Wednesday, September 1, 2010

Summer 2010 - Sweden Part 1

Monday 12 July saw us arrive in Göteborg (Gothenburg) in Sweden and hit the streets exploring by mid afternoon. Göteborg has a rich maritime history with an fantastic ship museum, marinas and waterfront cafes. First stop was the tall ship "Gothenburg".

The Gothenburg
This ship is replica of the original which used to ply the route around to China is the glory days of sail. It travelled out to China and back just a few years ago to recreate days gone by. Pity there was no English in the DVD commentary.
The lip stick building and the tall ship "Viking".
Another canal boat cruise!
Lots of plastic ponchos need this day although we toughed it out with our blue and orange jackets. The boats in front are part of about 20 in the ship museum including the destroyer Smäland. Although Sweden is neutral it had a strong navy and airforce during the Cold war as did Norway and Denmark. The Smäland had large range of weaponry including mines and torpedoes as well as heaps of guns.

Göteborg used to be an important ship building town and there are large floating docks along the river here to the left in this photo. The port is now downriver which we sailed past on our way to Denmark when we returned here briefly from elsewhere in Sweden.
The canal boats are very low as there is a bridge with about 20cm clearance from the top of the boat!
Trädgärdsföreningens Park.
Not far from our hotel was a park with an impossible to say name. Reminded me a bit of the volcano in Iceland with the impossible name that caused havoc when we were planning this trip. It has some nice roses though.

One feature of Göteborg is the almost complete lack of cars in the main part of town. Trams and buses are everywhere, including rattling past out hotel every 20-30 seconds. We scored a hotel room 50m away from 3 lines going to the main tram station!!!!! A well developed public transport system is great but earplugs will be taken next time!

On Thursday we headed on the train to Oslo and came back into Sweden through Östersund to Sundsvall on 28 July.

See Sweden Part 2 for more on this lovely country.

1 comment:

  1. Excellent photos. What would a visit to Sweden be without lots of ships? The photo of the Gothenburg is really impressive and I loved the comparison with the canal boat.

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