Gothenburg

Trip Start Jul 07, 2007

Trip End Sep 22, 2007

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Where I stayed

Scandic Rubinen Gothenburg

(Gothenburg hotels)

Flag of Sweden Gothenburg, Sweden
Thursday, July 26, 2007

We chose a camp-site on the edge of a nature reserve. Unfortunately, when we arrived from Lund we discovered it was full. Luckily, there was another a mile down the road with space. This one was located in an enclosure surrounded by trees and rocks making us feel very much part of nature. The nature reserve includes some lakes and we had thought that one might be walking distance from the camp. We went exploring along the road after dinner and found no lake but instead: 5 small frogs crossing the road, one deer, some strange coloured beetles and a multitude of thick slugs. After consulting a map, the following day, we found the nearest lake about a mile away - Tor managed some paddling but it was tea-time so we couldn't stay long.

Drove into town and found a suitable parking space much easier than in Lund. Horrifyingly, this was the first time we needed to pay for any parking during the holiday! Gothenburg centre is a nice compact size - about a half hour walk across it

Poseidon Statue

. Again, a good mix of new and old buildings. Although the rain periodically appeared throughout the day, we found a number of shops to hide in. Tor quickly identified the market hall although the fish hall took a bit longer - it was out of the centre towards the water! We enjoyed a very fresh lunch there and choose some expensive tuna and salmon for dinner. Requiring no cooking, Sashimi turned out to be a highly sensible, nutritious and tasty meal. (Note - if you try eating raw fish at home choose it carefully and make sure it's fresh!)

Tor gradually fell in love with the place. A curry shop sold the pickled ginger to go with the Sashimi; found some great chocolate shops. The leaflets boldly told us that Gothenburg is where all the top Swedish chefs are. After looking around, we could spend a very long time, and lots of money, trying every cafe and restaurant in the area.

Booked a hotel off the central Avenue (Swedish equivalent to the Champs-Elysee) for the Saturday night on a special package that includes a Gothenburg card, so free bus/boat sightseeing and parking over the weekend.

Saturday:
After a quick trip back to the lake at Delsjon for another paddle, we headed into Gothenburg to check into our room at the swanky Scandic Rubinen

Everybody Duck

. What an excellent hotel. We were too early for official check-in, but they gave us our Gothenburg passes and reserved us a room in the part of the hotel we wanted. Leaving our bags behind, we found a parking space for Tullalah close by and started to use our passes. First up was the open topped bus, followed by a walk around the Tradgards park and then a boat trip.

Sunday:
We got a very good deal with the hotel as it is apparently one of the top 80 in Scandinavia and has, understandably, been voted as serving Sweden's best hotel breakfast - a very large buffet selection allowed Gavin a meagre 4-course meal of starter, main course, egg course and dessert. Tor adopted the Pizza Hut approach and only required 2 courses! Our room, like the rest of the hotel, was beautifully organised and decorated. If it didn't cost so much and we didn't have so many other places to see and visit I think we could have been tempted to stay for longer!

We checked out leisurely at around 11:30 and headed for the Art museum to soak up some culture. The six floors contained mainly a mix of Scandinavian and European artists

Fish Market (Feskekorke) aka Fish Church

. Unfortunately, the museum's two Edvard Munch pictures were on loan to Munich, but we still got to see plenty of other impressive pictures and sculptures including some by Picasso, Mattise, Van Gogh, Gaugin and Kandinsky. After a couple of hours, we still hadn't finished, but felt we should move on, so we went to the docks to see the view from the 23rd floor of the "lipstick" building.

Next we walked around the dock area and old town before catching a tram to Liseberg Amusement Park. Liseberg was a cross between an old fashioned fairground, a park and Alton Towers. It contained a mixture of rides, gardens, stages, restaurants and win-a-prize booths. The prizes were the largest bars of chocolates and bags of crisps we have ever seen - the Toblerone bars were 2 kilos!!