Home -> Europe -> Denmark - Sweden - Finland - Norway -> Travelogue 2002 -> Monday 17 June

Jälluntofta - Nyköping , taking a long detour

The bright sun makes an early morning call and we realise we will have to cover the windows better from now on, with towels, quilts or something like those. But today it works out alright, for there are a lot of things to see and to do today. First we go to Reftele where we look for the post office to mail the forgotten motelkey. Hopefully the envelope can hold the heavy and sharp key.

Driving through the woods on small roads, Teije suddenly sees a statue, or at least that's what he thinks it is. When we are only fifty metres away we see it is a real elk standing proudly on the side of the road. He is huge, but when we brake he jumps on the road, crossing it before our car and disappears in the woods. He was huge and looked very majestically. And too fast for us to get our camera's ready. It was the only wild elk we would see on this trip, alas.

Via Jönköping we drive along lake Vätter: 128 km. long and sometimes 30 km. wide, one of the largest lakes of Sweden. At Habo we take a turn to look at the Habo cathedral. At the word cathedral one thinks of a large building, but this is just a small church, with the bell tower standing loose from the church.

To the west of the north side of the lake there is a national park, Tiveden. It is a beautiful area to drive through, but we are also looking for the caves. Our map says there are 'grottor' and 'grot' is Dutch for cave. But probably in Swedish it means something totally different, because we don't find any caves.

But we do find a nice place to have a picnic, somewehere along a desolate sand path. The weather is bright and we enjoy our comprehensive lunch: sandwiches with fish or peanut butter, sometimes cheese, buns, coffee, tea and a boiled egg: our daily lunch for the next three weeks.

After lunch, Elisabeth has to play: would the board hold? She looks very sturdy, but she hasn't crossed the board!

After driving around the northerly point of lake Vätter, we drive into Linköping to have a look at its centre and of course a scary toilet: the door shuts automatically, but would it open again?

The landscape changes as we drive to the east coast of Sweden, there seem to be less woods and more agricultural lands.

It isn't exactly clear where we are to find the campsite near Nyköping and it takes us almost an hour before we find it. But its location is beautiful, along the Botnic Gulf.

This cabin is much smaller than the one we had last night and there is no water. But again there is electricity and a hot plate. These last two things we will find in every cabin we will stay in on our journey.

No water, so Elisabeth goes to the showers to test them. And succesfully; the shower works, but she has problems turning the water off, the jet of water between her and the tap. Soaking, she returns to the cabin. And when she finally goes for a real shower, a part of a tooth breaks, and her day is spoiled. She is fed up, just for a moment. But it means she has to smile carefully whenever Teije takes a picture of her!

Travel through Europe and Africa

with Elisabeth and Teije