Home » Sweden » Gothenburg

The big Birgittamobil brings us to Linköping station, the kiddies are coming with us, Ciarán stays home to look after the house.

Gothenburg

Gaby
2004-01-25 13:50:14

Displayed times (last time: )

so lots of space for everyone that morning. It is an interesting trip, informative and entertaining. It gets a bit scary when we have to pass under a few very low bridges, like the infamous "cheese slicer", and are asked to lie down in the boat for a minute so as not to lose our heads in the most literal sense.

Travel guides will tell you to go to the Avenue for shopping and dining. It is a large road with some interesting shops and some good restaurants. We had lunch at "Två Siden" and recommend it.

Later in the afternoon, we repeat yesterday's division of labour: Jack reads in the park, I look at the shops. After two afternoons of window-shopping, it becomes clear that most places sell the same things and are just clones of one another. That cures me from shopping for at least a week.

In the evening in Indonesian restaurant Bali, we ponder how to spend our last full day in Sweden. It will definitely not involve shops and ideally there will be water around.

So on Thursday morning we take Tram 4 to the "beach". It is an overcast day. We climb up and down the cliffs and look at the seagulls. The best thing to do now is to have a pancake somewhere. Unfortunately, there is no place that sells pancakes in the area. There is nothing at all here, really. Maybe, we think, they'll serve pancakes on a boat. So we take the first boat that comes along and pray for pancakes. No such luck. We stop on the island Brannö.

It is lunchtime when we arrive and we have a chicken salad and a beer in the Lasse Ousqvist room in the only restaurant/bar/hotel of the island. Lasse Ousqvist was a famous local musician; from the pictures we can tell that he had an accordeon and a fierce moustache. We continue our long stroll on the island and then turn back to catch the boat to the mainland.

The boat is packed with noisy teenagers... and they all want to go on tram 4. We are not in a hurry so we we wait in a café for the next tram.

Oh, we are exhausted now. We stay in our room for a couple of hours reading our new books. The Scandinavia guide raves about restaurant and hotel "Tidsblom", only a short ride from our doorstep with tram 1 .

In the tram, the man sitting behind us sees us looking at the map and asks if he can help us. He knows Tidsblom restaurant. He points out another one which he thinks is good, "but the one you are going to is perfect". When we get out, another person comes up to us to help. Yes, he knows the restaurant too. Very nice, he has been there several times. In a city with nine MacDonalds you cannot be sure what to make of culinary expert advice, but we seem to have found a gem. And indeed, short of cash as we are at the end of our holidays, we go for the day menu and have an excellent meal and a good bottle of wine for no money at all.

The waiter has a very un-Swedish way of addressing Jack as "sir". Later in the evening it becomes clear why: the waiter is French. We share with him our experience with the friendly Swedes who have directed us so well on the tram. He says the Swedes are "un peu spécial".

We spend the next morning walking around one last time in the city centre and take the "Flybuss" to the airport after lunch. Our flight goes to Copenhagen. We have only ten minutes at Copenhagen airport to find the Origins shop where they sell the most fantastic grapefruit and mint shampoo and then hop on the flight to Brussels. See you, Scandinavia. We'll be back.