The Lo­ve­ly South of Swe­den

From Os­kars­hamn to Trel­le­borg

When I star­ted my jour­ney I had al­rea­dy vi­si­ted Swe­den by in­ter­rail, a eu­ro­pean low bud­get rail­way ticket. That I al­low my­self so may words to talk about Swe­den is due to the fact that a bi­cy­cle tour in the south is so­me­thing ve­ry spe­ci­al. You are ab­le to ex­plo­re the coun­try in ve­ry dif­fe­rent man­ner. And the lo­ne­so­me roads, the lar­ge fo­rests and the be­au­ti­ful sce­ne­ry ma­kes this part of scan­di­na­via ve­ry at­trac­ti­ve.

The roads are nar­row but well kept. The qua­li­ty of the un­tar­red ones is so good that I don't have to fe­ar bro­ken spo­kes any mo­re. And in the la­te sum­mer­ti­me I have the op­por­tu­ni­ty to col­lect fruits from well hung trees.

Fur­ther­mo­re the re­gi­on bet­ween Os­kars­hamn and Trel­le­borg is spread with la­kes and fa­ci­li­ties for swim­ming, in Swe­den well known as «Ba­de­plats». I use the­se pla­ces for cam­ping, wa­shing and swim­ming and I have a won­der­ful ti­me going south.

On the mi­nor roads there is hard­ly any traf­fic. The vil­la­ges are so well kept that you won­der whe­ther there is anyo­ne li­ving in there. I could as well be a mu­se­um. Whi­te walls are ve­ry whi­te, farms ve­ry pro­per and churchyards so fri­end­ly that you long for be­eing bur­ried there. And in la­te Au­gust there are app­les and other fruits to keep you going on a trip li­ke that.

Dee­p­ly im­pres­sed I say good-bye to the south of Swe­den. In the night of the 53rd day I roll on­to the Nils Hol­ger­son, a fer­ry boat of the TT-Line. At that mo­ment mo­re than 3250 mi­les are done. The most im­pres­si­ve part of the jour­ney co­mes to an end...