Sweden rocks

We originally thought we'd go to Goeteborg, as it is Sweden's second city, but we read that MHs were being targetted by thieves. (More so than elsewhere as we realise we can never be completely safe.) So sorry Goeteborg, but we'll give you a miss until you clean your act up.

Instead we are heading for Europe's third largest lake, Vaenern. We randomly chose a stop in Trollhaetten, on the Goeteaelv, the river that drains the lake to the sea. The drive was quite pleasant  but Reggie sucks up the diesel and it is expensive over here. (15.80kr/l on average, or ~£1.40/l) It's a good thing our accommodation and food is cheap. J calculated an average of £9 per night so far for the former.

Lunch by a lake. The fish were jumpin' and there were fishers (mostly men) all around the lake shore.

Completely different terrain from Denmark now - rocks and trees. Note how smooth...

West coast NZ? Wrong trees.

A ruined Slott (castle). Although there may be someone living in that restored wing.

Why build a castle here? Probably because of this commanding view.

J commanding the view

An old style farm with huge barn. And rocks.

We only got in to the campsite at around 6:30pm. Remember a few posts back we were laughing at those coming after the site was full, and deriding their woeful planning? With the (imagined) sound of laughter in our ears we headed off to the other campsite. Still,  it isn't all bad, as at least it has a shower. These hot days a body can get awful sticky...

We had a stroll around town and discovered it to be quite interesting. We could see from that first stop that it had a hydro-electric scheme, and also a flight of locks, but more interesting engineering came to view.

First there was this railway bridge. Now why would you need to lift an inland bridge 27m?

An egghead holding an egg

Water control gate for the hydro-electric dam intakes

A cutting for the h-e water leading past a nice old church

Believe it or not, but these were to be locks, hewn from solid rock but never finished.

And looking down same

It's art, innit.

This is one arm of the river,the other going behind those trees on the left

Some fancy aircraft engineering as well.

Our shady campsite.

Showerometer: 17

Life's a beach

With such a nice spot there was no reason to leave, so we didn't. Instead, we read some,  biked some, swam some and just generally relaxed. I even built sand-castle, or to be precise I upgraded some child's half-baked, incomplete, fantasist creation to something that resembled a real castle. I mean, have they never seen one before? The walls still weren't strong  enough, and were gone with the next tide,  so what do I know.

Many of the buildings in Denmark and Sweden would not be out of place in NZ

Unlike Denmark, Sweden has rocks! Scoured smooth by glaciers miles deep, and  polished by bathers' arses.

All round it was a bloody nice place to stay

So we had a drink in the sun to finish the day

No bunkers, but...

The morning saw a whole lot of shuffling as some MHs left the prime spots and others moved in. We were leaving anyway, so could sit and watch.

The beach was very shallow so bathers had to walk for miles to get wet

Landskrona proved to be a lovely little town. It had a citadel and also a fair going on, and if you wanted to spend the money you could go on a 10 minute helicopter ride.

At least the industrialists had a little imagination. 

"Build me a chimney." 

"Get  knotted."

Dragon's teeth on the beach. The must have been worried despite being neutral.

The citadel/powcamp/women's labour camp/prison

The front tower became a kitchen,  and the rear a prison.

Defences through the years...

We headed for a stop in Varberg, only to find that it was day only! There was much swearing on my part. However, it too had a citadel so we circumnavigated that via a couple of other sights. We don't have any pictures, but we have seen dozens of American cars in the area. There must be some sort of rally going on.

Varberg Citadel, with the non-stay park on the right.

A viking boat in from Denmark. 

The old pavilion

Another water-skiing centre. I could have shown them all my recently-found prowess,  but didn't want to shame them too much.

The two available overnight sites were chocka so we went for Plan B, a stop further up the coast. And a much better place it was!

Not Reggie, but a nice photo anyway

You can't complain with this as your view. And all for free!

Copin' with Copenhagen

Our training into town was a false economy. Parking for the day plus two return tickets far outweighed the cost of parking in the city. (Though I may have cocked up that equation by putting the wrong numberplate number in the parking machine - transposing two digits. Time will  tell.) Anyway, we got a park just outside the citadel which was perfect. A hop, skip and a jump to the little mermaid as well, which was as underwhelming as we'd been warned.

The orchid is looking lovely. Just thought I'd add a splash of colour to procedings.

Citadel  moat, just outside the door.

And something for wildlife lovers

The fort that guarded the mouth of the harbour

Marina and larger visitor

Some more of the Danish navy. I love that old crane.

 And here she is. And some of the crowd trying to get that shot.

Actually I lied in the caption above. This was the view from our carpark.

Reggie at rest. I hate city driving, but we got there in one piece.

The Citadel barracks

Citadel parade ground and church

Citadel exit

Lots of wandering today, with the Christianshavn a sort of goal. It was bloody hot again, so shade was key.

More navy shots. It looked like a museum but there was no mention in the guide book

There was even another sub.

That's Thumbellina sitting on J's arm, at the entrance to the palace complex.

Once she'd shaken him off we wandered in.

They're not shabby by any means, but we'd seen enough palaces.

That pose has got to be pretty damned uncomfortable I'd have thought. Those rifles aren't light.

Inside Frederik's church

 We didn't actually go inside the palaces (except to use their loos) but kept moving down to the 'Black Diamond', the city's new archive building.

The inside view of the Black Diamond. I found it vertiginous.

This is their old archive reading room

Then we went looking for the Jewish museum which the guide book recommended highly but which didn't seem to exist. (Our guide book recommended a city museum which also failed to exist and a 11A circle line bus which went extinct 18 months ago.) Instead we snuck into the Architecture museum without paying. There were architectural models of some pretty cool buildings all over the world, some built, some yet to be.

This VR experience had you walking the plank over the atrium and then floating down to the atrium floor. Both J and I chickened out completely even though our conscious minds knew it wasn't real.

We then crossed over the harbour to Christianshavn, intending to go to Christiania,  the alternative lifestyle area of Copenhagen. We sat for lunch on the canal and listened to the same commentary repeated by every tourist boat coming through,regarding this church, and the canal-side  tree that can't usually be excluded from tourist's shots.

Sadly we ran out of time and didn't get to Christiania at all.

The heat had bathers out all around the harbour, so the water is obviously not too bad. The same day people drowned swimming in the Thames (and probably a whole lot more got sick).

We're not sure why this was necessary, nor why the subject is nude. Some people must have some very different toileting habits!

I think Anders Lassen may have fought in Italy. The name is familiar.

Doesn't this look like Christchurch used to?

Anyway, we moved on, this time to a whole new country! Yes, we crossed the Olessund Bridge, famous from the Danish/Swedish series The Bridge. We didn't notice any bodies anywhere on it.

We ended up in Landskrona,  north of Malmo. It was another busy marina stop, where we laughed as campers kept arriving until very late, even though it was full. How could they leave things so late? Fools!

Showerometer: 17