Karlstad - Home of Bicycle Lanes and Quaint Houses

  Karlstad, Sweden
Monday, September 18, 2006

Note: More photos of Karlstad are located on our Smugmug page

Ahhh Karlstad. A lovely little city in the middle of a lovely country. Our journey here was fairly uneventful thanks to instructions from our Swedish hosts and the abundance of English speakers in this part of the world.

Somehow on our Seattle to Copenhagen flight we ended up in the with tons of legroom bulkhead seats and an adorable Danish flight attendant across from us on takeoff and landing. The SAS planes have a fantastic feature where they place two cameras on the nose of the nose of the plane - one looking forward and one looking down. It seems a little more reassuring when you can see the path ahead of you as the plane cruises down the runway ( no debris or stray animals blocking the plane.) When the clouds aren't in the way you can see the land below you without straining your neck to look out the window.

Julius watched movies and Sara barreled through "The Kite Runner" a very well written book that helped make up for reading the da Vinci Code right before leaving - a entertaining but (lets face it) poorly written book. At least it has been read so when people ask if we have read it we can say "yes" and not look like some hermit.

Arriving in Sweden we hit the airport ATM and withdrew a bunch of cash. Overseas ATMs are even more helpful than American ones. They access your account in less than a second and give you local cash in a good exchange rate. No more travelers checks needed. After two bus rides we got to Karlstad, home of Mathias, the Blooms' Exchange student from almost twenty years ago.

Touring around Karlstad

Karlstad is the kind of quaint and adorable city that those faux European cities in America strive to be like. Squares bustle with markets and shoppers, buildings all seem to have a fresh coat of paint and the houses are all bright colors with white trim. The city lends out free bikes to tourists and locals so we hit the town on the first day, riding over bridges and through parks in the hundreds of designated bike lanes. We weren't the only ones riding either -we must have passed two hundred other riders out for leisurely rides or running errands. All the sidewalks were divided into bike and walking lanes, something we also would see in Stockholm and Helsinki. I am sure all the bike riders in the states would appreciate this. We were amazed at the variety of people riding - young to the very old. One very old man rode a bike with two front tires to keep his balance.

After returning our bikes we rode the bus home and were impressed to learn that the bus drivers make change. I guess this speaks to the lack of bus crime.

Johan, Hanna and Gustav (and yes, Hanna's name does not have an H at the end)
We spent our visit getting to know Mathias' kids better.

Sara and Hanna

Johan is 8 and Hanna and Gustav are 5. Johan speaks a little English but the younger ones just chat away in Swedish as we nod our heads and "hmmm" and "oh!". It seems to work fine for all of us. Mathias does some translating if necessary. We spent the Saturday with Hannah and Gustav at a local park/petting zoo/wildlife refuge/historical site. We had a nice time and saw a lot of interesting animals and exhibits.

Julius and Gustav in the tree

Sunday we went hiking by the lake. Karlstad borders the largest lake in Sweden and hiking trails abound in the area. Hanna had a birthday party to go to so this time we went with Johan and Gustav. The hike was great. It is a very flat area so nothing was too strenuous. Sara learned that those little mushrooms in the Smurf cartoons are not just a figment of some animators imagination, but these mushrooms actually exist! Fabulous.

Smurfy Mushrooms

They will kill you if you eat them but they are the coolest looking things in the forest. We were able to eat the wild blueberries and lingonberries, though. Once we reached the lakeshore we roasted some hot dogs over a firepit.

Once we returned home it was time for the kids to go over to their Mom's place for the week. We followed them so we could stay a few days with their mom Helena. She had the most adorable house, with bedrooms out of an ikea catalog. Both of the houses we stayed at in Karlstad had heated tiles in the bathrooms and heated towel racks. Sweden can be very cold and dark in the winter so sometimes this is what gets you out of bed in the morning. That and the 10 piece swedish breakfasts.

With Helena we did more walking and hiking around the neighborhoods and lakes. plus she took us into the city to see more of the downtown before catching our bus. It was sad to leave after only a few days but we did want to see Stockholm before we left for Finland. So far Sweden gets a thumbs up from both of us. A very easy country to visit and navigate and a whole lot cuter than most of the US.