Nykopping, Sweden

After a couple of days in Riga, Latvia to see my beautiful financee, it was time to head back towards home, but this had a twist. A few months ago, when I booked this flight up with Ryanair, the return leg of the flight was over £90. So I wasn't going to pay that. Instead I got a 1 pence flight to Nykopping in Sweden, and then a 1 pence flight from Nykopping to London Stansted, which left me with six hours in eastern Sweden.

Arriving in Nykopping airport (which is classed as Stockholm Svasta) I jumped on the bus into town (costing 21SEK each way) and made my way from the main bus terminal to the harbour.

Here I found a lot of resturants running alongside the harbour offering sea food, and litres of beer. Boats with the owners laid on deck sunbathing in the warm Baltic air.

I followed the path down to the jetty where the main inlet from the Baltic sea was, and followed this man made path onto the sea away from land. I kept following this for over 1.6km until the path came suddenly to a dead end, only a few hundred meteres away from land. I walked around 20 minutes to get to this point and was a little bit nacked off.

So I started a new challenge. For some reason getting the video camcorder out, I decided to jog/sprint/run/attempt to run the whole path back in the Swedish heat. I did it, but half hurting at the same time with all my hand luggage on my back, in which the bag split. So I wasn't happy about that.

After reaching the piece of harbour to which I was thirty minutes earlier, I walked alongside the sea to another part of Nykopping.

There was another jetty in front of me, and a lot of houses, made of wood but brightly coloured. Very expensive Swedish cars wait outside, and old people sitting on the balcony's overlooking the bay. All calm and peaceful. On the other side of the bay is all trees and wildlife. A nice little spot to be in when I retire, I thought. Maybe not, Sweden is very expensive to live in!

A short walk back to the harbour and then into the centre, where I came across the main square, a wooden brown building on top of a small hill overlooking Nykopping, which I still dont know what it was, and a shopping street, with not many shops. I found McDonalds, where I got my cheap and distuging food from, and somehow got a free apple pie from the staff whom were all wearing Sweden football shirts for the forth coming European Championships.

On the way back to the bus terminal, I came across Nykopping castle with some riverbanks and a small waterfall. It really didn't look like a castle to be honest.

On the bus we drove past Nykopping central train station. I remember this place back in January 2003 when I first came here and to Sweden, on my first Ryanair flight. The memories flashed back with the train journey through heavy snow and frozen lakes with covered Stockholm. The rubbish McDonalds meal we had on the day, and finding out why we got a cheap flgiht that day to an airport in the middle of nowhere! But how times changed. I enjoyed my few hours here, and want to see more of the Nordic countries. Back to London I went...and straight to work.