Category Archives: Off Again

Day 9 – Give me shelter …

Everything is already so wet. It rained through the night. We decided for once against our pride and to make use of the facilities we are paying for. So instead of huddling under our awning, we packed everything up and got ourselves comfortable in the camp kitchen. A dry breakfast helped in getting the spirits up.

We actually used the kitchen to stay dry during breakfast

In the end, we were the only ones we saw all morning. Exploring the service building a bit more, we thought this really cool family bathroom was worth taking advantage off and added a family scrub to the list of things to do before facing the rain to take down the tent.

While we wrapped up our kids in full battle regalia, they did not last through the entire packing without complaining bitterly. We had to drop everything and head down to the playground at the lake for some cooling of tempers. So we were now pushing on lunch time before getting on the road – something that will become relevant to how our day would go …

Stopping at a random roadside cafe called Emma Grön

It was only two hours to our destination of the day: Visiting Emma, an old friend of Nina and myself. Well, actually not only Emma anymore, since she had found a companion since last we met and we were looking forward to be meeting Johan for the first time as well. The original plan was to have the lunch stop half way and arrive leisurely in the early afternoon. Now we were merely on the road and had already missed lunchtime.

Not much we could do about that, so I set course for the first restaurant Google suggested along the road. What an incredible luck we have sometimes. It turned out that Emma Grön could hardly have been more up our alley. We had a wonderful and tasty lunch in a little witches’ hut of a dining room. Oh, and the sweet treats looked so appetizing that we already knew that we would stay for dessert. What a great way to lift the spirits!

The rest of the way was uneventful – apart from some last minute COVID tests to keep our hosts and potential humans to be as safe as possible. With slight delay we arrived and triggered all of the burglar alarms around the house while waiting for Emma to return from her shopping run. We had initially intended to stay nearby somewhere with a good camp spot. But the relentless rain with no respite in sight had lead us to jump at the offer of some “urban camping” in our friends’ driveway.

The evening had much sharing of love and old tales, while we were spoilt by a great home-cooked lasagne from Johan. The kids slept as well as anywhere – why wouldn’t they? It is the same tent wherever it is parked.

Thank you Emma and Johan, for the shelter we needed …

Day 8 – and so, it begins …

It was raining as had been forecast. We didn’t have bread or enough milk with us to have a full breakfast. Thus, we made semolina pudding to feed the kids, ate the leftovers and planned to have a decent second breakfast on the road. Flo had already looked up a place called Tindered where we could charge AND have lovely food at the “Lantkök”. It was maybe half an hour away.

We stuck around a while and waited until our neighbours stirred as we wanted to say a proper goodbye. By that time, we had packed everything already and were taking the tent down. After brief talk, we said goodbye and hit the road. Number 3 expressed that he was very angry and sad that we left his new friends after just one brief exploration of the forest. That was clearly not enough time with them.

Once we arrived, everything worked out wonderfully: The fast charger was available and working; the place looked lovely and even had a playground! Number 3 was allowed to go on the flying fox even before going in. It was an exception as it wasn’t raining when we arrived and I was worried that we’d promise a flying fox ride after our stop which wouldn’t happen in pouring rain.

Tindered Landkök had a little shop that we passed when we went into the restaurant space. It looked like a country estate with a lot of decor inside. We bought cake and coffee/tea and sat down. The Agent of Entropy took a liking to Flo’s strawberry cake and seemed ravenous so she got her own small kanelbullar for round two. We finished up and left via the playground where all three kids had a good go on the seesaw, the slide and a balancing parkour. 😛

Fed and charged we left the loveliest random roadside stop we’ve had so far. From here, it was a good long drive to Norrköping, our destination for today. Both kids took a nap so the drive was relaxing and filled with listening to an audiobook. Once in Norrköping, we were hungry for a late (well, for us) lunch. I had already checked out the recommended lunch places in the Lonely Planet on the way. Some of them had closed down, probably because of the pandemic, but I found one that I liked. There was a charger in a parking garage nearby so we headed there. Being in a city again was quite the change. Number 3 was mesmerized by the trams, the fountains and the art installations. Unfortunately, the place I had looked up wasn’t around anymore either and we were really, really hungry so we let Number 3 choose one of the cafes in the vicinity. They all looked cool and hip and tasty. He chose well. Getting our food, the helpful waitress made the fatal mistake to mention that the kids’ dish was pancakes. After that, we couldn’t persuade him to eat real food anymore: It had to be pancakes. Oh well, the woes of an English speaking kid.

When we left to explore more of Norrköping, it was raining again. Norrköping is an old industrial city where the factories and storage halls have been restored and repurposed. Many of them are museums, restaurants or boutiques. Flo is a big fan of re-imagined turn of the century industrial architecture so he was looking particularly forward to Norrköping.

Thus, we explored in rain. There was a hydropower station with a waterfall which would have been stunning in sunshine. The old brick buildings with the big windows housed museums. There were two enormous rollers for pressing papers, made from granite, used a public art. In short, it was right up Flo’s alley. It was also cold and wet and when we tried to hide in the Museum of Work, we realized that it’s Monday and all museums would be closed. Such a shame. We finished our loop around the inner industrial heart of town and then called it a day.

We drove further north, into the direction of Uppsala, where we wanted to go tomorrow and arrived late at the soaking wet campground. It was rather miserable and I don’t think we took a single picture. I mean, the campground was lovely and we camped right next to the playground but because of the rain, we just wanted to hide in the tent. In gumboots, Number 3 couldn’t even climb up the slide on the playground. This concludes our first day of constant, relentless, unforgiving rain. 🙂

Number 3 made a sculpture of a flamingo out of weedes in the rain

Day 7 – Master and Padawan

We took our time in the morning so that the kids got a chance to experience the lake before we headed off again. Number 3 was quite interested in the other kids there: A couple were catching tiny fish and putting them in a bucket while a couple of girls were flying kites.

Flo and I managed to blog before we packed and when I looked up again, one of the older girls was letting Number 3 use her kite. She was really good at explaining what Number 3 needed to do. He was a little distracted by all the things that were going on though.

We left a little after 11am, but it was only a very short while to get to Karlskrona. Sunday limited our options for lunch a bit, but we were quite happy with the 3G cafe we ended up in. The big ticket item though was the world famous in Sweden ice cream parlour “Glassiären“. Famous unfortunately not for the quality of their product but for the insane portion sizes they serve. They have to bake custom waffle cones in-house that are actually large enough to hold the equivalent to 10 scoops for the three flavour option. The surprisingly low price of 5.50€ should have been the last warning sign, but as might have been suspected already: The quantity comes at the complete and utter sacrifice of quality. We had genuine trouble making out the difference between pistachio and pear, other than a taste of “sickly sweet bubblegum”.

With the sun melting the lot down faster than we could eat it, we begged Number 3 to put an end to our misery and throw it out, but he insisted that no bit of ice cream shall ever be wasted before him and we forced our way through the entire thing. Now we at least have a benchmark for worst gelato as well …

just to be clear, it is not Number 3’s hand holding this abomination

Off we went north, for a really enjoyable bit of road-trippy cruising. We decided to take another short break, if only to keep Number 3 from sleeping the whole two hours. That random stop following a sign for a picnic area and campsite turned out to be an absolute amazing hit for us: A perfectly manicured, municipal campsite sitting adjacent to a spotless bathing spot. We were immediately sold. The kids invaded the (otherwise empty) playground.

The icing on the cake (almost literally) came in form of an ultra-cute kiosk selling coffee and waffles to be enjoyed in a little windproof pavilion with lake views. With no one around, we were worried that we might not be served, but the ladies at the place were quite charming. It had the vibe of a charity bake – we did not need to be asked twice and tucked in, waffles with whipped cream and strawberry jam. Hmm … what an insanely cool thing for a random road side stop.

On we went then – after a moment of consideration to decide whether we wanted to camp right here and now – to press on a bit further towards Uppsala and to our designated camp for the night. And what a great pick that was as well. It only had very basic facilities, but that also meant we were among the cool kids now of small vans, pick-up cabins and the like. Much better than the white wall.

We immediately got into a friendly conversation with our neighbours, taking on the challenge of making an uneven spot work that did not yield for their larger van. I did, and almost as soon as we were settled, Number 3 clicked with the youngest of the three girls off with their mom. So off they went into the forest right in front of us – he the eager pupil to her 9 year old joy of teaching and guiding. What a peaceful setup we had 😀

Dinner was further improved by their find of an abundant supply of blueberries. The new guide was even cool enough to check in with us first before just munching on the things, but when I checked and gave the OK, more girls were summoned and the hunt was on. Cereals with fresh fruit – only slightly marred by the Agent of Entropy`s return to form: She flipped my full bowl, spilling the contents over herself and the ground.

Number 3 had many inquisitive questions about the pit toilets, but went to bed without too much of a fight after that. That meant we both had enough time to be invited over to a spot on our neighbours’ campfire before calling it a night. They were mildly disconcerted by learning our usual getting-up time of 6.30am … 😀

It got quite cold during the night and the morning was overcast. So we put on the woollen things to keep warm

Day 6 – Juicy

Flo:

Maybe I should’ve gotten to bed earlier. But the company was too good and sitting around a little fire just added this magic to it. Now it’s early and I’m a little bit tired. But even at 6:30am, it just gives me back my energy.

We were among the first to have breakfast and, with no awning to pack, were really fast breaking down our camp as well. So we took the time we gained and gave Number 3 his wish: a really big loop in the forest. We found cool and hidden things and he had a real good time, most of the way. Only near the end, an hour in, the novelty of it started to wane. So, in the car we hopped and off we went!

Instead of going straight north we decided to push on east first to go up along the coast. Nina read a Lonely Planet recommendation about the orchards there and found a cool place to spend lunchtime. We were still early so we were thinking of maybe checking out the fast charger in the town we were going for. It was fast and free, but a poor Swedish lady arrived just a minute after us and her exaltation that I would use the CCS plug leaving the ChaDeMO to her turned to despair when it turned out this station could only fuel one at the time. We were ready for lunch anyway, so we left it to her and headed off.

Nina:

Once we arrived at Kivik Musteri, I immediately got into the looooong queue just because it was there. That left Flo some time to get the kids ready and check out the place. It turned out that Kivik Musteri offered free charging for electric vehicles anyway so we were all set up right here.

Kivik Musteri consisted of the butik which I was queuing for, a restaurant, a little 6 room museum and a cafe. After some thought, I left the queue again as it didn’t make sense for us to get into the shop where we basically couldn’t buy anything (no space in the car) and it was lunchtime anyway.

We decided to go to the cafe which also gave me an option for cake. J After a good lunch break, made slightly uncomfortable by wasps, and a coffee/cake dessert, we were ready to tackle the “garden” and the museum. Number 3 enjoyed jumping around in the garden and looking at the different apple trees dispersed with other fruits.

The museum started with a room full of preserved fruits. It then went on to the history of Kivik Musteri, followed by the factory parts and a kids’ activity area. Number 3 got to be a little bee as well as testing his strength at pulling up 1kg of apples.

All juiced out by Kivik and all juiced up by the free charging, we left for our camp of the night. It was a nice campground at a lake where we really and definitely needed to do some laundry. We arrived late and it looked like rain so we quickly set up our tent. With me doing laundry and Flo organizing a cooked dinner, it left Number 3 to explore the lakeside by himself. He loved it even if he decided to go into the water with his shoes and socks still on.

After our dinner, Flo and Number 3 had one last round to check the place out before the kids went to bed. It was my turn today to tuck them all in. The Agent was already asleep when Flo opened one window from the outside and called Number 3 and me over. “Look, there’s a rainbow now!” So cool that Number 3 also got to see it. The rain stopped and we had a lovely, quiet evening at the lake.

Day 4 – Malmö

We had made it to Sweden yesterday. So today, we had a full day to spend in Malmö. Our campground had not much going for it (for us at least) apart from being right next to the bus station which brought you into the city center of Malmö within 30 minutes.

The Agent of Entropy on the bus ride home

We packed all our gear for a city trip and then decided to spend some time on the blog so the kids could play on the fantastic playground. Unfortunately, we don’t even have a single picture. Number 3 even went up to some other kids with trucks in the sand pit and asked politely if he could play with some of the trucks. I was so proud of him for doing that. J

Finally, we went on the bus which took us to Malmö. We got off a little before the city center as Flo, who directed this part of the journey, wanted us in easy walking distance to the chocolate factory I wanted to visit. Once we were there, we realized it was closed. I mean, they are still making chocolates there, just the whole shop and touring for the public got cancelled due to corona. What a pity! I love touring chocolate factories.

From there, it was a good 20 minute walk into the old town. While walking we came across an art exhibition in the Malmö Konsthall and the cafe Smak in the same building. It was just about lunch time for us and we grabbed a bit to eat before looking at a small side exhibition on the anti-racist gaze.

Further on our way, we crossed the canal Rörsjökanalen around the old town which had paddling boats on it, marking it in our minds as a fun activity for later. Number 3 was quite upset that we didn’t stay at a playground for him to explore everything. It was the first time that we realized not having a lunch nap today might be a problem.

In the old town, we made our way through the alleys and lanes into the direction of Lilla Kafferosteriet. Number 3 complained about the walking…but got better again when I went into a tourist shop with a colourful horse on the sign and he got to pick souvenirs for himself and Opa. J

The cafe turned out to be lovely. The Agent who had kept me up almost the entire night (I am exaggerating but we didn’t have long between breaks) slept through the entire affair.

Gamla Staden, the old civic square, was still on my list. The oldest pharmacy is on the square which the Agent of Entropy gave us an excellent excuse to enter: We NEEDED teething gel!

The square was one big temptation for Number 3 with a ferris wheel, a carussell with horses, big balloons and other things. The tantrum of not being allowed to go on any of these accompanied us on our way back towards the canal. Flo was smart enough to indicate that we would not tell Number 3 about our plan to go on the paddling boats until we were certain that it would work. However, he himself broke that smart plan by telling Number 3 what we were queuing for only to realize that we would have to wait for an hour for a free boat which we would then hire for an hour. Two more hours in Malmö was just too long to go. Number 3 was rightly disappointed.

As a way to make up for it or have him experience one of the things he wanted, we let him ride the “flying dumbo” carussell. Just one time. All alone. It worked brilliantly. He had so much fun and he was so proud.

It failed in getting him distracted from the boat disaster though. He screamed all the way back to the bus and then fell asleep on the ride home. Uff. Malmö, I don’t think you worked out too well for us today. But then maybe, we are primed for a bit of Swedish space and wilderness. Not another European city.

The big trampolin! You can jump so high!

Day 3 – Crossing over

At last, a normal day! At least a normal travel day that is. Just over 220km to our first camp in Sweden. The weather forecast held true and we were greeted by the early morning sun. Time to dry for a change.

Number 3 had an enormous breakfast of two full helpings of porridge – maybe because he had plans for the morning. He got his wishes anyway and we spend another good while down at the beach throwing rocks, exploring the pier and scaring away crabs. He was so happy!

The opposite could be said of our daughter. Still very much opposed to the wellingtons, her preferred state of being was suckerfish to mama-shark. Not the best conditions for a speedy packing up. Regardless, we managed to leave at a respectable 10.15am.

With the motorway quite empty and no traffic jam in sight, we managed to make it to Copenhagen just a hair after our preferred lunch time. Both kids were asleep most of the way (even missed the first big bridge crossing), though – so we even opted against a brief charge stop – and why would we: We were heading for a charge point in Copenhagen anyway, right?

Well – it turns out: Copenhagen really has a lot of charge points all over town, but unfortunately they are not reserved for charging EV. So there was little chance of finding a free one, competing with the stinkers for the precious few parking spots. This felt somehow worse than no chargers at all – we could see them, all free (also teasing us as free in the apps), but inaccessible due to parking stinkers. It might make sense to the Danes, but I hated it. With lunchtime already gone past, we opted to skip the charge this time and just find something to eat. After a mad dash to the loo, of course…

The spot we aimed for repaid us a little for the failed charger hunt: Refurbished market halls now a fancy hybrid between fresh food marked and foody hangout with heaps of great things to pick up on the go and devour at one of the provided tables. Number 3 was quite adamant about wanting “a whole fish”. So the three of us carnivores got in line at the Smørrebrød stall while Nina got herself a freshly made pizza. I might have gone overboard with three different sandwiches, but it turned out Number 3 really meant it and continued his hungry streak by almost finishing the fried fish Smørrebrød while the Agent of Entropy took a liking to the shrimp salad one.

It was quite late by now and we were good to move on. After all, Sweden is the destination for this trip – Copenhagen can wait for another day. Now it was time to tackle the øresundbron. On the way, I tried to find out if my campground reservation went through all right last night (spoiler, it didn’t). And just like that, by 3.30pm, we were in Sweden. We even had some treats for coffee time on board (which Nina insisted on buying at the patissierie stall in the market halls).

That is when things got a bit annoying, unfortunately. The reservation did not go through, but we were lucking in getting the very last spot with electricity available – even though it was as far away from anything as possible. Two trips to the reception later, everything was set up and Puru Hiko was charging. And then I got a phone call: If I could get back to reception, I got the wrong information, I could in fact not charge the EV, no matter how slowly. This is the first time that happened in 20+ nights with Puru Hiko, and just when we would really have needed it, too. Now we have to start the tour on Friday with an immediate stop at the charger.

I tried my best not to get hung up too much and cook some nice dinner from our spoils at the fresh food market in Copenhagen: Fresh Tagiatelle with creamy Gorgonzola sauce.

Right after breakfast Number 3 started asking when we’ll go down to the beach again. Unfortunately, we also had to pack so he had to wait a little

Day 2 – Why so much road?

We were lucky to be on one of these campgrounds that offer fresh bread rolls for breakfast at the reasonable time of 7.30am in the morning. So, breakfast was good…and then we had to pack up everything wet. Yes, a little rain isn’t too bad most of the time but packing your wet things simply isn’t fun.

Honey for breakfast – Number 3, that was a great idea!

Once again we weren’t quite as fast as we wanted to be as we had another looooooong day on the road ahead of us. There were still quite a few things we needed to buy, not least of all, new diapers for the Agent. So we scheduled a break from the autobahn in a commercial area of Hamburg where we could find all the shops we needed in one neat complex. Getting there proved to be harder than expected when we landed in our first real traffic jam of this trip: Stuck at the entrance of the Elbtunnel.

Half the lanes closed of the Hafentunnel – big wait, little fun

This traffic jam put us a good bit behind our schedule. There was nothing to be done about it though, we just suffered through it. As everyone with kids knows…it’s not fun. Once we got through, everything went smoothly again. We stopped right in front of the organic supermarket at the commercial complex. Unfortunately, we couldn’t find any charging stations even though we were sure there had to be some. In the end, it just lost us time. If we had found a charging station, we could have skipped the charging/lunch break and just had lunch here. Time-wise it would have been a good fit with all that time spent in the traffic jam but alas, it was not to be. We bought what we needed and were out of Hamburg again.

In a small stroke of good fortune, the kids fell asleep after the shopping adventure. Even without lunch. We made good progress until we stopped for lunch almost 1pm next to a fast charger.

Number 3 was sorely tempted by the nearby Burger King but we managed to get him to stay focused on the bread and dessert. We got lucky as there was a wooden table and bench right next to the chargers this time. It was an extended break even if we didn’t manage to sit still for long due to intermittened rain. Lunch was had on the bench before we retreated into the car for desserts.

First border crossing. Stupid for show covid border checks …

And off we went. Again. There is a reason why we usually don’t do long days on the road. They are exhausting for everyone and exceptionally boring for kids. Number 3 and the Agent were total champs though so we got through the next big chunk and into Denmark. First entry to different country of the trip. Woohooo.

At 3.30pm we had our last 15 minutes-stretch-your-legs-and-grab-a-drink-kind of a break. It was not a nice location however, right next to a fuel station. We all just wanted to get to the campground at that point. So, on we went again.

Finally, finally, we were there. Once we had set up the tent, it started raining. Raincoats and gum boots came out for the kids so Flo and I could finish setting up. The Agent of Entropy was not amused. For nearly 30 minutes she just stood where I had put her down, not moving an inch. When Flo asked her what was wrong, she pointed at her gum boots. Yeah right, it was the first time she wore proper shoes and gum boots are really heavy, especially for small kids. For the next day, she would refuse to move more than a couple of steps in these boots.

As a treat, while Flo was cooking, and because the rain had stopped, the kids and I went down to the beach. What a cool thing to do with kids! Number 3 just found thousands of ways to entertain himself, half of which ended with him having wet knees and a wet bum while the Agent of Entropy stared at the ocean, pointed at it and then went straight into it. I caught her before she was in deeper than her ankles but she was intrigued.

The day had been exhausting so we all went to bed early into a snugly tent with rain drumming on our tent roof.

Day 1 – Again?

… have you not just been on a holiday? That was the most common response to us telling people that we were leaving once more with the roof tent. I mean, really, my hands are tied, aren’t they? First, our parental leave trip got cut short so cruely. Then, there is the fact that we have no daycare available for the whole next three weeks. Should I have dropped it all on Nina?

Besides, we have a chance for redemption, in a way. Fully vaccinated as we both are now and the numbers way down, we acuatally can go to Sweden this time! So here we are again.

Packing and cleaning took us all morning so by the time we were actually ready to leave, the Agent had fallen asleep in her high chair with Fabian as a cushion

Minor issues so far: My 10th rib is still mending from a fracture (strain injury from coughing for two weeks, don’t ask) and Sweden is kind of far away and really big for a European country.

The rib seems to be fine enough – let’s see how it goes after a night in the tent, but I am off painkillers for a week now.

The distance lead us to a rare choice for us: just leg it – onto the motorway for 2 days to maximise our time spent in Sweden proper. Not even Copenhagen is on the list, at least on our way there. We rarely do, prefering to take in the distance and scenery changes as we move about. But what can you do, three weeks is just not a lot of time, especially for our style of travel.

With that out of the way, there is not much more to say about today. We were a bit slow in our packing – but adding up a teething Agent of Entropy, a broken rib and a bit of house cleaning to do, it just was what it was. We left around 11 am, with one last stop before we could hit the motorway.

After that, just a lot of driving. The long morning packing had exhausted both of the hobbits enought that they slept through most of the first 200km. We did start with some charging frustration right away, even though we specifically picked a fast-charging provider that had worked for us in the past. No luck this time, though. The less than helpful support hotline suggested we could try the twice as expensive direct pay option. Whatever, 15€ lost to bad customer service – at least the charging speed was good. Will have to follow up what might have gone wrong there, though … ahh … teething pains.

Speaking of – the AoE slept or rested even after our lunch stop. Number 3 stayed awake but was a real good sport and kept his spirits up for the remaining 189km. At least the camp turned out to be super cool when we turned up at almost 5pm. Especially nice for something literally 2 minutes off the motorway. Green, shaded and with enough for the wee ones to keep themselves entertained for the rest of the evening. One more hard push and then we are game to turn off the motorway and start traveling …