Sweden

Sweden

19 . 5. 2017 - 2. 6. 2017    1277km

From the tiny port of Helsingor we “swam” over to a bigger port of Helsingborg. The cruise took 20

minutes which was an exact time for one beer.

Our first Swedish kilometers leaded to the local library which was standing in a middle of a park. Here we already saw a lot of minorities. We managed to connect to wifi, responded to emails and wanted to find out some information and the way we need to go. However we didn’t find any info and the way we took was completely wrong. It was extremely hot and we were in the middle of nowhere with a map in scale of 1: 500 000. The time has come for our friendly advisor – the offline maps in tablet. The maps helped us to get out of the city and we could have started to enjoy the landscape. Nice wide roads went through deep forests and there was birds singing heard all above the path. After a while the forests were replaced by colza fields and there was a lot of pollen everywhere. It was on our bags, legs, in our eyes, clothes, fortunately we are not allergic. Not even after couple of days the view didn’t change and our enthusiasm started to get down a little.

We were woken up from the stereotype by the Swedish largest lake – Vättern. We were cycling along it for 60 km. It looked almost like a sea with its sand beaches. It was a nice variegation for us. From this point it was only a while to Linköping where our friends were expecting us. We could have enjoyed a hot shower, soft bad, warm meal and recharge our batteries after a couple of days. In Sweden you are allowed to build your tent anywhere but you have to keep the minimal distance of 150m from the nearest house. This possibility we used a lot of times but at the expense of hot shower. The following days we exchanged bikes for fishing rods and even that we didn’t manage to get any fish by ourselves at least we managed to get to the bottom of merunkovice bottle (a spirituous liquor made of apricots). We had a great time but it was time to leave. Donated by a camping stove and some instant meals we set off to Stockholm.

Before we got even close to the city it was still a pretty long way. So we decided to book an accommodation at warmshowers.org. We were welcomed by a nice Swedish guy Thorbjörn and his wife who was surprisingly Slovak so the communication was much easier. We had a chance to get a lot information about Sweden. An as you are for sure curious what did we find out here it is:

* Don’t be angry about the height of Czech taxes. Swedes pay up to 50% of their income for taxes. On the other hand there is very clearly visible where the money goes.

*You better think twice before you go to a doctor as you pay for the appointment a lot. And even much more for dentists. The kinds have the health care paid by the state until they’re 18. As an employee you don’t need to get the sick leave (from a doctor) until 5 days of illness.

*The 6 hours working time is very exceptional.

*There is a law restriction against the “educational slap” towards the kid. You can be arrested for that.

*The Swedish mentality is very different from ours. Nobody is curiously looking into neighbors’ windows. Everyone is quite distanced, they have to find a way to each other first before letting someone close to themselves.

* They believe in the migrant’s integration (much more than us in Czech Rep.).

* They’re very proud of their country. The Swedish flag is hanging on almost every house.

* The PET bottles and cans are deposited and returned by consumers. Our state could be inspired by this. At least there wouldn’t be so many bottles laying all over.

* Get the bike in train or bus? On 90% impossible.

On the very next day we finally reached Stockholm. We imagined it to be similar to Copenhagen. And yes, you can find some similarities – it is built on islands, a lot of people cycle, streets are full of tourists, people relax in parks. Only in a bigger measurement. So also with a bigger chaos.

From Stockholm the landscape began to change. There were more hills, lakes showing up and colza was finally gone. Finally the Swedish nature fulfilled our expectations. But the weather was against us again. A strong wind allowed us to cycle up to 9 km/h and it got really cold. But we were compensated by the look at the widest lake in the country – Vänern- whose beauty bowled us over. Through a pine tree forest we got to its sand beaches which were separated with big stones of various colors and shapes. The water was crystal clear but freezing cold. We would have loved to stay longer but as we had already our flights tickets to Island bought we had to continue further. The little hillocks became to be pretty big hills. After coming over all of them we got to Norwegian borders and left Sweden behind.