Countries: 9 (Sweden and Norway)
Distance so far: 3800km
Start with where we are now. Ardalstangen at the head of Norway’s longest fjord, Songefjord. And the second longest in the world at 204km. So over 200km to the sea - that way:
And to get here we have travelled some of the most amazing roads. It’s been hard to know where to look (apart from at the road, obvs). Waterfalls, reflected snow capped mountains in pristine lakes, old churches, and all under an azure sky with occasional wispy cloud to give it even more interest. A more perfect day on the bikes is hard to imagine.
Other than multiple stops for gawping at the scenery, playing silly buggers in the snow (yep, we’ve hit the snow line in late June)
(and Rob is just as big an idiot as me)
… we packed in the oldest stave church in Norway (beautiful and completely made of wood),
… 6,000 year old petroglyphs of moose (they have decided to stop colouring them in and allow them to naturally decline - good call in my view), and,
… any number of waterfalls.
This was one of the tamer ones!
So, back to that “most boring town…” Not my words. The words of Adam our rather charming hotel manager in Borlange, a couple of days ago, who as well as telling us that basically Sweden was shut for the midsummer holiday on the day of our arrival also furnished us with all the information we needed to find cheap pizza and not so cheap beer in a town that looked like the apocalypse had happened just before our arrival. To be fair it livened up later on but given that this is on a Saturday evening at about 7pm it did not initially look auspicious.
The Swedes, like the Latvians (and I suspect other Baltic and Scandinavian nations, take their midsummer seriously and apparently Borlange is a town of massive outward migration on the designated weekend (this one), to towns with live bands, drugs, ritual sacrifices and wanton sex. I might have made some of that up, but apparently just down the road in a town I cannot remember the name of they will have been hootenanying until the early hours, while the sun hardly dips below the horizon. For the rest of Sweden, unless organised mayhem has been ordered, it is shut! Barely a shop open on our dash from the ferry terminal in Stockholm to the cultural capital that is Borlange. We nearly had to stop for a kebab!
But were we bothered? Nah, we found a pub with the footie on, Rob finally broke his duck at Shithead and, it being a “one night country”, is now officially the champione of Sweden. We were getting rather concerned for him as on the boat he even failed to take a single round of Nomination Whist (his game!) and the Baltic Sea Champioinship was shared by me and Eric. Who, I should note has now been promoted from King of Scotland and all Ireland to Erik the Holy, founder of some order in Gamla Uppsala (Old Uppsala), ancient home of Swedish Kings.
I better go back a bit further, before this makes no sense at all …
Other than being a bit early and slightly pissed off at the arrogant Estonian motorcycle rider who decided to piggy back on our “earlyness” to get on the ship with us, our leaving of the Baltics was uneventful and we were treated to the smoothest crossing of a sea I can ever remember. Either the Baltic was flat calm the whole way or the ship has the latest stabilisers. Or both. But whatever the reason, while we sank our way into a damn good steak dinner (we’d been on short rations all day, and decided to push the boat out - not literally obviously!), it was almost impossible to tell we were actually at sea. With the bikes strapped down by helpful Estonian seafarers, and cabins to rest our weary heads later, we rather enjoyed our evening watching the sun slowly sink to the horizon and the moon gradually match it rising on the opposite one. I think the sun was up again between 2 and 3am but I was long in the land of nod by then being rocked slowly and gently by the almost imperceptible motion of the ship.
And without precedent we were then the very first off the ship in Stockholm (our Estonian non-friend had been blocked in by a huge truck - ha!) and it being a Saturday morning, speeding through quiet roads and north to Upssala where we found the aforementioned seat of Erik the Viking’s former power and influence. Actually a rather pleasant hour off the bikes around burial mounds, runic stones, a museum and cute old wooden buildings. Odin is allegedly buried here! Or was it Thor?
From there it was into the relative wilds heading for the most boring town in Sweden. But the roads were steadily getting more interesting and we were all holding out hope for some good mountain driving with views, bends and good surfaces. Water in the form of lakes and rivers started to appear.
Not knowing that Sweden was basically shut for the weekend, the Viking had also earmarked a silver mine to visit somewhere between Stockholm and Borlange. It took us a while to work out why so few people were visiting - and they were clearly as ignorant as us!
From Borlange we headed further west, into the spine of Scandinavia and past any number of ski resorts, which evidenced how much snow must fall even at this modest altitude, this far north. We entered Norway near some old locks that His Holiness had found, which appears now to be a setting for lumberjack competitions. Ah well, it was again a break from sitting!
As the roads got better and better (other than Norway’s insistence of imposing a 80kph speed limit on any road that isn’t a motorway) we drew into Hamar, on the country's largest lake. And a very pleasant place it was to spend an evening, other than watching the agony of Scotland failing to put a shot on target despite about 70% posssesion against Hungary and then going out to the usual sucker punch in the 90th minute. Some stories never change.
Hamar (was that only yesterday) was a delightful town on the shore of Norway’s largest lake (we are getting in our biggest, best, oldest…). Also a lovely hotel which to our great surprise included dinner, and in Norway that is worth quite a lot. Breakfast and dinner included! We stuffed ourselves, which is why I have been allowed no more than a bag of crisps today (it was a very big bag though!)
Down by the lake shore - the bells, we have it on good authority, are supposed to ring on the hour. But they didn’t! Shame
King Eric of Scotland and all Ireland arrived on this.
Well, that has been a rather rambling catch up, so I better get off and post. Just add the view of our hotel for tonight. Not trying to make anyone green. Honest.
Oh, and few selfies from the long armed man. We have several more days in this stunning scenery. It’s tough.
Idiots. All of us.
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