Aloha Lulea

No it's not in Hawaii,  it's on the Bothnian Sea.  And we think it's a pretty great little city, and  the weather's pretty balmy after 3 weeks in Lapland.

Our campsite here is pretty enormous, built to accommodate the summertime visits to its beaches and its waterpark.  But now that its September, there's just two tents and a smattering of Germans in their caravans.

We visited the church town of Gammelstad today. The church was constructed in the 15th century,

and the local rural residents built over 400 small cottages and rowhouses to stay in when they came into town for church on Sundays.

 It was once the main town of Lulea until the sea receded and the harbour was moved to what is now Lulea.  Gammelstad is now recognized as a Unesco world heritage site.

It's beautifully preserved, and also pretty deserted on this, the first day of September.  The visitor centre and one souvenir shop were open, but all the cafes and restaurants were closed.   I think the few other tourists were  envious of us sitting in the town square, making ourselves a cup of tea and a sandwich.

Later in the afternoon we visited Naturreservat Ormberget-Hertsolandet.  We walked down the boardwalk to the lake and found a woman shouting first in Swedish, then in English, Help me!  Leo ran down to the dock and helped her reel in a giant trout. What a whopper.  Then he took a picture for her.

We took the boardwalk around the lake, past several nicely constructed firepits (essential, apparently, for any Scandinavian park), complete with wind shelters and even a cabin fir public use.

All around, as far as they eye could see, were blueberry bushes, full of big, sweet blueberries.

The undergrowth you see is pretty much all blueberries

I saw more blueberries today than I've probably seen in the last 30 years.

There weren't many birds around but we did identify the bird of the day, a black-throated loon.
On our return journey, the fisherlady was still there, with another big fish. Oerling she called them, and we think they are brown trout.

Then we headed downtown to the main library to use their wifi and ran into a food festival on the downtown pedestrian mall.  It must have been an international foodfest because there was no Swedish food.  So I had Polish perogies and Leo had Hungarian langos, a frybread topped with sour cream, shredded cheese and ham.