Sweden Summer Vacation 2015

36.5 degrees Celsius, sun, just warm wind, and pure sweat. These are good enough reasons to leave Switzerland for a week. A quick temperature check for Reykjavik, Gothenburg, and Stockholm, and our destination ends up being Gothenburg. The reason: it's our favorite city, and the temperature is roughly the same at all three destinations. So, on Friday afternoon, we spontaneously decide to fly to Sweden on Sunday. Our Sweden Summer Holiday Trip can begin.

The suitcases are packed quickly: clothes, toiletries, and our grill. We'll buy everything else there. We won't arrive in Gothenburg until the evening, so we'll check into the Gothia Towers first. The view from one of the Sky Rooms on the 27th floor is magnificent. You can see Liseberg amusement park, which is Scandinavia's biggest tourist attraction. It's quite amusing to watch the screaming people on the roller coaster from above. A quick room check, the bed is super, there's a wellness shower, the minibar is stocked, and all movies are free. Top-notch. We decide on a healthy dinner at TwentyFourSeven, Groundfloor. They have fresh juices and smoothies there. For dinner, I treat myself to a quinoa salad. Yummy!

The absolute highlight the next morning: we dine at Imagine, which is on the 29th floor, two floors above our room. So the view is even more magnificent. The breakfast room is exactly 100 meters high. Very nice! After a hearty breakfast, we check out and drive to Naturkompaniet, a well-stocked sports store in the center, where we buy a waterproof tent as rain is forecast for the next few days. Of course, that doesn't stop us from camping. By the way, Sweden is one of the best countries for wild camping. Because of the rain, we buy a tarp to put up as a roof between a few trees. After completing our equipment with chairs, dishes and all sorts of stuff, we drive up the west coast to Smoegen in our Golf Station Wagon. (Editor's note: The Driver Assistant in the Golf is great fun. Rear-end collisions are no longer possible because the car constantly keeps its distance from the car in front. Great thing!).

We spend the first night in our tent at an almost empty campsite, right by the sea. It's extremely windy here, and thankfully we get help setting up the tent. Two Swedes from Västerås join us, and our sleeping quarters are set up in just a few minutes. Afterwards, we walk across the island and watch the sunset. During the night, our tent passes its first test. We survive an extremely stormy night 🙂

The next morning, there is breakfast on a farm with fresh strawberries and delicious coffee. We need this refreshment, as we will be spending the next few hours in Noah's Ark spend time. Here, endangered animal species from all over the world are cared for. So, you won't see elephants or giraffes here, but pudus, red pandas, and snow leopards. The park is huge and for the most part „naturally“ built into the forest. A highlight is the picnic room, which is halfway inside the wolf enclosure. I've known the park since 2007, and they've finally catered this room. They have delicious salads there, with sheep cheese. I like it.

Now we're heading east. Our destination today is Silver Lake in the Dalsland region. We were there in 2013 and know that it's a great place to camp. On the way, however, we'll stop at an outlet first. Wild camping doesn't stand a chance against an outlet, of course. Finally arriving at Silver Lake, we walk to our island, where we've camped before. The great thing about it is that it's absolutely silent there. You're out of sight of the Silver Lake campsite, but can still make use of their facilities after a ten-minute walk across the countryside through the forest =)

Just in time for the approaching rain, we set up our tent and, above all, the tarp, and the embers are already perfectly ready for placing. The second test was successfully passed that night. Our tent is waterproof; it rained all night.

In the morning, we first went to the German baker, who has his shop in Gustavsfors. After a delicious breakfast and coffee all you can drink, as is customary in Sweden, we continued on the 172 towards Töcksfors, where there is a shopping mall. The town is just before the Norwegian border, and consequently, there are mostly Norwegians here 🙂 We stocked up here with barbecue supplies and enough food for the next few days. We don't know yet how long we will stay at Silverlake.

Back at camp, we're having a delicious smoothie first. We bought a practical Blender 2 Go. This thing is really great for on the go. We had a smoothie with mango, parsley, and cucumber. Very tasty and full of vitamins.

We'll spend the remaining days on our island reading, barbecuing, and chilling. Sometimes in the rain, sometimes in the sun. It's now only 11 degrees Celsius during the day, which is 24 degrees colder than a few days ago in Switzerland. Yay!

We've decided to drive back to Gothenburg on Friday afternoon and are booking another Sky Room at Gothia Towers. I like the contrast between camping and communal showers to a pool on the 18th floor and breakfast on the 29th. 😉 Now, the views aren't really comparable. Both a tranquil lake at sunrise and the cozy city of Gothenburg at sunset are absolutely top-notch!

In the morning, we actually got the chance to pack up our tent while it was dry. Thanks, weather god, LOL, because rain was actually predicted. So we were able to check out of our private island around 11 AM and head south. On the 172, we'll drive via Bengtsfors and Uddevalla to Tjörn. On this island there is a cozy hotel called Salt & Sill. We're stopping here and having a shrimp sandwich for lunch, which is naturally local food in Sweden.

After a short break, we're continuing on to Gothenburg, where we'll check into the hotel in the afternoon. The service and the people here are super friendly. The lady even remembers us, even though it's been almost a week and the hotel has 1200 rooms. Anyway, finally a good shower, and it's warm too.

In the late afternoon, we head to Liseberg, which is just across the street. Convenient! We could already observe the screaming people well from the room. Now we'll take a closer look. After we're about 40 CHF poorer from gambling our money away there, we go into the city for some retail therapy to cheer ourselves up 🙂

In the evening, we'll wind down the day with a healthy dinner at the hotel. The food here is really great.

Saturday is a day for sightseeing and hanging out. I always feel at home in Gothenburg, yet there's something I've never done here before. A city tour by boat, through the canals, past the old town, and to the harbor. So let's do that. Afterward, we'll meet friends for lunch at Eva's Paley, right on Kungsportsavenyn, the place to be for tourists, hehe. Of course, we'll have a shrimp sandwich and a salad... with shrimp. Shrimp galore, practically, so our shrimp needs are covered for the time being.

Gothenburg on a sunny day is great. The 1000 green parks and innumerable small, lovely cafes invite you to relax. We'll be doing plenty of that today. At least in Sweden, the coffee is very good almost everywhere. Back in the hotel, we use the room service, which is practically free of charge with our VIP package. We are definitely too tired to go out again. Since the movies are also free, we make ourselves comfortable for the rest of the evening in the room and eat with a breathtaking view.

On Sundays, we check out after a delicious breakfast and spend the afternoon at Universeum. There's a rainforest where you really work up a sweat, and in Sweden, no less. The little monkeys and the many colorful birds that roam and fly around freely are amusing. By the way, my buddy told us the day before that a toucan was stolen there last year. Gothenburg Daily reported on it. Poor Georgina =). Who steals a bird like that? Unbelievable. Anyway, if you're ever in Gothenburg, you should definitely go to Universeum. It's really worth it.

Gothenburg City Card

Little tip on the side: You can get a so-called at the Tourist Office or in almost all better hotels Gothenburg City Card (2022: Now called Go City) buy. This is available for 24, 48, or 72 hours and costs between approximately 40 and 70 CHF or EUR, respectively. With the card, you get free admission to almost all museums. Admission to Universeum, Liseberg, as well as boat tours, and all trams and buses, and ferries to the islands are also free. If you've also rented a car or are traveling with your own car there, you can park for free, which already costs 25 CHF per day. In that respect, you've already covered the cost of the card just with the parking alone 🙂 Cool, right?

Now, let's continue, because this afternoon we're off to Onsala. We'll visit a colleague there before heading back to the airport and grilling hamburgers in her garden. Afterwards, we'll spend some more time at the beach. Onsala is a truly beautiful spot, south of Gothenburg.

Thank God we decided to fill up our rental car near the airport. The girl at the counter told us that there had been a bomb threat at the airport. That way, we saved ourselves a long traffic jam and can pack our things for the flight home in peace. It's still unclear whether the airport will be open again today, as it's almost 6:00 PM and our flight is scheduled for 8:30 PM, but we're prepared just in case.

We're lucky (or unlucky *g*), we can dump the car keys on the counter at Budget 45 minutes before departure (no time for formalities now) and head towards check-in at a brisk pace. The queue there tells us we're not the last ones. And so, with only a few minutes' delay, we set off happily and contentedly towards Italy. Of course, we wouldn't have minded an extra day of vacation, but we look back on a great, relaxing, yet exciting (Huh???) week of holidays. I still love Sweden and am already looking forward to the next trip to the North.