Day trip to the Baltic Sea

Thursday 04 Sept 2008

 

Today Lena and I are taking the car and driving to Bönan, a small fishing village on the coast of the Baltic Sea. We have no plans really other than to drive out there, check out the sites, find a place to have lunch, and back home again.

 

Once we finished breakfast, we checked out the map and planed our route. On the way, we pasted by a large mansion which looked like it might be a bed & breakfast. We made a mental note to stop on the way back and check it out. We continued east and easily found the small town of Bönan. I’ve never been to Maine or the northern east coast of the States, but this is what I think it would look like.

A rocky shoreline dotted by houses along the shore with small uninhabited islands scattered here and there. There weren’t as many boats as I though I would see, but there were a few. The area we parked at was more like a Coast Guard outpost with a dock, a couple heavy work boats, a light house, a maintenance building and what looked like a dispatch or operations center.

As we walked around the buildings and made our way to the shoreline, we found a group of small children and two or three adults sitting and playing in the rocks along the water. This was obviously a group of preschoolers out enjoying the day and learning about nature. It was fun to watch the kids climb around the rocks exploring and finding different things. If you listen to the video, and understand Swedish, I think one of the kids finds a frog and gets very excited about it and is calling the others to come and see.

Of course I couldn’t help but think how this would never be permitted in the States for fear of one of the kids getting hurt and the parents suing the school and the chaperons. In the States, preschool children are watched closely and are kept in a classroom environment with a fenced in yard, or they are at a private home where they sit inside and watch TV all day. Of course I could be wrong, but they would never be permitted to roam freely along the rocky shoreline of a body of water. It was good to see the little ones enjoying the real outdoors and having fun!

After spending some time here, we decided to drive back to the bed & breakfast we pasted on the way in and check it out. We parked in the empty parking lot and walked around the grounds. It was obviously closed for the season, but resembled a 1930’s style mansion.

I could definitely picture a 30’s black & white movie being filmed here. After a walk around the grounds, we continued driving west looking for a place to eat lunch. Along the way, Lena noticed a car parked along the road and two people walking just in the wood line. I asked what they were picking and she said probably Lingenberries because she could see the berries from the car as we were driving. Having eaten these out of a jar from IKEA with meatballs and potatoes, I just had to stop and pick some for myself. Hey, they grow in Sweden, not the States, and this is the time of year to pick them, so why not!

We parked and took a short walk through the woods finding lots of Lingenberries. I picked a few and tasted them, very tart and not as good as the ones we buy in the jar, but now I can say I picked Lingenberries in Sweden.

If you ever want to try them, look for them at any IKEA store in the food section. They are very good!

We continued driving back towards Gävle looking for a place to have lunch but never found any thing open in the area. As we got closer to Gävle, we saw a burger place called Max, which we had seen ads for on TV many times over, so we pulled in. It was basically just like McDonalds or Burger King and even had a drive thru window. The food was good for fast food, and obviously the local kids liked it because the place was packed with teenagers. After lunch, we headed back to Göran’s house and relaxed a bit watching Swedish TV. It was back to moms place for dinner tonight, nothing fancy because tomorrow we were having a traditional Swedish crawfish party here!