Coming full circle

Friday, August 07, 2026

From Stockholm, we made our way south and stayed right next to the ruins of a little church close to Kronobäck, before crossing the 6km long Öland Bridge to the island of the same name the following morning.

Öland is the second largest island in Sweden, after Gotland. It is 140km long but only 16km wide at the broadest expanse.
It was settled as early as 8000BC by hunter-gatherers from the mainland, crossing the ice in winter.

Easier to get to Öland today than it was in the old days

There are several Iron Age burial grounds scattered around the island, as well as some 150 flour mills. There used to be around 1700 of them in the early 19th Century.
Much of the island is still farmland, with fertile plains aided by the mild and sunny weather during summer.

Gettlinge grave field

At the northern and southern extend of the island you can find lighthouses, "Long Erik" and "Long Jan".

While the northern tip is taken up by the Ottenby Nature Reserve, known for the gnarled pines and old rough oak trees that grow here, the southern end is a heaven for migrating birds and a Mecca for ornithologists.

All those white sports are swans; there were easily 300 of them

Lange Jan

Lange Erik

This oak is over 900 years old

There are several nice hiking trails at either end of Öland worth checking out and even some nice beaches.

This would have been a whole meal, but potentially the last one.

Glass blowing seems to be a favorite past time on the island

After leaving Öland, there was only one place left to go to complete our journey in Scandinavia - Malmö.

It was our first stop when we came to Sweden and it should also be our last.

With a brief stop in Karlskrona, because it was on the way and a good place to stretch the legs, we made our way south until we reached the stretch of coast where we had begun our northern adventure some 10 weeks ago.

Rooms with a view

The towns founder, Karl XI

Here, a few kilometers outside the city center, we spent the afternoon and the night, as we had done previously, doing some Yoga, swimming in the ocean one last time, going for a run in the morning and enjoying one last cup of coffee sitting by the sea.

A 10.000km trip

In the afternoon, we caught another ferry, from Trelleborg to Rostock, a 6h30min journey across the Baltic Sea.

The following morning, my human took the bike for a little trip to Travemünde, just a few kilometers down the road from our sleeping spot.

It´s a very busy place with mainly German tourists, but also some international holiday makers. As you would expect in such a little seaside town, the beach was packed, the souvenir shops and ice cream parlors were making a roaring business and it was all together way to busy for my human.

A nightmare in real life; why would anyone want to be on this "campground"!

Then it was time to drive to Lübeck, to meet another "old" acquaintance of ours.
You might remember Benny, a fellow traveler (him on a bike, though) .We had met in Kosice, Slovakia, almost exactly three years ago.
Benny had since moved to Lübeck and had invited us to come around anytime.
He should have known that we would take him up on his offer!

We didn´t spend much time exploring the city, too busy chatting and eating pizza, but what we did see was a beautiful small city with no shortage of old and picturesque buildings.