22nd May 2014, an amazingly sunny and warm day in Sweden, here comes another small trip of mine. Basically, it was 24 hours road trip starting early in the morning until the next day morning. The plan was to start our journey from Uppsala heading south of Sweden to city called Kalmar and crossing the bridge to Öland and go around all the island to see many beautiful places, then come back to Uppsala. Well it was all a bit tiring but that's the most economic way since we were four people and rented the car for only one day, also no accommodation was need to be booked over the night. Why not, let's do it!
The trip from Uppsala to Kalmar took around 6 hours, a lot of road constructions on the way, seriously it felt like they were rebuilding the whole Swedish highway. When we arrived to Kalmar it was already 13:30, weather was super hot for Swedish May, people were already heaving sunbathing around the water. It was hard to decide whether we should see the Kalmar castle and the church or join the sunbathing guys. Well, yeah, lets be a proper tourists.
Kalmar Castle has a nice view of the sea and the city, although, cos of the warm weather water was smelling really bad. Later on we drove to the center to see the
Kalmar Cathedral.
After the Castle we quickly moved to see the Church. Basically, in Sweden almost everywhere debit/credit cards can be used for payments, including donations to the church. They have a "kollektomat" at the church(es)!! Well, why am I even surprised, in Sweden no one uses cash anymore.
Anyway, in general we spent very little time to see Kalmar and decided to move to our main destination, Öland. For that, we had to pass the
Öland Bridge, 6 km long, really nice view. After we reached Öland the plan was to respectively see
Borgholm Castle,
Byrum's Raukar (geological formation limestone stacks), at some point attempt to swim in cold Baltic sea, later on to head to the very north of the island, and going back to south to see world heritage sites
Eketorp,
Gettlinge, and last stop the lighthouse in the southern part of the island to catch the sunset. Sounds like a good plan!
 |
| Canola planted fields |
Öland has this amazingly green landscape and we have seen many farm
animals around the road; cows, sheep, horses, and camels!!! Yes, Camels
in Sweden! Of course we stopped to see them. I guess they were happy that I was taking photos of them, especially one of them was looking like "yeah I know I look goooood, please take another picture of my left profile". Here is the proof picture(s), if
you don't believe me!
Next stop was
Byrum's Raukar, a coast of geological formations of a group of limestone stacks. This was also where we tried to "swim" in the Baltic sea water. Well for most of us, except Leo, it was mostly washing up the feet, but staying long in the cold water it is really painful. Really beautiful place, let's see the photos.
This is a video of our attempt to swim, you will see not everyone is brave enough to swim in Baltic see in May!
After our small beach time in
Raukar, we went to the northern part of the island, where we again found an amazing nature, variety of water birds flying around or nesting, and interesting seashores and in the middle of everything a nice lighthouse. On the seashores there were hand made stone "towers". Well it was interesting, we also contributed to those towers.
I guess you all agree that Öland's nature is just amazing! Especially in early summer. Anyway we still have a lot to see, so let's move on. Next stop is
Gettlinge, the world heritage site known as
Viking stone ship burial ground. It was good that we managed to go the before the sun set. Just for this I love Swedish long bright summer days. On the road we saw some of the many windmills of Öland, and if I am not wrong there are around 300 of them around on the island. Ok, Let's continue with the photos.
Leaving behind this beautiful place and heading to
Eketorp to see the iron age fort. Unfortunately the place was under construction that we could not enter, well it was late for it to be open anyway. I read that there are some nice houses in a medieval style. If I ever go back to Öland, I will definitely go to see it.
As our last destination we decided to go to the southern part of Öland, and as usual a nice lighthouse was waiting for us and we managed to catch its first lights. Although it was not so easy to stay outside of the car for too long because mosquitoes started to show up. Yet, I managed to take some good shots of late sunset and sky's reflections on the sea.
Here we ended our trip (except a long drive back to Uppsala) with a lot of memories and must admit that I am quite satisfied with my photos. I believe there are many more places to see in Öland, especially camping in one out of 25 camping places and enjoy the amazing color of the sky during the summer time. Well, we can't have it all. I am more than happy to have this small trip with amazing people. Thank you guys.
Wait for my next trip, it is surprise!
Hiç yorum yok:
Yorum Gönder