| 7-Münster, DE | 8-Aabenraa, DK | 9-Borby | 10-Eksjö | 11-Stenberga | 12-Stenberga - Reunion Day! |
| 13-Brevik | 14-Brevik | 15-Ljungskile | 16-Ljungskile | 17-Gothenburg | 18-Gothenburg |
| 19-Gothenburg | 20-Stena (Kiel)-Home |
Friday, July 17th
Gothenburg
map link
When talking to the relatives about how Dan and I would spend our time in Sweden post-reunion, it came up that there was another option other than retracing our steps back across the bridges and through Denmark: A ferry!
I had been looking at ferry options when planning our trip, but it was more work than I wanted to get into. There are a lot of passenger-only ferries, ferries that go to places where we didn’t want to go, the timing and cost of getting the van onto a ferry… So I left it out of the plans until Swedish Dan mentioned that there is an overnight auto ferry from Gothenburg to Kiel. Oooh, really? Now THAT sounds interesting! So we went ahead and booked our passage for Sunday night (the one-per-day ferry leaves at 17:45). Now we had a firm deadline; what to do in the meantime?
We definitely wanted to explore Gothenburg and Swedish Dan and his wife Julie invited us to stay with them, as they live just south of Gothenburg. We agreed and planned to be there Friday evening. It was now Friday: time to make tracks!
It was part of our original plan to see the west coast of Sweden. I had heard of how beautiful the villages on the rocky islands were and I was excited to see them for myself. I had seen in our Reunion WhatsApp group that Swedish Henrik and his family were on their sailboat on the coast. I messaged him: “We’ll be in Marstrand tomorrow – are you around?” He was, and we arranged to meet up and have lunch. Excellent!
We packed up the campsite (we were soooo efficient now!) and headed west. It was a quick and easy drive to the coast and then we started to go from island to island as the road headed to Marstrand.
West coast vibes
I really had no idea how the town was laid out, other than we’d have to drive over a couple of bridges, find a parking lot, and then start walking! But as I texted with Henrik, I came to understand fully: Marstrand is not only on an island, but you have to take a ferry to get to the island. Ah, this makes it more interesting!
Welcome to Almost-Marstrand! Yes, that is the channel that the ferry crosses
The tickets were purchased and the ferry arrived. It was literally just over 200 meters to the island – we could have swum there if we had been so inclined. Except that the boat traffic was insane! I’d never seen so many boats – and so many kinds of boats – plowing through the water. Incredible.
We found the slip where Henrik had moored for the day. His wife Malin and two kids were on board and we joined them for a drink and talked about Boat Life. They are on their sailboat a LOT and have a lot of experience. Dan has always been interested in having a sailboat so he pestered Henrik for information, even after we left the boat behind to walk around the island.
The island isn’t big, about a kilometer at its widest, and our hosts took us on a mini-tour of some nice paths and scenery.
Swedish Law: If you have a working fireplace, you MUST have permanent roof access to the chimney
Back at the busy waterfront we grabbed some fish ‘n chips, chatted some more, and then it was time to part ways. It was nice to be able to spend some more time with some of my new-found relatives.
On the walk back to the van
The drive to Dan and Julie’s was easy and we were making good time. Ever since we crossed into Sweden and had driven through many region, we had seen numerous Swedish pennants. Not flags, but long, sensuous blue and yellow ribbons of fabric fluttering from flagpoles. I can’t believe that I didn’t take any photos of one of these, but here’s a screenshot from a photo I took focusing on something else.
Pennant pic
I really wanted one of these, so we stopped at another Jula to have a look and ended up getting one for ourselves, and a couple extra for family. Now it was just an easy drive to Dan and Julie’s and their cozy home at the edge of the forest.
Adorable!
