Monday, June 16, 1997 around 8AM we are off. A good friend chauffeured us to the airport in Columbus where we flew first to Cincinnati, then to JFK in New York, and from there about seven hours non-stop to Copenhagen. We arrived at about 7AM local time. (There is a 7 hour time difference between Sweden and the eastern USA.) After collecting our luggage, walking through customs (no checking of luggage at all), and exchanging a bit of money to kronor, we found the flygabus to Malmö.
A special bus travels from the Copenhagen airport directly to the docks and drives right onto a big twin hulled ferry boat. After the bus is parked on the boat, all of the passengers have to get off the bus during the boat ride.
The trip to Malmö takes a little more than a half an hour. At this time of
the morning, the bus only had a half dozen passengers, and the ferry was not
at all crowded. We wandered around, spent some of our new Swedish money on a
coke, found a seat, and watched the scenery as we sped over the water. The
ride was quite fast and amazingly smooth.
In no time at all we were across and had to get back on the bus. After driving off the boat, the bus stopped for a customs check. A uniformed officer boarded the bus, walked down the aisle and back, and got off without asking anyone to show his passports or open his luggage for inspection. I guess there is not much of a problem with people trying to smuggle stuff into Sweden. Or maybe we all looked very honest.
The bus dropped us at the Central Train Station in downtown Malmö. With a population of around 225,000 people, Malmö is the third largest city in Sweden. We took a cab to Holiday Rent, about a five minute trip. There we met our fax friend Per Rasmussen, who instructed us in the finer points of using the husbil.
So, we made it to Sweden, and were
off. It took Len awhile to get used to the 5 speed column shift and small
pedals of the Fiat powered camper. The roads in Sweden are very good. But if
they had the system in the USA that they have on the two-lane highways in
Sweden, there would probably be blood all over the place.
The sides of the two-lane highways (the berm that we sometimes refer to as the break down lane) are marked off with dashed lines. The practice is for slow moving vehicles (like our husbil) to move over to allow others to pass. Because someone coming the other way is probably passing, most drivers (especially trucks) cruise along with two wheels over the dashed lines. It seems that it is harder to get a driving license in Sweden, and the drivers seem much better than in the USA. For example, although we were traveling slower than most of the traffic, no one ever tailgated. They would hang way back until there was a clear opportunity to pass.
Another common highway feature is the traffic circle. There you have to pay attention to which way you want to exit the circle, and who is supposed to yield to whom at which part of the circle. This was great fun since we rarely knew exactly where we were going, and because we were trying to navigate the circle in the big slow husbil. Fortunately, there is not much of a traffic problem in most of the country.
There are a few major highways in Sweden that are four lane limited access similar to our interstate highways. Most of our travel, however, was on two lane roads. Except in some northern rural areas, the roads were in very good condition with few pot holes and few patches.
We drove a little north and east out of Malmö, heading out across the beautiful rolling farm country of the province of Skåne. By this time we had been travelling over 30 hours straight, and Len rarely sleeps on planes, so we found a Rastplats right next to a service station, had a sandwich, and took a nap. We decided early in the trip that the husbil provided excellent flexibility in when and where we could stop for meals and a rest.
The province (or county) at the southern tip of Sweden is Skåne. (The å in this case sounds like the o in the word only.) This part of Sweden, along with its neighbors Blekinge and Halland, became a part of Sweden in the mid 1650's by agreement between the Kings of Denmark and Sweden. Of course no one bothered to ask the people who lived there whether they wanted to be Swedes, Danes, or something else. Some folks, even today, still resent the treatment of their ancestors 300 some years ago.
Skåne is sometimes called the food store of Sweden because of the large productive farms and excellent fishing areas. I talked to one farmer from the area about how the size of farms had changed, and how farming itself had changed since the time my grandparents lived there. He said that 20 years ago there were fifteen people working on his farm. Now there are only two, but they produce more.
The farms in Sweden are more diversified than in the USA. In our midwest corn and soy beans are the most common crop. There is no corn to speak of in Sweden (too far north), but they grow wheat, oats, rye, potatoes, and a plant that covers the ground with yellow flowers that look similar to wild mustard, and produce oil for both fuel and cooking.
There are a lot of large old manor houses and castles in Skåne; obviously the area has a long and rich history. As we headed east along route E22, it soon became clear that we would only be able to see a very small percentage of what we wanted like to see.
After driving for a while across Skåne, it was time for our first overnight camping experience in the husbil. Overnight is not a very good description since that far north in the summer it never gets really dark. As a matter of fact, we never saw any stars the whole time we were in Sweden, even though we stayed up past midnight on many occasions.
We drove that evening to the Norje Rastplats. It was on a small side road separated from the highway by a grove of trees. It had a freshly painted little house with clean rest rooms and running water. We discovered there a very typical information sign that had a detailed map and information about the attractions in the area.
There was plenty of room, and only a couple of other vehicles shared the area. Of course, this was still before the main holiday season. In Sweden, everyone gets at least four weeks of vacation (or semester, as they call it).
The information sign provided some suggestions of places to see that had not been in the guide books. It was not easy to choose, but the next morning we visited sights in the county of Bleking.
The county of Bleking is where Nils Holgersson started his wonderful adventures. So, it was fitting that this was the place for us to start taking the business of being tourists a little more seriously. We carefully studied the map and list of attractions at the Rastplats, selected four places to visit, and only managed to get to two of them before it was time to move on.
The first stop that day was at the
small town of Mörrums where we visited the Mörrums Laxenhus.
(Lax is the word for salmon.) Here there is a river splashing over a series of
waterfalls before running into the Baltic Sea. There are deep pools where the
salmon collect as they swim upstream to spawn. Back in the 13th century, only
the King was allowed to fish here. Now, anyone can get a permit and try his
luck. We met one man who came from Germany just to spend three weeks fishing
here. Pools in the river are marked either for fly fishing or for spin
fishing.
There is a nice museum that includes a small aquarium. Lovely paths line the river, and there are still some old fish traps at the falls. The rhododendren along the river were in full bloom the day we visited. Because our mental clocks had not yet adjusted, we got here long before the museum opened.
After a walk along the river to
observe the fishermen and some sleeping ducks, we found a Kondeteri open where
they served great pastries.
Although it was cool, and we had a little light rain, it was a very pleasant place to visit. We got our first experience shopping at a local grocery store, and discovered that we could get along very easily with the Swedish selection of food.
We probably spent more time here than we should have, so we had to skip the Blomstergården and the Ronneby Brunnspark, and move on to Karlshamn.
Hamn, we soon discovered, means harbor, and Karlshamn is an old harbor town on the Baltic Sea. It was interesting to walk along ancient narrow cobblestone streets, and to observe how they have installed double doors into the sides of buildings and small courtyards to adapt the old style to modern requirements. If you peek in, you will see cars parked inside.
One of the attractions of Karlshamn
is a nice waterfront park. Here is found a statue of Karl-Oscar and Kristina,
the main characters of Vilhelm Moberg's series of novels about the Swedes who
emigrated to America. Anyone who would like insight into what life was like
for these emmigrants must read the Moberg books. Many of the emigrants left
for America from this very port. 
There will be more to tell about Karl-Oscar and Kristina when we get to the
emigrant museum in Växjö, but the sculptor has Karl-Oscar looking out over
the sea to the new land and the future, while Kristina looks back over her
shoulder at the land that in her mind she could never leave.
After another overnight spent beside a very peaceful lake, we traveled on to the city of Kalmar (population 30,000) located in the south eastern corner of the old province of Småland. Kalmar is noted on an old Arabic map dating back to 1154, and was settled as early as the 8th century. The Kalmar Slott (castle) is said to be one of the best preserved castles in Scandinavia. In 1397 it was the site of the signing of the agreement for the Kalmar Union. The Kalmar Union joined Denmark, Sweden and Norway together, and lasted about 100 years.
Although the lighting in this photo makes it hard to see, the tree in the foreground is covered with lilac blossoms... in the middle of June. We were surprised to see how late the lilacs and peonies were blooming, and how long they seemed to last.
We once again arrived here before
things were open, so we walked around the cobbled streets of Gamla Stan (old
town), and strolled through Stadsparken, a very large park near the castle. We
then followed a group of people who seemed to be entering the castle, but when
we crossed the draw bridge, walked through the narrow winding passage way (to
make it easier to defend from attacking intruders) and entered the courtyard,
no one was around. 
So we walked through an open door and found our way into a chapel where some kind of service was being conducted in Swedish. Everyone except the speakers and the organist looked more Arabic then Swedish, however. Later we determined that it was a kind of religious class for some of the new immigrants to Sweden. The large number of people from third world countries in eastern europe, the mid-east, and africa, are starting to become a drain on the Swedish social welfare state, and are causing some controversy.
We finally discovered where we had to pay for a tour of the castle museum, and roamed around the interior of the castle looking at the interesting exhibits. It would have been possible to spend more than a week just exploring the area around Kalmar. And, just across a big bridge, is the long narrow island of Öland where many Swedes spend an entire vacation. And about 90 kilometers off of the coast is the big island of Gotland, another place that we had to miss.
But for this trip, it's back to the husbil for a drive into the heart of Småland.
