Alpha Core

Tom and me went to Sweden for our summer vacation this year. To be more precise, we stayed in the house Getteras at the lake Getrasen in the region of Småland. The house was built in a really quiet surrounding; in the middle of a forest and right next to the lake. We did have neighbors, but their house was just barely visible in the distance on the other side of the lake. To reach the next inhabited house you would have to walk about one kilometer. To get to the next city (that barely deserves the name) means driving for 25 km… that’s where we spent two weeks in July and August.

The nature in this area of Sweden is dominated by forests and rocks, which are lying everywhere in every size you could imagine. Every now and then the tranquility of the forests is interrupted by planes with smaller trees, rocks, grass, moss and uprooted trees. You can see an example for this on the picture on the left.

On one of our first days in Sweden we made a bike tour to Klostergrottan, which is located in a forest near to the village Flisehult. It is an impressive cave under an overhanging huge rock and was probably used as a temporary accommodation for hunters and travelers in the early stone age. There was an archaeological excavation in the nineteen-thirties, where they found bones, arrowheads and some other tools, which could confirm that.

On another day we decided to make a trip to Karlshamn, where we first visited Kreativum and afterwards made a city walk. Kreativum is a science museum, where you can discover, examine and experiment. We spent quite a lot of time there and enjoyed it a lot. The city walk in Karlshamn afterwards was guided by a cache we decided to make there – the Artificial Walk. It made us walk to the most off-site places to find some statues, write down numbers and dates, count and calculate to finally get the coordinates for the final cache. The final caches’ hiding place was really tricky, but we just didn’t want to give up after all these hours of walking and found it eventually.

We – and especially me – were constantly on the lookout for some moose living in the wild. Well, it seems not to be one of the easiest aims for a Sweden vacation… Eventually we went to a moose park near Kosta, where they have enough moose to satisfy somebody who is craving for moose. They also sold moose sausages there, but these are not at all recommendable.

The city of Kosta is part of the famous Glasriket, the kingdom of crystal, where you can probably buy anything made of glass in every possible shape, color… and price. The picture shows just one of the many true pieces of art that we saw on display there, some more beautiful and pricier than others. Of course, you could also simply buy some new fancy vases or ordinary wine glasses there. So don’t worry, they offer enough choice for everyone’s taste.

On the way to Kosta we stopped at the Tummestenen (thumb stone). This stone, even though it’s a rather big one, lies in a position, which makes it possible to move it, theoretically, by the sheer force of a single thumb pushing against it. We both tried it with our thumbs, but you need a quite well trained one for that. However, we managed to move the stone a few centimeters when pushing against it a bit more.

After all this physical strain, there is the right time to show some nature pictures to calm down a bit. We took these pictures in different places, but I don’t want to bore you with details…

A few days later we visited the Kyrkö Mosse Scrapyard, which is an area in a forest near Ryd (Tingsryd), where there was a prosperous scrap trade held by a guy called Ake Danielsson until he died in 1990. The scrapyard was kind of forgotten afterwards and now you can see about 100 cars from between 1930 and 1970 rusting and slowly getting overgrown. I wouldn’t call it beautiful, but it’s definitely an interesting sight.

Afterwards we went for a forest walk – trying to see some unspoiled nature. And indeed, after a few hundred meters we entered a lonely path, without car wrecks but therefore with enough raspberries to fill two empty stomaches. Blueberries were also easily found in some places we visited. Problem was, that mosquitoes also seem to know how popular these are with humans… and that you have a blue tongue for a while. In Sweden wild berries may be picked by everybody, and EU citizens can also sell them without paying any taxes. We, however, prefered to eat them ourselves.

The city we both liked most in Sweden is Karlskrona. We went there on a really sunny day, which meant that there were almost no mosquitoes and that, for a change, we didn’t have to wear rain clothes. Karlskrona is placed on a peninsula on the south coast of Sweden, and therefore surrounded by the Baltic Sea. In the marine part of Karlskrona we visited an old warship. That was quite interesting, because you were allowed to manoeuvre many wheels and handles, which Tom gladly did. Of course this was just possible where nobody could be harmed. We also did some caches in Karlskrona, but we carefully chose some where nothing had to be calculated or counted. This led us to some lovely places with the most beautiful views and I would definitely call it one of the major advantages of geocaching: getting some insider tips, even though you don’t know anybody personally there. Well, you also always risk knowing every statue in a city that somebody dares to call ‘art’…

On one of our last days in Sweden we visited the lake Asnen (the second biggest lake in Sweden) to make a little bike tour there. As the lake is not so small and we didn’t have a real plan where to cycle, this bike tour was a bit longer than expected, but, nevertheless, we found a place with a pretty good view onto the lake. Cycling back was then a bit demanding for one of us, but we both reached the car, managed to put the bike on top of it and drove back to what we called home for two weeks.

After two weeks in our little Sweden house, we spent one night in the Train Hostel in Lund. It might be hard to imagine, but these beds where really comfortable, and if you book in time you even get your own cabin. Unfortunately we just had one day in Lund, but it is definitely a cozy city. We spent most of our time in the museum ‘Kulturen’, which shows many old Swedish houses, arranged like a village. While we where there, there were even musicians playing on the market place. At 1 pm on Sunday it’s worth to visit the cathedral of Lund. Inside the cathedral is an astronomical clock, which turns a bit at that time. Before this happens a guide explained how the clock works and what we could expect to see. On top of the clock are two knight figures, which cross their sword at about 1 pm. A few seconds later, both closed doors next to Maria and Jesus open and the three Magi exit the left door and enter the right one. While they pass by Maria and Jesus they bow and ‘In Dulci Jubilo’ is played.

Congratulations to everybody, who read until here. You almost made it! The last place we visited on our trip back was Helsingborg. That was basically, because supermarkets in Sweden are open on Sundays, whereas they are closed in Germany and we needed some cheese. But Helsingborg is, as far as we can say that after a 30 min visit, a nice city and invites to stay a little longer.

Altogether we had two good weeks in Sweden, even though it could have rained a bit less often… we also would have appreciated half the amount of mosquitoes the same… and without numerous injuries everything would have been double as good… But we’ve seen a lot of beautiful places, managed to relax a bit and were always, if we decided to make a day trip, really lucky with the weather. And, best of all, we spend a lot of time together.

No related posts.

| Posted in Vacation | 2 comments