Day 5-1. Rest day in Göteborg.
Distance 11.5km Average 14.1km/hr Max 34.1km/hr Time 0.48 hrsThe heat and physical demands of the day before meant a bit of a grumpy start. We did need our rest day, having pushed rather hard the day before. Without a particular plan we headed into town, dropping by the Tourist Information for some information for tourists. Then to help me work out that there was pretty much nothing wrong with Damae's bike we wandered into a bike shop, curious as always about the differences in bikes sold in different countries.
We'd already discovered that Danish bikes were different to Dutch ones and came up against some appealingly priced Japanese sounding brands in Sweden. Although most bikes with lots of gears suitable for touring had aluminium frames they were indeed cheaper than similar bikes in the Netherlands (perhaps an indication of the power of the Dutch bike brands in their home market to set bike prices and/or their weakness in the international market when negotiating component prices). I thought Sweden was supposed to be an expensive place to live or something? First the reasonable lunch specials and now cheap bikes!
Then we headed further into town towards the organic Eco Store to find that the 'deli' was not a place where you could sit in and eat. Hmmmmm. Down the hill and round the corner we found a little bakers where we had a lunch menu of pasta and salad with a coffee and a slice of cake for a reasonable seven and a half Euro. It was nice to sit in the sun, this time the sun was not too hot as in the days before and watch the relaxed citizens of Göteborg doing what they do during the day.
Fully refreshed we headed back round the corner to the Eco Store and bought some goodies. We should have done this last as they were open till eight in the evening but it was such fun wandering around. The shop is not one of those dyed in the wool hard-core anti-capitalist organic food statements that used to litter Britain's post-industrial landscape. In contrast it is a stylish well laid out modern supermarket, with very business-like and professional staff. The only difference with a normal supermarket was that it sells only organic food.
We found some tofu there, and stocked up on all kinds of goodies for the evening and to make sarnies for the following day. We tried to buy some local cheese but the proprietor had to admit that at the moment she had to import cheese from among other places the Netherlands, Denmark and Germany. Still, avoiding the imported Dutch cheese we could get at home we ended up choosing some yummy looking blue cheeses before we headed off to pay.
It being sunny the cameras were doing overtime. Damae, doing the usual things she does with her camera, got interested in a bridge (built in 1863) and canal close to the harbour area of Göteborg. Apparently Göteborg was drained by Dutch engineers at a time when this estuary was the only part of the West coast of Sweden in Swedish hands. Like Amsterdam you could take a tour of the city by boat, but besides both towns being ports and having canals and at some point having been reclaimed from marshland, the two places seemed to have very little in common. Göteborg was much newer and built on a larger scale, with wide streets and canals and lots of stone and brick buildings. The atmosphere was as relaxed as Amsterdam but in a different way.
Back at the bridge, Damae's interest was partly because I'd become fascinated by the trams running around (for some reason that escapes me now) and partly as it was a quieter more open area of town. You can see just how Damae was having fun and also how much I was enjoying the Göteborg city-scape.