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Well as the song goes,, "We’re on the road again,,,," In Sweden the month of May consists of three long
weekends, two of which were four day weekends, so of course Craig and I made the most of them.

The first four-day weekend was spent driving around two of Sweden’s largest lakes, Vättern and Vänern in a
hire car. It felt so good to have the freedom of a car again, not to mention the exhilarating feeling of being behind
a wheel revving through the gears. As Sweden is noted for its extremely high speeding fines,, I did the driving!!
Our first stop was Örebro, two hours west of Stockholm. This town houses a much-modified thirteenth century
castle which is now used as both the residence of the county governor and a museum. This day seemed to be
the first truly spring day that we’ve had all year so we lapped up the rays whilst we strolled downstream to the
town’s open-air museum. The museum consists of reconstructed traditional houses and stables, cobbled roads
and has a lovely authentic atmosphere about it. This town we remember for the many weird looking beards on
its male locals.

From here we drove west to Kristinehamn and then down the east coast of lake Vänern, stopping at Gullspång
for afternoon tea by a little canal. In this town there is an abandoned railway track now used for self-propelled
trips on western style pump action buggies,, or so the guide book said but we couldn’t find it. This begins the
first of much disillusionment with the guidebook. We then drove down, still following the lake, to Mariestad, a
medieval fishing town. We enjoyed the sunset with a nice bottle of red out on a jetty. We then went in search of a
pub for dinner and were amazed at how deadly quiet this quaint town was. After finding the town’s one and only
pub we then moved onto a pizzeria. A couple of hours later,, we rolled completely bloated back to stay the night
in a youth hostel as seniors, although we were the youngest by about 30 years! The hostel’s building dates back
to the 16th century.

The next morning we grabbed breakfast on the run and drove east to the west coast of Lake Vättern to a town
called Karlsborg. This town is noted for its great fortress, which was built in 1818 to protect the Royal family,
treasury and Stockholmers from the Russian invasion. The fortress was so ambitious a project that it was never
completed, and the Russians never came. Work was finally abandoned on it in 1909 and parts of it are used
today by the army and air force. We then drove back west looking for the town of Kinnekulle and missed it but
found many interesting historical sites on the way. We only found out that night that we were in the Kinnekulle
region but only saw half of its sights. One, which we found interesting, was like a miniature Grand Canyon.
Evidently these layers of rock and cliffs with a diabase cap were 4oo million years ago, south of the equator and
survived the ice age intact. We had a picnic lunch here and went for a stroll in the forest meadow which was
littered with flowers, wild cherries, and towering trees. A few snoozes in the sun later, we were back on the road
again, Craig still snoozing. Next on the agenda was Castle Läckö, with 13th century dome-capped turrets and
towering white-walled, situated on an island at the base of lake Vänern. Craig woke up here with the help of a
long over due strong cup of coffee. Following this we were ready to attack Spiken, a sleepy little fishing hamlet.
Here we enjoyed a freshly smoked salmon for a sunset picnic dinner.

That night we backtracked and stayed again in a youth hostel in Lidköping. Here, we really impressed ourselves
with our Swedish ability as the manager didn’t have any English, yet we held up quite a good conversation. This
town is full of old merchant houses and was quite charming, but once again deadly quiet and finding a pub was
hard. We found one with a view of the town’s square and were amused at the many huge American cars lapping
the square for a big Friday nights’ outing. Upon entering the second pub at approx. 9pm with all still being quiet,
Craig was quite abruptly asked to remove his jacket. When he refused the bouncer explained that there is a big
problem with the locals taking in knives and weapons.

Evidently the town doesn’t become alive until 10.30-11pm when the locals have finished drinking at home and
come into town for some gang fun. We didn’t hang around to experience that.

Back on the road the next day, we drove to some more local historical sites, one being an iron age grave
mound, passing many little churches dating back to the 1100’s. We then went four wheel driving in our little
Mazda 323 out to the peninsular. We ended up having to walk the last couple of hundred metres due to the
narrowing of the track. This is where Craig got his chance to be Alby Mangles and saved me from stepping on a
little black snake. He then proceeded to clap his hands and shout trying to scare the snake away until I gently
reminded him that snakes are deaf!!!

Next we drove to Husaby, a town where many historical events have occurred. The first Christian baptism on
Sweden’s first King took place here by St. Sigfrid, a missionary in 1008. We also explored the ruins of the
Bishop’s castle which dates back to 1480, saw some Bronze Age ceremonial sites and two large Viking burial
stones. We then had a fairly long drive through Jonköping to Gränna, a little town associated with balloons and
white and pink striped sweets known as polkagrisar. It was from this town that some guy attempted a hot air
balloon trip to the North Pole in 1897. We left the car at Gränna and caught a ferry across to Visingsö, the
largest island on Lake Vättern. On this island we had planned to hire bicycles to explore it as our book
suggested, however our book failed to mention that this was only during the peak summer period. So we ended
up on the island without a car to explore with. It was another glorious spring afternoon, so after exploring the
castle ruins Craig and I found a lovely sunny spot and slept for a while, waking in time to catch the ferry back to
the mainland. There we found a hostel for the night and a couple of little restaurants and wine bars.

The following day, which also was our last, was spent slowly working our way back to Stockholm via a tourist
drive by the lake’s edge. The most interesting sights along this scenic drive were the old monastery ruins dating
back to 1143 and another Viking rune stone which is claimed to be the most impressive rune stone in all of
Sweden. It has 800 runic inscriptions engraved into it cryptically describing the courage and life of a Viking.

We got back to Stockholm, unpacked and made the most of having a car at our disposal. We went for a bulk
grocery shop!! I hear you laughing, but it’s no laughing matter when we are laden down with backpacks every
week to carry back our shopping!!

Ok, time for a coffee break before you read on about our next 4-day weekend trip to Finland.

Well, it was time to go and inflict some punishment on ourselves by going to visit the relies in Finland. Now, I
mean this in the nicest possible way of course. The punishment that I’m referring to consists of a gain of 5 kilos
and sizzled skin from the saunas,,,, not to mention the damage that the many vodkas might have caused.

This time we went across to Finland with another couple on the Silja ferry line to Helsinki. This boat is one big
party ship, and the Swedes go berserk with the duty free shopping of alcohol. We left on the Wednesday night
and arrived Thursday morning and then caught a bus to Lahti. Upon arrival we were whisked away by one set of
relies to another distant relative’s place for lunch. Many home made wines, and copious amounts of food later
we were taken back to Kirsi and Kimmo’s place to relax for the afternoon before it all started again at their place
for dinner with Elisa and Paavo . Friday was spent digesting and the best way to do this was to shop. We found
some great kitchen and tourist shops and Kirsi and I put Craig to use as our private porter,, you could imagine
his reaction trying to be polite and patient whilst we shopped.

Kirsi’s two boys who were little horrors last time we visited are now big horrors and wouldn’t leave Craig’s side.
They jumped on him, bashed him, poked faces and beat him hands down at the Super Nintendo games,,,, much
to Craig’s frustration.

Craig spent hours trying to beat the 6 year old and Craig’s shouts of success were heard all over the house,,,
twice!!!!!

Friday night we went to Elisa and Paavo’s place for dinner, a very hot sauna and many laughs. We spent
Saturday walking around Helsinki and enjoying the sun and met up with our friends back on the ferry again. We
arrived back in Stockholm Sunday morning and spent the rest of the day relaxing and planning for the following
long weekend’s activities.

Actually, not too much planning was needed as this was an organized Ericsson guest service's outing. We left
on the Saturday morning by bus and headed south for a couple of hours. There we met a boat, which took us
down the Göta Canal. This canal was built linking Stockholm and Gothenburg in 1787 and finished in 1810. The
section, which we were on, comprised of 8 locks, spectacular scenery and many historical sights. We stayed
overnight in a hotel and continued down another section of the canal the following day, which lead us out into the
archipelago. This was a very relaxing weekend and quiet sociable as many of the other guests on the tour were
also form Australia. It was good to catch up with all of the gossip. Most of them are only over here on a short
contract and haven’t been here very long, so it was good to sound like the local!!!

Monday was a holiday and I banned Craig from the computer as it was a beautiful day. We went to an island for
a picnic and enjoyed the sun, wine and then of course the sleep!!

Well that’s about it for the long weekends in May. Next weekend we are going to a fellow Hash House Harrier’s
wedding. He is Swedish and the bride is American so the wedding will be conducted in both languages. This
should be interesting and good practice for a proper Swedish wedding that we are going to in August.

The following week Craig will be in Gothenburg on a course so I plan to go down on the Friday to join him for the
weekend. Actually, I’m just dying for a weekend at home!!!