Road Trip

The last two days were pretty much steady driving.  We are now in Linkoping, southwest of Stockholm, as we head toward  Falsterbo, the extreme SE point of Sweden, which is supposed to be good for birds right now.

Linkoping is the home of the Saab airplane factory. 

It rained hard most of today, but cleared up in the afternoon, and it's quite a bit warmer than it was at our campsite last night in Timra.  Timra had a pulpmill, but there was no smell in the town.  Unfortunately, the campsite was wedged between the train tracks and the highway, so it reminded me of not a few campsites in my own home province. 

We stopped for lunch yesterday in Umea, a "lively university town", according to Lonely Planet.  It seemed fairly sleepy to me, but maybe the university isn't in session yet.  We bought takeout food on the pleasant waterfront, and walked along the waterfront,

Connie slides off an artsyfartsy public bench/sculpture

past the city church and numerous attractive older buildings, down the pedestrian mall and through the town square.

Today was mostly driving on the E4 motorway, with diversion to bypass Stockholm traffic through a wheat growing region. 

                                      Leo makes tea amidst the waves of grain

Otherwise the most interesting thing was lunching at roadside restaurant that was built right over the motorway.

Gamla Linkoping

After supper today, we drove into town to see Gamla (Old Town) Linkoping , which turned out to be a Swedish Barkerville, only free, all shut up for the evening but wide open to wander around, with locals riding their bicycles and scooters through the cobblestone streets.

Bord of the Day:  Today we saw our first Jackdaw, a small and common crow all over Europe, but not present north of Rovaniemi.