me slightly nervous, as well. I think of what my Swedish friend told me about bears and wolves and other wild animals on the road.
• there is a motor-cyclist standing in the middle of the motorway, turning around ?!?

I’m driving through endless forest, the street fenced off so that these wild animals are not able to get onto the road and cause accidents. Maximum speed is 120km/h, 110km/h on most roads – which I find very pleasing. I pass through small villages with those typical red or differently coloured houses and realise – this looks like Sweden. I stop in one small marketplace, buy tasty strawberries from an Arabic speaking imigrant – and think of my Swedish friend, who told me so much about all this. Funnily, I have been listening to the first of Henning Mankell’s Kurt Wallander ‚who did it?‘ story ‚Before the Frost‘, which takes place in 1995, and yet describes exactly Sweden’s current problems as if Mankell had mistaken the year. According to what my Swedish friend has told me this story could take place today.

After a four-hour drive I reach my destination, Eksjö, a small marketplace in the middle of forest. Driving towards it, there’s a nice motorbike, a Harley, taking over – for a fraction of a second this ever so famous last scene of Easy-Rider shows mentally up. Where am I? The states? Alaska? – Sweden!

While I’m waiting at the reception of the campsite a few minutes later, there’re two more motorcycling guys driving up. One is stepping off a wonderful Yamaha Enduro 350, old model, and both also look like the Easy-Rider guys I have just thought of . When I’m cycling into town a bit later that afternoon three young guys drive past me at high speed, helmet and T-shirt, their 125 engines revving up with each gear – this high pitched sound of a 125. I remember the old 1980s Yamaha DTs – and I suddenly understand that in a place like this a motorbike must be much more than a means of transport to move from A to B for a young adult. It must be the equivalent of freedom: it’s passion, it’s style, it’s self-esteem, it’s the colourful vibrant against a dark and empty void. – Now I fully understand.

So far, my idea of Sweden has been reduced to Astrid Lindgren’s Emil (Michel) Löneberga and Pippi, and IKEA. That picture has definitely to change now.

16 July 2021

It’s foggy in the morning and I’m on the road again pretty early. At 9 o’clock I pass through the Elbtunnel in Hamburg. Then the road becomes emptier and better! Around 11 o’clock I’m at the Danish boarder – they pick all foreign number plate cars and ask me about my PCR test. Yet, when I tell them that I was fully vaccinated the young custom officer does not even want to see my certificate.

I’m in Denmark! I stop at Middelfart, a small town located just at the junction where you head from Jütland towards Sealand. Zug’s BlueStar Sailing has a base there so I want to have a look. But what surprise! NO MASKS! No-one is wearing a mask, neither inside nor outside any building – no masks! For almost 18 months or so I have been accustomed to wearing a mask once in public and suddenly there are no masks! I do not see a single mask and it almost seems ridiculous to have one with me. Corona almost seems not to have ever been existent!

Middlefart is a nice place with old beautiful brick houses. I stroll around the harbour, have an icecream for lunch, buy some groceries and set off again. I want to get to Roskilde, the place where the famous music festival took place in the 80ties and still does, even though the 2021 edition was rather meak version of what it uses to be, I’m told.

Middelfart! – Sun, summer and no masks!

Roskilde – the name evokes the spirit of the eighties and nineties. Most famous pop-stars from Santana to the Ramones, from Nirvana to David Bowie, INXS to Sinead O’Connor, the Cure or U2 – you name it – they have all been performing at Roskilde Festival. The first edition being a copy of the Woodstock took place in 1971. Later, the festival became infamous for its bad organisation and there was an incident when some spectators were even killed during a concert.

So true!

15 July 2021

‚I’m about to leave Switzerland‘ I wrote in my message to Maria in Fellingsbro/Sweden, yesterday. ‚And I’m nervous.‘ – Well, it am more than nervous really, I am afraid – of the long journey on German motorways, of Swedish bears and wolves, a Swedish friend told me about, but especially of loneliness. I am homesick already at home – except for the still pluvial rain that I wish to leave behind me as soon as possible. ‚You’ll be fine!! Hopefully this lovely weather remains until you come,‘ was Maria’s answer – which actually gave me a flow of almost enthusiastic feelings and made me hurry up with my packings.

But it takes all day long, way too long into the afternoon and I get more and more tired and then I decide to stay another night, cuddle the cats once more and wait for my son so he can tell me everything about his ‚Schnupperlehre‘. He does and adds: ‚I’m glad you’re still here because sometimes you overdo things and that can get dangerous.‘ Wise boy!

So the plan is to leave early in the morning right after a cup of coffee and I do! ‚You have to get through that black curtain – and then it will be fine! my son told me. Wise again. So, I go through that black curtain, which is actually a grey curtain of rain – and drive up through early morning Zurich, take the motorway which I took so often during the spring 2020 lockdown down to Zurich Altstetten, get through Zurich quite decently, even though traffic is already getting dense, and make my way to the border – oh that customs at Thayngen!! Bad memories of my car-import in April 2019 – but that’s another story. I find a rather empty motorway up to Stuttgart and shortly after Stuttgart the rain stops and also SRF 3 gets faint and stops and I start listening to one of my favourite bands – London Grammar – and have instantly to shed a few tears. Memories of Winter 2019 come up, when I first did winter camping in Zurich Wollishofen – an unique experience! Yet, now I’m going to leave this behind. At least for the moment.

The rain stops and the motorway building sites start in exchange – as well as the blinking of my panel. The software update has obviously failed. After 600km on my way I call the garage and the guy at AMAG can’t do anything but apologize. Do I really have to look for a VW garage in Örebro/Sweden where they could try and fix it again? The nasty motorway building sites accopany me up to Hannover. Yet, I’m glad I don’t have to take the alternative route up the Rhine valley, as they are talking of long hold ups on that route on the radio all day long.

Once I have left Hannover behind I get off the motorway and look for a campsite, remembering what my friend told me: ‚I keep it the way that I stop travelling at 6 pm whereever I am, because otherwise you spoil yourself the evening, especially, if you have to find a decent place in the dark!‘ Right so! I’ll stick to that.

It actually takes me several attempts to find a campsite. Yet, here I am in Vierde – ever heard of it? Neither have I! A nice, northern Germany campsite near a rivulet, calm, 20 Euros for the night. Camping Böhmeschlucht. I started talking to my neighbours and asked the single man in the restaurant whether I could join him – not obvious in corona times. And not obious for me. I enjoyed the Matjes fish for 12 € and his company. He happened to be an 80 year old retired social worker – did not look like 80, though. It was an intelligent, interesting conversation. Learnt something: Familiennetzwerk-Konferenz. Ever heard of it?

I did not spoil my evening!

Yes, I’m still at home! But now I’m finally ready. And there was pluvial rain again. Really made me afraid. On top, my van started to show funny signs so as if it did not work properly anymore. ABS didn’t work, went on and off. I had to take it to the garage and they scrutinasingly diagnosed it and found out there was a problem with the software. Fair enough, better fix that. First time it showed was in the middle of the 17km long Gotthard tunnel last autumn – not the place where you want to be told that your steering wheel would not work properly anymore. I’m somehow glad it happened before I left.

This incident gave me some extra time to do all my things properly, without being stressed out. I noticed how much I enjoy doing things with time and care. I also noticed that I’m still able to organise things on a logical timeline if I am not stressed out, something I used to be a master of when younger. I was always able to organise things in a way it would cost me the least time – until somewhen in my late forties when I started to forget things and so was no longer able to see the logical connections between things and incidents so that I could relate them to each other and time them in the most consecutive way.

Now, with time almost on end, I was able to do this again. Things that matched the moment came to my mind and I was capable of achieving many thing within so little time. Even if this seems nothing really special for someone younger, I was very proud of it.

Weather-wise, so I’ve just written to someone, I could start my supposed sabbatical in Scotland right here and now. Pluvial rain for the last few days! What a nice summer here in Switzerland! Time to get going. Yet, I’m sure I will miss some of you – my sons, my ‚Knuddelmonsters‘ and you – a few good friends!