Back home Aug 3 2019

After almost four weeks of travelling in southern Scandinavia I’m back home in Skelleftehamn again. Yesterday afternoon Annika and I arrived in Umeå, Annika’s residence. Before I drove back to Skelleftehamn today we hiked round the lake Grössjön which is just some kilometres southeast from Umeå. The circular track is very beautiful and leads through pine forests and bogs. A wonderful place, that gives me a stronger “Sweden-feeling” and makes me much more home than many places we travelled the last weeks.

Today the Swedish proverb “borta bra men hemma bäst” feels right. It’s literal translation is: “(being) away good, but (being) home best.”

It’s still summer but some things have changed since I drove away from Skelleftehamn four weeks ago. It gets dark again in the night. Now – at 23:15 – I can go out, look up into the sky and see the star Vega in the constellation of Lyra. And it gets cool again in the night. Just now it’s 5 °C. So that the house can cool down. Good for a person like me who prefers temperatures below -25 °C to those above +25 °C.

Day 19 – +30 °C Jul 27 2019

This article is part of the series “2019-07: Southern Sweden”.

July 26 – Crea Diem Bokcafé in Od Kyrkby and Solviken bathing place

It’s really hot weather in Europe and so in Sweden (though not as extreme as e.g. in Germany). Time to focus on drinking lemonade in the shadow in the book café, not moving too much, trying to avoid the wasps, eating ice cream and of course taking long baths in the lake Ärtingen together with our friends and hosts Annika and Jonas.

And with this recipe the day becomes another nice one on Annika’s and my summer holiday.

Later that day – after an abundant dinner – we played music together. Clarinet, viola, double bass and piano. Sorry, no recordings and no photos neither.

Day 15–18 – Meanwhile in Sparsör … Jul 26 2019

This article is part of the series “2019-07: Southern Sweden”.

22–25 July – Sparsör, Öresjö and Borås

It’s already Friday, Annika and I have been in Sparsör near Borås since Sunday afternoon and I have been extraordinary lazy. Today it’s going to be the hottest day yet with temperatures round 30 °C or above, so my laziness will definitely continue and the most exhausting action will be going to the bath place nearby.

23 July – hiking round the Öresjö

The weather is still cloudy and not so warm. Perfect hiking weather. When we have to climb the hill Örekullen we sweet anyway. The way is steep. We meet sheep in a forest by the lake and a sow with her two piglets. When we are at the south tip, we have some lunch and take a bath in the bay of Almenäs.

Later this day we drive to the city Borås and eat extremely delicious tapas and dessert in the fantastic restaurant La Copita.

25 July – a very warm day

-40 ° C I seek, +40 °C i flee. Luckily it’s not as hot as in Germany¹, but even temperatures round 30 °C are too warm for me to feel comfortable. Fortunately there are many bathing places around, one of them in walking distance. I am bathing and snorkelling. I see schools of fish and hundreds of river mussels underwater, but also a half meter long pike. Anyway the pike is much too fast to be photographed.

Bathing place Solviken at the lake Ärtingen

Later the evening we drive to Borås another time. A vivid town, especially when there’s a live concert on the town square and a dance band (far away from playing live …) playing in the city park. The air is cooler, but still round 25 °C and even the statues seem to seek refreshment in the water of the river Viskan.

¹ 42.6 °C were measured in Lingen yesterday, the hottest temperature in Germany ever measured. Even though a single hot day is no proof for the ongoing climate shift it is one of the many, many signs.

Day 11 and 12 – Figeholm and Kalmar Jul 22 2019

This article is part of the series “2019-07: Southern Sweden”.

18–19 July

Three days Annika and I stay with our Friends Astrid and Hein in Figeholm in the historical province Småland. The first two days we make day excursions.

Astrid recommends to visit Stensjö By, an untouched village with houses from the 18th and 19th century, surrounded by an old cultural landscape. We stroll around the wooden houses, where chicken are picking and scratching for food and follow two of the round trails along dry-stone walls or the typical braided fences.

Stensjö by II – braided fences and sheep

From Stensjö by it’s not far away to Figeholm, where we take a stop (and ice cream). A small channel branches from the sea. It looks like a “gracht” in the Netherlands and makes the town look a bit Dutch.

Home again we take a long bath in the lake Frisksjön right behind Astrid’s and Hein’s house together with their children. The photo from the water lilies is taken while swimming.

In the evening I take some photos of another building on the property. It is the old residential building but it has gone to rack. At least it is not in danger of collapsing and I can enter it. Hein, who is a professional carpenter wants to rebuild that house, probably a large-scale project … .

The next day Annika and I drive to Kalmar, a beautiful town on the sea with roots in the middle age. We park by the sea and walk to the cathedral which is open.

After lunch we walk to the old water tower, which contains private flats nowadays. From here we head to the castle grounds, where there is a variety of old trees. I love especially the huge leaf trees and admire them; we don’t have such in Northern Sweden.

Kalmar – in the background the old water tower

Soon we approach the “main attraction”, Kalmar Castle, one of the best-preserved renaissance castles in Europe. Beautiful in the sun!

We go along the castle moat until we reach the sea. Here’s a long bathing jetty – what a pity that we do not have our bathing clothes with us.

We are quite eager to bath, but we decide to choose another place. Just some kilometres east in the Baltic Sea there’s the island Öland. It is 137 km long and has almost 26000 inhabitants. From Kalmar there’s a 6 km long bridge to the island. It takes us just a quarter-hour to reach Öland and another ten minutes to reach the bathing place Präskviksbadet in Lökenäs. Finally we kan take a refreshing bath at the small sandy beach, while we look on the coastal line of the main land.

Prästviksbadet – a bathing place on Öland

Day 5 – Götaland Jul 14 2019

This article is part of the series “2019-07: Southern Sweden”.

12 July, Jogersö—Gränna—Bjärnum

It always seems to be the third night in a tent, when I got used to the camping mat and sleep very well. Nevertheless I’m looking forward to a real bed. Annika and I dry the sleeping bags and the tent in the sun and have breakfast. Half past nine we start our journey farther south. We have to drive 413 km, mostly on the E4, the very same European route, that connects Umeå, Skellefteå, Piteå and Luleå.

Here it connects Nyköping, Norrköping, Linköping and Jönköping. While å stands for river, köping means market town.

We stop in Gränna, a town by the lake Vättern which is Sweden’s second largest lake. Here’s a large campsite, a lovingly designed minigolf course, a ferry to the island Visingsö and – most important for us now: several restaurants and ice cream shops. Children are wading in the water, grown up are sunbathing on the public benches, the place is touristic but not crowded.

There are nice bathing places along the coast of the Vättern, so we bath twice, first in Röttle, then near Sjöbergen. Since the Vättern is so large you can think that you bath in the North Sea or Baltic Sea – until you taste the water. It’s fresh, not brackish or salty.

Swimming in the Vättern (Photo: Annika Kramer)

Röttle has another attraction besides its bathing place: there were severals water mills. Here we stroll around for a while.

After our long break we continue our car trip southwards. We cross the border to Skåne, the southernmost part of Sweden. In the evening we arrive in Bjärnum.

You see the light behind the front window of the house? That’s our place for the next days.

A word to the title of the article: Sweden is divided into three parts: Norrland in the north, Svealand in the middle and Götaland in the south. The population density in Götaland and Svealand is more than ten times as high as in Norrland.

Starting the summer holidays Jul 9 2019

This article is part of the series “2019-07: Southern Sweden”.

8 July – Umeå – Majors/Malax

Two days ago I left Skelleftehamn with my car full of things: clothes, camera equipment, rubber boots, a cooling box, tent, sleeping bag and much more. At lunch time I arrived at Annika’s home in Umeå.

Annika and I have four weeks of holidays together. Normally we use to head north, but this time we had decided to travel to a place, that is hardly known to us: Southern Sweden! We want to visit friends at places like Åbo, Bjärnum, Oskarshamn, Sparsör, Vetlanda, and Falun. I have been in Vetlanda many years before, all other places are completely unknown to us.

Yesterday we packed Annika’s VW Golf. Although the car is smaller than mine our whole luggage fitted in easily, even my optional items as a snorkel mask or the large telephoto lens.

While all travel destinations lie south we started heading east. At 10:30 vi arrived at the ferry terminal in Holmsund, 20 km from Umeå and waited for the ferry to Finland. At 17:30 Finnish time we arrived in Vaasa.

Wait a moment – Finland? On the way to Southern Sweden? Well, we extended our trip a bit, first to make it a perfect round trip but first of all to visit a blog friend in Åbo, which is the Swedish word for Turku in Southern Finland. Turku, that’s round 350 km in the south, but our first stop was much nearer.

When we had used the same ferry in April we’d met Stefan from Malax. He did not only have time to meet us but we were also invited to stay overnight in his cozy summer cottage by the lake Majorsträsket. A beautiful place! We had a great evening together with a lot of talking, grilling sausages and going to the sauna.

Later in the evening he said goodbye and soon Annika and I went to bed. Later in the night I had to go to the toilet, a small hut with an earth closet. It was much darker than it uses to be in Skelleftehamn but still it was quite light.

Now we had breakfast, did the dishes and the article is written. We’ll pack our stuff into the car and continue our trip, now really heading south.

I wrote this article a bit in a hurry – we want to continue to Åbo/Turku today. We want to take it easy and arrive not too late. So please ignore the mistakes. Hear you soon …

The lake Semyonovskoye in Murmansk Mar 19 2019

This article is part of the series “2019-03: Redex Murmansk”.

I was in Murmansk with Barents Press with a project called Redex 2019. The project goal is to establish contacts between sports journalists and exchange experiences.

Saturday, 16 March

While swimmers still compete in 1000 m of ice swimming as part of the 3rd Ice Swimming World Championship in Murmansk I leave the spot and start to go back to our Hotel Park Inn. That’s round 5 km to go.

In Summer I would have to go round the lake Семёновское озеро/Lake Semyonovskoye. Now it’s winter and I can simply go across. The ice is at least 50–60 cm thick as the huge ice cuboids along the way show. In the heap of these ice blocks kids were playing. One of them probably will become next generation’s polar explorer.

On the other side of the lake I can spot grey concrete buildings – as cuboid as the ice blocks – and the Russian orthodox church Спас на водах/Saviour on Waters. They have been the background scenery of the championship, too.

And I see people everywhere. The lake is not crowded, but used of many people for different activities. Some of them are sitting on folding stools and doing ice fishing. Others are going for a walk or doing cross country skiing. The nice thing: some of the skiers are quite athletic and fast, others are do not have any technique and are quite slow. But they ski anyway. And all of them seem to enjoy being outside.

A skier, the Alyosha monument in the background

These funny “motor-bananas” probably only exist during the ice swimming: The vehicles consist of three parts. In the middle there’s the “chauffeur” standing in a sledge-like plastic tub. At the rear a banana-shaped inflatable rubber thingy is attached on which people can ride. The whole thing is driven by a small caterpillar attached to the front of the plastic tub and operated by the man in the middle.

I start to cross the lake. I pass a snowman and admire his artful face. He looks however too serious to be my namesake Olaf from the film Frozen.

The lake is not so big and soon I reach the other side. Here’s the winter bathing place I already heard of before. I’m angry with myself that I didn’t take swimming trunks and towel with me because the cold water looks inviting. But no swimwear, no bath.

Here I have to leave the Lake Semyonovskoye and I start following the main road Улица Челюскинцев/Ulitsa Chelyuskintsev back to the hotel. Temperature is above zero and the snow is soft, brown and greasy, but it’s easier to walk on that than on blank ice. At the branch Улица Туристов (“Tourists Street”) a woman comes my way. She bears skis with an old-fashioned binding system. I’m sure she wants to go to the place I just left: the Lake Semyonovskoye.

#escapism – skiing through the landscapes Jan 29 2019

When I walked home from an early meeting today it snowed at -12 °C. I trudged through the fresh snow like a small child.

Actually, I wanted to work with my online shop for my photo website. Outside it continued snowing. It took less than a minute to change plans. I took my skis, the backpack with the camera equipment, ski pants and my old Norrøna-jacket and went outside. I went down the snowy stairs, put on my skis and started a local ski tour. I skied 300 meter and was in the …

Forest

First I followed a snowy snowmobile track (with a detour to a small wetland) and then paw prints of a hare.

Following the paw prints led me to a …

Swamp

In winter however these swampy areas are frozen – no problem with skis.

The snow was round 30 cm deep and quite fluffy so that I sank down even with the skis. Perhaps my 240 cm long wooden Tegsnäs skis would have been the better choice. I crossed a small pond and a small ridge – probably formed in the last ice age – and then I came to a larger …

Lake

The lake Snesviken had been frozen already in November. Now it was just a snowy plain with a small island in the middle.

I took a selfie …

…crossed the lake and came to a …

Dense forest

I knew that this forest was dense with a lot of underwood and many rocks, but I forgot how hard it is to find a way through it on skis. Now I was quite glad that I didn’t take the Tegsnäs skis.

I fought my way through birch thickets and rocky passages. It took a long time until I left the forest and reached a snowy road, part of a …

Cottage area

I followed the road to its end. Skiing was easy and effortless after the dense forest.

As in the whole of Sweden there are many summer cottages in Skelleftehamn, too. This cottage – as most of them – was by the …

Sea

I crossed the small thicket at the rocky shore …

… then I stood on the frozen Baltic Sea. I started skiing leaving the mainland behind. It was much windier and I was glad about my fur-trimmed hood. The field of view however is limited. Looking down I saw the fur, the skis and a white featureless surface. Almost whiteout conditions. Parts of the landscape were featureless as well.

It may look like I was in the middle of the Arctic, but no, right behind me there was an …

Island

The Island Storgrundet is the nearest island from the mainland. Here I had looked at the sea ice 10 days ago, here I watched the lunar eclipse last week.

I followed the coastal line, crossed a frozen bay and arrived at the old boat shed that probably had been there for ages.

Then I crossed the island through the forest.

The island is not very wide. After 200 meter I could see the mainland’s …

Coast

This part of the coast is one of my favourite places in Skelleftehamn. In summer it has a nice sandy beach, in winter it’s the first part of the sea that freezes. In summer I use to paddle kayak, but most locals prefer small motorboats. Now all boats lie upside down on the shore.

Where there are boats are also houses. Where there are houses there’s also a …

Road

And this road is special, because it leads …

Home

Here I arrived three hours later. I put off the skis, shock of the snow and went in.

Oh, I love winter!

Backsjön Jan 27 2019

A short tour with “turskidor” (touring skis) on the lake Bäcksjön near Umeå. After some days with slightly warmer temperatures and fluffy snowfall we got another sunny day with no wind and temperatures round -20 °C today.

Now I’m home again in Skelleftehamn. This night could be the coldest yet. Already now at 22:30 it’s -25 °C, that’s quite cold for the coast. From tomorrow on it shall become warmer with temperatures mainly round -10 °C.

Cross-country skiing premiere Jan 13 2019

Today I had my skiing premiere this winter.

Together with Annika who already skied this winter we took the car to the lake Tavelsjö northwest from Umeå. Tavelsjö has grown very popular for its round course for ice skaters, but it was round 40 years ago, that I stood on skates the last time. I prefer skiing.

Therefore we took our cross-country skies although it was mentioned that the ski track was partly icy. And it was icy indeed sometimes!

Anyhow it was great to finally ski again.

Some hours later it finally started to snow. It’s hardly 5 cm that had fallen in Umeå so far, but that makes a great difference. It’s brighter, quieter and more beautiful outside.

Hopefully there will be enough snow in Skelleftehamn that the locals finally can prepare a ski track in good quality. Then I will change my spiked running shoes by my cross country skies at home, too.