Kalmar, Lund and Malmo

After farewelling our snowy (and later slushy and waterlogged) farm in the deep forest, we bussed over to Kalmar and checked into the guesthouse at Sigge and Barbara’s place. Barbara is Lecky’s mum’s sister who has called Sweden home for about 40 years - we couldn’t have asked for more welcoming hosts. Every day we were treated to some delicious food, including semlor – cardamon spiced buns with a filling of sweet almond paste and whipped cream. Needless to say, the recipe for semlor has been written down carefully and will be recreated numerous times when we get back to Australia!

We took in a driving tour of Oland (a small island just east of Kalmar, connected by bridge), stopping for tea and cakes at the “Oland Café” in a windmill, and then at the southern lighthouse, which is popular with birdwatchers checking out the migrating flocks of bird species. Unfortunately the lighthouse was closed so we had to content ourselves with wandering around trying to stay warm, and then squelching through a waterlogged field trying to get a close look at a herd of elk.

We couldn’t come to Sweden and not visit Ikea, so we spent a morning wandering around the massive building full of Swedish furniture and homewares, and then ate Swedish meatballs in their restaurant for lunch. And to our joint amazement, we managed to walk away from the store without buying a single couch, kitchenware or any other quirky, tastefully designed piece of house furnishing.

The area near Nybro is renowned for its high quality glasswork. We visited one place called Kosta Boda, and were able to go into the factory to watch the glassblowers and artists at work. Although many of the pieces are your standard tumblers, plates and the like, there are some original pieces of art that are just amazing. We were very sad not to be taking one particular piece by Bertin Vallien with us.

We spent a night in Lund, bunking down in a train hostel that uses converted sleeper carriages as its hostel rooms. Here we met up again with Phil (a fellow helpXer from Nybro) for a drink and caught up on all the news from the farm since we’d left. Got a train to Malmo, where apparently some big protests were going on at the Davis cup tennis match between Sweden and Israel. After buying our tickets for the train to Copenhagen, Denmark, we were down to our last 2 or 3 Swedish kroner in cash – not enough to buy anything of interest – so Lecky went on a mission to find a coastal point to view the Oresund bridge, while I stayed in the station minding the bags (sitting on a bench next to a couple passionately kissing). Turns out the start of the Oresund bridge is a fair way from the town centre so it was a fruitless expedition. The bridge is one of the longest and prettiest in northern Europe – it’s about 16km long, part over water and part tunnel.

We're now in Copenhagen taking in the sights....and enjoying Carlsberg beer, which as the sign points out is "probably the best beer in town"...a less than confidence instilling advertisement. More on Copenhagen and Denmark in our next adventure...same bat time, same bat channel...