Jul 2, 2009 - Lund - Day 2

Lund is beautiful in the summer. With the sun shinning on the cobbled street and bright flowers everywhere hanging down from the wall. You see all these people cycling around or walking leisurely, it's a very different world from busy dirty London. There has been a heatwave in Europe and as a result Scandinavia now has similar temperature to the mediterranean. It was such a nice change to be seeking refuge from the sun instead of having to be wrapped in lots of layers and brave the strong cold wind and rain. Today has been a bit of a lazy...

Jul 1, 2009 - Lund - Staying at Yat's

The day started really early at 5am when the sun woke me up and I decided to do some last minute packing... I have been practising putting on my big backpack a few times in the house before the trip, but everytime it was with the help of Marcus. And this is the first time I put this on myself and I wouldn't say I was doing that too elegantly. ;-) But I managed nonetheless. Walking with the 13 kg backpack is one thing, conducting daily activities being 13kg heavier is another thing. It wasn't too difficult to walk around with the extra...

May 15, 2009 - Kattvik and Bastad or "Bastard"

Finn drove me down to Ulrica's place at Kattvik near Bastad. Ulrica is another former crew from Jennifer and we had sailed together for the last two northern summers and shared a cabin and many night watches. We met Ulrica and Carina in Bastad at the "Spa" which I highly recommend. That had been newly built from the last time I was here two years ago. The sauna within the spa has a glass window overlooking the sea. After getting nice and warm in the spa we walked done the stairs, naked into the sea. After repeating this 3 times we met up...

Sep 18, 2008 - Around Southern Sweden

Who knew that there is this huge population of Muslims near Malmo in Rosenborg. We met a pastor from a church there working with immigrants. Most of them are from former Soviet countries like Kosovo and Albania, but there are also many Arabs and Persians. I told Shane that the Ethnic diversity would remind you of New York except they would need more Puerto Ricans. The church there is small and reaching people is hard. They are reaching a couple of Muslim people for Christ every year. We saw a room they are using for a ministry to young...

Sep 17, 2008 - Malmo, Sweden

We left Latvia for Sweden. We actually flew to Copenhagen, Denmark, but saw nothing but the inside of the airport and the inside of the train station. Looks like I won’t be able to mark Denmark off my list of must-see places yet. There is an amazing bridge that spans the straight between Copenhagen and Malmo, Sweden. (Don’t try to pronounce it; it sounds nothing like it looks.) We met a group of church leaders at the Immanuel Church in Malmo. The church is finding all kinds of ways to reach out into the community and has been very...

Aug 12, 2008 - Skane

It rained all night that when we woke up in the morning, we were surprised we were not flooded again. It did subside a little around 3 am when both Stephanie and I woke incredibly thirsty from the various smoked items we had at the Hytsill last night. Stephanie went to fill up our water bottles and the campground was incredibly quiet. The moon was partially hidden behind the clouds and a low fog rolled over the campground and adjacent soccer field. The air was fresh and it was really warm. It was a beautiful night. Not long after Stephanie...

Dec 21, 2007 - Scandanavia/Eastern Europe

Our highly anticipated Christmas and New Year adventure! Took months to plan (Thank you Alexo!), and a few more months to actually get it finalized! From figuring out train and bus timings, to booking hostels in the thousands of places we were visiting, to actually getting seats reserved in the trains and ferries (most of them!). Here I should mention that the crew bought 'Scanrail' tickets - tickets that allow train travels anywhere and at anytime around Scandanavia. Ours were 5 day tickets, hence allowing us to commute freely anywhere...

Jul 26, 2007 - Kattvik

Finn drove me down to Ulrica's place at Kattvik. One and a half hours south through beautiful rolling green countryside. Ulrica lives in a beautiful quaint small village 6 kilometres outside Bastad another beautiful quaint larger village! I had a wonderful time and the hospitality has been brilliant. The countryside surrounding Kattvik is rolling green hills with dairy cattle and apple orchards with tiny narrow roads. It is the height of summer and Bastad has a lovely little beach where in the evening they have live music. The weekend I was...

Jun 18, 2006 - North Zealand

Leaving Copenhagen early we headed north to the North Zealand area of Denmark to do a popular loop which covers Frediksborg Castle, Kronberg Castle and Fredensborg Palace. From Kronberg Castle you can see straight across the Oresund to Sweden. Being around the right time, Phil & I were keeping a close eye out for any Volvo boats making their way to the finish line in Gothenburg but to no avail! Our next stop was the Fredensborg Castle where the Danish royal family resides in summer. The 18th century mansion wasn't accessible but the royal...

Jun 3, 2006 - Lerbergets

Another early start, another long day. We decided to simply drive across Denmark for now as we'll be coming back through here in 2 weeks. So we were Sweden bound, but it cost a small fortune in Danish Kroner to cross the extremely expensive toll bridges. At 30 Euros a pop, we were lucky one lady has visited Sydney twice & went easy on us. She measured the van & found that we were into the higher category by 50cms but let us get away with it. After another 8 hour driving day and 1200kms in two days we found a great little seaside campground...

Sep 22, 2005 - J: Helsingor

Helsingor is a lovely seaside town with ships and ferries coming into dock under the shadow of Kronborg castle... which earned a place in history and the hearts of tourists when Shakespeare choose it as the location for Hamlet(which was inspired by a play written for the Danish King years earlier). The interesting thing about Kronborg.. which I believe probably earned it its Unesco heritage designation is that its defense walls are still largely intact. The walls form a star that reminds me of Baltimore Marylands' Fort McHenry outer defense...

Aug 1, 2005 - Svedala

Start: Helsingborg End: Svedala Weather: Sun & Clouds with some rain Ride: 100km The tent was a bit wet from overnight rain, so I lingered by the beach while it dried. I had a big day ahead of me because I wanted to reach the south-west corner of Sweden and find a campsite in the middle of a triangle comprising Lund, Malmo & Trelleborg. I had a map that showed a splotch of blue (a lake) in that position and I was heading to it. I continued to follow the cycle route, which was basically an occasional sign pointing to the next town on the...