We’ve been travelling for almost 6-months through northern and eastern Europe in our motorhome, and recently had a fabulous time on an Arctic Circle cruise. Then, after retrieving our motorhome in Oslo following the cruise, we drove south into Sweden and along the Bohusiän coast.
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| Bohusiän coast, Sweden |
This coastline is famous for its archipelago of over 8,000 islands and skerries, fishing villages, and rocky landscapes. But, crossing into Sweden we paid a small toll which cleared us out of Norwegian cash – good – no bank transaction fees for turning this back into Euro later!
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| Strömstad harbour, Sweden |
To get the best scenery out of the Bohusiän coast route, we drove along the minor roads, and Strömstad was the first of the Bohuslän villages that we stopped at. The town is known for its yachting harbour and we parked there for lunch, finding it to be active and attractive.
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| Grebbestad, Sweden |
A short drive later found us in Grebbestad, a small fishing village and resort. This town is famous for its Nordic Oysters and Norway Lobsters, (aka prawn, langoustine, scampi). Unfortunately, we’d only just had lunch so didn’t stop to taste any. Our next stop was Fjällbacka, another pretty little fishing village (859 people) with a long history, and mostly known as a tourist summer resort.
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| Fjällbacka, Hamburgsund, Hunnebostrand, Bovallstrand, Tumlaren, Sweden |
Then we reached Hamburgsund, another delightful and small fishing village (823 people). Arriving in the next village of Hunnebostrand, we drove around the village and got stuck in the small streets in our big motorhome. We had to reverse around 300 m to get out, so when we did, we moved on. We popped into several very small villages and bays through this area. It is so beautiful.
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| Smögen, Sweden |
Still heading south, we stopped in the lovely fishing village of Smögen. It is a picture-postcard place with lots of lovely brightly coloured boat sheds and sea huts lined up along its harbour. Smögen is apparently one of the most popular tourist destinations on the Swedish west coast, and is well known for its fish and other seafood.
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| Mollösund’s windmill and houses, Sweden |
Our next stop was Mollösund, probably Sweden's oldest living fishing village, dating back to early 16th century. It is very quaint and small (236 people). It was known for its deep-sea fishing, Bronze Age cairns that served as navigation marks, and fishermen who went off to the Arctic for months at a time looking for ling, cod and hake. We had a good walk around this pretty village admiring its houses, lighthouse, and windmill.
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| Marg at the harbour in Göteborg, Sweden |
Then we arrived in Göteborg also known as Gothenburg, Sweden’s 2nd largest city after Stockholm. It is famous for its vibrant harbour, Volvo cars, and blue trams. We found a camping ground close to the city, and the next day, caught a tram into the centre - along with the rest of the local population – it was very busy. Our first stop was the attractive harbour area where we saw several large pieces of public art.
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| Marg with the red and white Skanskaskrapan building behind, Göteborg, Sweden |
We walked along the waterfront and past the maritime museum with its old boats, saw the famous red and white Skanskaskrapan office building which is also known as the Läppstiftet (Lipstick), and through the canal area lined with grand buildings and busy pedestrian-only cobbled streets. Later we walked the famous 1 km long shopping street, the Kungsportsavenyn Boulevard, seeing the museum and other sights.
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| Typical buildings in the Haga district of Göteborg, Sweden |
The next day, we visited the Haga district, known for its mix of grand architecture and quaint wooden houses that date back to the 19th century. After a walk around we went looking for a place to buy two bottles of wine as we had run out. The sale of wine is an incredibly regulated business in both Sweden and Norway, and you can only buy bottles of it at designated wine shops that have limited opening hours.
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| Marg at Kings Gate Bridge in Göteborg, Sweden |
So we had a frantic rush around to find a shop in the centre of Göteborg before it shut! We found one, but the place was absolutely packed with people doing a last-minute buy-up of wine for the weekend. We quickly found what we wanted, and queued up to pay and escape the throng. Then we met a couple who had bought New Zealand (NZ) wine. So we told them they had made a good choice and they were amazed we were from NZ!
With supplies sorted, we wandered around the city a bit more before catching the tram back to the camp.
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| The village of Kungsbacka, Sweden |
A few days later, we continued our southward drive, and arrived in Kungsbacka. Apparently, Kungsbacka is one of Sweden’s most affluent areas because of its beautiful countryside and its location to nearby Göteborg. This 15th century town has many quaint shops and houses. We had a short walk around in the cold and windy weather, then moved on.
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| Halmstad Castle, Halmstad, Sweden |
Our next stop was Halmstad, a city of around 62,700 people sitting at the mouth of the Nissan River. We found a good parking space for our large Vanni motorhome, then had a walk around. While there we visited the 17th century Halmstad Castle and its tower, and the city centre including the attractive main street which is full of churches and houses from 14th to 17th century.
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| Marg at Kärnan Castle, Helsingborg, Sweden |
Our last stop on this coast, was Helsingborg, a city with a population of about 120,000. We found Vanni-sized parking close to the town and walked through nice gardens to a lookout. We discovered that it was Kärnan Castle, a 14th century ruin sitting at the top of a bluff overlooking the city. We then descended into the city, via the Terrasstrapporna, which is an enormous staircase that links the castle area with the old town below it.
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| Stortorget, Helsingborg, Sweden |
The Terrasstrapporna took us down to the Stortorget, Helsingborg’s historic market square. Helsingborg dates back to 1085 and contains many historic buildings. From the Stortorget, we saw several of them, including wooden houses in the inner part of the city, which are surrounded by large typically red brick buildings built in later centuries as the city grew.
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| The town hall and other buildings in Helsingborg, Sweden |
The old town is quite compact and we managed to see quite a lot of it, including the attractive neo-gothic Rådhuset (Town Hall) and other grand structures. Overall, we thought it was an attractive city.
Helsingborg was our last stop in Sweden. Leaving Helsingborg, we caught a car ferry to Helsingør on the northeast coast of Denmark’s island of Zealand. But you can read about that in the next blog.
This blog describes part of our 6-month motorhome trip around north-eastern Europe, which began in Prague.