Blog 16 Skanör and Malmö Sweden

Then we came to Sweden. Brainstorming en route what we knew of Sweden - after the industry, au pairs, pop groups and Stig Laarson the list tapered off quite quickly but shock horror we forgot IKEA - have we lived so closely to their products that they lose their nationality?

I know I am about to offend my Danish friends but I just love to hear Swedes speaking their own language, it has that singing lilt and dynamics that would make the telephone directory sound fun - and it is infectious too, I find myself repeating sounds I hear during the day ( in private. )

If there was ever any doubt that the yachting holiday season has arrived, it would have been dispelled by the mooring antics in Skanör, a delightful and popular harbour at the end of a long sand promontory forming the most Westerly point of mainland Sweden. It was a lesson in anything goes - all the box moorings were full, then some squeezed two boats into one box - a common enough practice, then several rafts of six appeared off a pontoon ( no springs or landlines, ) then a raft of three formed across the ends of boxes trapping the inmates and finally, a raft of two formed off the sterns of the raft of three. All good natured and clearly not unusual but slightly jaw dropping.

Skanör with its ancient seaweed bank sea defences - they look like dykes now - is part of a nature reserve with dunes backing a fine sweeping sandy shore line and inland, carpets of low wild roses as deep magenta as I have seen leading to shallow lakes where wading birds make their living - we did see one avocet somewhat at a distance as you can see from the photo. It was a nature walk, flowers, butterflies and that day, beautiful cattle chilling out in the afternoon.

Onwards to Malmö to pass under the great Sweden to Denmark bridge which we saw being built years before. We were told that the Swedes wanting to annoy their Danish neighbours, refer to it as the bridge from Sweden to Germany since it does provide an overland route, albeit via Denmark.- 7 Km of bridge - 7 Km surface on an artificial island and a 7 Km tunnel, all carrying road and rail traffic. A terrific example of engineering design and implementation with most of it assembled off site as units to be bolted together insitu, including the under sea box units forming the tunnel - now work out how that was done, each one resembling a matchbox the size of a football field.

I keep telling myself to look at the map - there is so much space here in Sweden, vast stretches of land just waiting to be used - and remind myself of the comparative density populations of our two countries, a disadvantage is the distance we needed to walk to get to the corner shop!