Departure: Helsingor, Denmark
Time: 09:ish

Arrival: Stockholm, Sweden
Time: 18:ish

(in progress)

After an adventure of getting our motorcycles out of the very very gravelly parking lot at the Hotel Sleep2Night, we headed with relief to our 2nd ferry of the trip, a short 20-minute jaunt across to Helsinborg, Sweden.  What a very very different experience from yesterday’s ferry!  This time, there was a huge crowd of sports bikes heading onto the ferry with us, and we joined up with them.  They were so casual: the zipped up to the front of the ferry loading, got off their bikes, and walked away.  Nothing to tie up, nothing to worry about!  We were a bit nervous, but managed after a brief discussion to follow suit, and headed upstairs for a quick coffee, which was so hot we barely finished it before we had to run down to get back on our bikes. 

Somehow, we were the first bikes off the ferry, and all the other bikers followed us, which involved me, in the lead, making a full circuit of the first roundabout and driving into a parking lot so that I could hook up my TomTom, which I hadn’t had time for before the ferry landed.  It took the other bikers a few seconds to figure out we were really just parking and didn’t know where we were going, then they drove off.  Ha.

Sweden was COLD.  We drove across to Jankoping, then north.  The drive north was absolutely stunning, on the face of a cliff overlooking the water, but we had to stop to warm up several times, and even with my wonderful electric underjacket I was really cold. 

Later, after we had left the water areas, we set the TomTom to randomly take us to some out of the way village, and had a lovely rambling jaunt through the countryside.  It completely read our minds, and we never even found that village, although we passed signs that pointed to it over and over.  Each time we passed a sign pointing to the town in question, the TomTom instructed us to go the other way, which was weird but worked out to be exactly what we’d wanted in the first place:  we drove on roads where it looked like we MUST be lost, and HAD to be going the wrong way, and then, after an hour or so of this, came out on a main highway not far from Stockholm and right on track.  Amazing.

Stockholm itself was Matt-ville.  He loved it.  He loved the streets, the atmosphere, the buildings, everything.  I think it was his Minnesota-ness coming out.  🙂  We went for a long walk and enjoyed the view from a crazy bridge that extended between a tall hill and a tower.  I saw interesting graffiti – specifically tile graffiti.  Since then, I’ve seen tile graffiti in Amsterdam too, but i think this was the first I saw.

We ate that night in a lovely restaurant near a major theatre, and the waitress had the most beautiful hair.  Thick and blond and wavy, and so stereotypically Swedish hair.  It was the honey-gold blonde with darker streaks naturally running through it.  She was also very sweet, and helped us choose typically Swedish foods that we might never otherwise have thought to try.  They were delicious, but it was another not-so-cheap dinner option for the group of us. 

Crystal Palace Hotel

The tower room.  Wow.  The shower was amazing!!!  more to come about this…