Hello Sweeden

Thursday 26th September – The day had arrived that I felt I could no longer put off leaving Norway if I was to be ahead of the snow. I had already seen snowfall upon waking one morning last week when in the mountains of Northern Norway and I really was not prepared for snow as I didn’t expect it to arrive in September!

It was a beautiful sunny day so my farewell drive along the E10 was pretty spectacular (the photo at the top of this blog). Crossing the border from Norway into Sweden happens in the mountains so you don’t see the real Sweden landscape until you leave the Abisko National Park, which was where I was now headed.

Shortly after I crossed the border I came across a lovely spot next to a lake with a view of the snow capped mountains. I was blessed that night not only with an amazing sunset but also the aurora. The following night was to be even more momentous… It was the best and longest showing of the northern lights so far this year, together with millions of stars. Four hours of dancing lights lit up the whole sky. After taking countless photos I ended up getting into bed in the van and watching it from the window as it was zero degrees outside and I was so cold. I have since read that the Abisko Park is one of the best places to view the northern lights, although that night the whole of Northern Norway seemed to have an amazing display.

The next day I left Abisko as the weather forecast was for snow! I set off towards Kiruna, and the Ice Hotel. I remember being fascinated by this when it was first built and had thought how romantic it would be to spend the night in an ice room! I wasn’t planning on spending the night there, way out of my budget, but decided to treat myself to a glass of champagne in the Ice Bar. The weather forecast was predicting snow, but I knew I would regret it if I didn’t visit, and how bad could the snow be……

The Ice Bar was amazing, if you haven’t already seen it check out my video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofttq76ODTI The champagne was served in an ice flute, which melts in to the shape of your lips from the warmth. You get special warm cloaks to put on and my god you need them. It’s -5 degrees in there. I was in there for one hour, savouring the moment, but that was enough. When my nose gets cold, I’m done. There is no way I could spend a night in one of those rooms, even with a man to keep me warm!

When I left it was starting to snow! When I woke up in the morning this is what I faced, 6 inches of snow!

Now under normal circumstances I love snow, but today it wasn’t welcome, although I did take time to take the obligatory snow photos. I had very little charge left in my leisure battery, which meant the heating would not fire up, it was still snowing and more snow was forecast so I needed to drive to charge up the battery and prevent myself from being snowed in. Which is what would have happened if it hadn’t been for a very kind Swedish lady, walking her dog, lending me her snow shovel. As fast as I shovelled that slope the snow was covering it. The night before I didn’t even think about how I was going to drive up a slope with snow on it!

It took me a good hour of backbreaking work but I did it, returned the shovel and headed on my way. It was treacherous, I have never driven in such conditions, but once I was on the main road there was no pulling over as all the laybys were thick with snow. This early snowfall had even caught out the Swedes. After two hours of driving in these conditions the roads suddenly became clearer as the snow plough had been out. I pressed on for another two hours until there was no sign of snow before I finally found my spot for the night in some woods by a river. Phew!

The following few days were easy drives, though monotony started to creep in as the Swedish scenery, albeit stunning with all the autumnal colours of the trees, doesn’t change much. Not a photo opportunity around every corner like Norway, but still some lovely stopovers right by the edge of lakes, surrounded by beautiful trees.

By Thursday the snow had caught up with me again so I needed to put in some distance. I had already driven 563miles further south, I needed the weather to give me a break and eventually it did. I found an amazing spot at Gavle, the sun was shining and I was blessed with the most incredible sunset. It’s in these moments that I wish I had a special man with me.

I stayed here for two days and caught up with all my chores, the laundry, Lucy got a wash, I foraged for berries and updated my new WordPress website.

I was now re-energised to hit the city of Stockholm. There’s seemingly no free parking in Stockholm but Park4night guided me to a carpark not too far from the Old Town, and at least it was next to a small park.

It was strange being somewhere so noisy and full of traffic, people, electric scooters and bicycles. You really do have to keep your wits about you walking around. It was a little calmer in the old town as the cobbled streets are pedestrianised for the most part. There is some lovely architecture in Stockholm but the lanes were all too touristy for my liking.

What I did like was the number of museums they have there, a lot of them are free so of course those are the ones I headed to. My favourite being the National Museum where they had some very interesting statues…

I really wanted to go to the Abba Museum as I have loved Abba my entire life, but it was expensive, so I resisted and went to the Medieval one instead!

After six hours of walking around Stockholm I really fancied a glass of wine so decided to buy myself a bottle of wine – well that was my intention. But I couldn’t understand why in the supermarket they only had beer or non-alcoholic fizz. Any way I opted for a beer instead. When I got back to the van I googled it and to my surprise found out that supermarkets are not allowed to sell any alcohol over 3.5% so even the beer I had bought was only 3.5%! I enjoyed it all the same.

I felt I had only scratched the surface of Stockholm but I was keen to escape the city for nature once again before heading into Copenhagen, which I absolutely loved. But that’s for my Demark blog.