Gothenburg, Sweden
On Friday, July 18, we took the train from Oslo, Norway to Gothenburg, Sweden. It took about 3 and a half hours. The train’s first stop in Sweden was at Ed, significant to me because that was my Dad’s name. He loved spending time at Lake Pine, NJ when he and later, I were growing up. So I was glad to see a lake in Ed, Sweden
We are staying at an Airbnb in the Gothenburg suburbs. Our hosts live upstairs, with their two boys. The oldest is involved in the Gothia Cup, the world’s largest and most international youth football tournament. Each year, around 1700 teams from 80 nations take part and they play 4500 games on 110 pitches. There are lots of young football players, their parents and coaches wandering the streets of Gothenburg these days. While our hosts and their son went to the quarterfinals last night, we stayed here and watched the sunset.
On the morning of July 19, we visited the Stora Saluhallen market hall, where we picked up some fruits and nuts, and had our first taste of authentic Swedish meatballs. Yum! Then we wandered around, and ran into these two.
This sculture is calked Bältespännarparken or The Knife Wrestlers
It’s across the street from the Story Theater
And quite near the Trädgårdsföreningen, The Garden Society, which we wandered through. It was very pleasant, since the shade spared us most of the wrath of the 30 (celsius) day. OK, I know we’re weather wimps, but 84 (fahrenheit) with high humidity is too hot for us. Gail took some cool photos in the garden looking across the Gota Canal.
We left the Garden and returned to the square that we had passed through the day before after leaving the train station. This time, we noticed
We found what we at first thought was a Farmers’ Market, but was an international food cart pod.
There was food from all sorts of exotic places like Budapest, Transylvania, Thailand, and most exotic of all:
In the middle of the food carts stood the statue of Gustav II Adolf, who was King of Sweden from 1611 to 1632, and is credited with the rise of Sweden as a great European power.
We passed by Gothenburg Cathedral
We had some lunch and caught our favorite bus (18) back home, but not before Gail noticed
The bus was crowded with young footballers taking it a couple of stops to avoid walking between their venues. That they really didn’t need to take the bus was obvious when the bus was involved in a traffic jam due to a traffic accident, they fled the bus, walking the rest of the way to their destinations. Those of us who really needed the bus waited until the situation was resolved.
Tomorrow, we plan to start by visiting Skansen Kronan (“the Crown Sconce”) which once protected the city from Danish attack, and then roam around the area.
