Kathleen
Gothenburg, Sweden – July 27 & 28, 2013
Believe it or not, we took our first train trip on July 25, almost three months into our journey. In general, we are fond of train travel, but it actually gets pretty expensive in Northern Europe and given our itinerary and the costs, it just seemed to make more sense up until this point to travel by car. Admittedly, we are giving up the car at a point in which we will be in good-sized cities for more than a week, so the cost of parking would greatly add to the daily expense. We are happy to leave it behind at this point, anyway. The funny thing is that our first “train” trip out of Oslo actually consisted of about 3 hours of a bus ride and about half-an-hour of a train trip. I mentioned that all of Oslo is under construction, well that included the central train station, which was right by our hotel. We learned that we could take a bus out of the central station anyway but figured that this meant the bus would take us to the next train station, or right out of town…..not all the way to the Swedish border…..oh well, we made it safe and sound and don’t really have an issue with bus travel per se, just seems like you usually pay more for train tickets so we felt a bit gypped.
Anyway, on to Gothenburg…..this is a lovely town and our hotel was only a short rumbly luggage drag over the cobblestones. The charm of the cobblestones more than makes up for the noise the luggage makes going over them (especially because you can get rid of your luggage once you get to the hotel). Gothenburg was the one place we really wanted to see in Sweden which we did not get to on our previous trip. It is a small, very bustling university town and we had a great time just walking around the city streets and taking it all in. I must say that at our hotel in Gothenburg we found the best selection of beers and/or tap beers that we had encountered since leaving Boston in May. It was AMAZING, they had about 5 IPA’s on tap (for you non-beer-folk, that means India Pale Ale, and is our favorite). It was still a bit pricey (maybe $7 or $8 for a pint) but so far less than the Norweigan prices for icky beer that we considered ourselves lucky and tried couple both nights we were there. We also treated ourselves to not one, but TWO dinners out while in Gothenburg and began to feel pretty pampered. I must admit that our favorite meal was probably the lunch we had on the grassy park area along the river, which was procured from the local grocery store. It was a beautiful day and we were definately not alone on the grass….the grocery store right accross the river seemed to cater to this type of thing and we found mini packages of gourmet olives, cheese, and salami and had a lovely feast! The Swedish woman’s football (soccer) team was at that time involved in some championship and we were able to watch a bit of a game and get caught up in a preponderance of local enthusiasm as they were broadcasting the game on a big screen in one of the central squares. As is true for most of the places we have been, we admitted that one full day was a short time to stay in Gothenburg, but excitedly got on the train the next day to Svendborg, looking forward to a small town and a bit of biking…..