What Are Some Landmarks We've Seen on Our Road Trip?

Borek · Aug 1, 2010

Day eighteenth (July 19^th)
(or the serious loss)

There was no flood, while the sky was cloudy in the morning it was actually quite dry and even not cold. We were able to put some order into things that were lately packed in a hurry, and to strike the tent the way it should be done, with everything dry and it its own place. Browsing the guestbooks again in the morning we have learned that fact camping is almost run by the Poles - while it is owned (or managed) by Leif (no idea what's his surname), there is a Polish couple here that takes care of daily chores. Just after reading about them we meet them. They told us they came here each summer for the last 12 years and we had a short but very nice conversation. Then we packed, waved goodbyes, I started the engine, moved the car just a few meters, stopped to throw the rubbish into the can, started the engine again and something was wrong, I started to wonder why I feel like navi is showing same messages for the third time, so I have turned my attention to it... It was not able to start - that is, it displayed the GARMIN logo screen, then the message "Reading maps" with progress bar - and when the bar was almost complete it started the same routine again. I have spent good 15 minutes trying to revive it, called Junior in Poland so that he could google for a solution (I didn't take the manual with me), tried everything that he found plus some makeshift ideas but after about an hour had to give up. It was not even possible to reset the device to the factory settings, obviously it was not a matter of some software fault, but most likely some hardware malfunction. That was hard. Thanks to idiotic Garmin licensing policy I had two legally bought devices (nuvi and CSx), legal copy of City Navigator map, and to get back to Poland I will have to drive using Sun as a main navigational tool (which is not very difficult at the moment, we are just going sou^th). Well, I am exaggerating a little - as a backup we have a book edition of Europe Road Atlas, we still have City Navigator map on the laptop, and few cities later we bought good map of Sweden, but it is not the same. Day seventeenth log is probably lost, as I doubt it will be recovered, luckily I have backups of all earlier tracks (later edit: no, July 15th was lost too, for different reasons). Now to log our track I have to use CSx - it is possible, but much more cumbersome, as I have to remember to switch it on/off at the right moments.

Rest of the day was rather nice - we were driving south, stopping now and then to take pictures. My idea was to follow nuvi advices about interesting points on our way today, but that approach was no longer possible. There were several showers, long just enough to wash insects from the windshield. In cities I was asking in tourist information offices for a wireless internet, but it was either not free (and as of today I am not yet ready to pay for 4 hours when I need 15 minutes to check my mail), or only in a library that opens next hour (no way we are going to wait that long) and so on. We planned to camp in a wild, but again it was hard to find a place (mostly wet forest around) so we ended in another camping. Cheap, nice, and no internet. Guy at the reception told us next camping is about 15 kilometers from here, and he wasn't sure if they have connection - but he was sure his camping is much calmer, so we decided to stay.

Wild man of Storuman (Vildmannen i Storuman)

Borek · Aug 1, 2010

Day nineteenth (July 20^th)

Second day of navigating without nuvi - we are approaching region where there is more than just one road going south. But so far navigation wasn't very difficult, we got a little bit lost in Östersund only, but then we had to enter the city without any map, so in fact it can be considered a complete success. Not only we have found the center (and left it later) but also located a tourist information office with a free, wireless internet - so I was finally able to receive and answer my mails (and there were several important ones). I told the clerk in tourist office that we have about half an hour and asked what landmarks we should see in Östersund - and he directed us to the city hall and university, which is an adapted military complex. City hall is large and impressive (as for relatively small city) and university was a very nice example of a conversion - old military function of the complex is obvious, it is in the shape and placing of the buildings, with huge square in the middle, if you have ever seen old military complexes there is no doubt about the original use of the place, but now it is painted bright yellow and looks surprisingly fresh. Clerk told us also to see a port, but that was a huge disappointment, as in fact there was nothing to see there. All in all we have spent two hours in the city and went south again, to turn west - we want to go to Norway again, to see a Borgund stave church. Let's call it a 700km (one way) side trip.

Two nice surprises on our way west today. First was a church in Vemdalen - I was enchanted by the building. Simple, but quite different from most churches (octagonal in shape), if I remember correctly build somewhere in 18th century, with impressive wooden bell tower. Second was the meteorite crater - not the first one on our trip, and not as impressive as the one in Kaali, but still a crater, with about 44 meter diameter.

We planned our trip for tomorrow and noted city names and road numbers. I guess it will be a difficult day, as the road is twisted, with many changes of directions, and it requires much more detailed map than the one we have in a road atlas.

Mid Sweden University Campus in Östersund:

Church in Vemdalen:

Inside the church - sign says something like "put a light for your beloved ones". I put one for my Mom, her birthday would be on July 22nd. Sign asked for 2 SEK, I had 2 NOK only, hopefully they will understood.

Borek · Aug 1, 2010

Day twentieth (July 21^st)

We started the day doing a thing I was taught forty years ago to never do - striking a wet tent. But we had no choice, it was raining most of the time, and we have to move. We lost the way immediately - when leaving camping instead of turning left I have turned right. I should turn right, but about a kilometer later, so we did additional 40 km before we really started going. Later it was much better, at least if we speak about navigating, as weather was bad, it was raining almost the whole day, with a (lucky) dry interval when we stopped in Røros. Interesting place, city that looks a little bit like taken from the wild west, built around a copper mine.

When we got to the next camping it was not raining, but the soil was so wet it was making funny sounds under feet. As expected, tent material got wetted and there were a darker stains visible in many places. If it will rain, it may leak.

Church in Røros:

Røros main street:

Røros old street (from what I understand these buildings were moved here from different places):

That's more or less how I remember Norway - clouds, Sun, water and mountains, all at the same time:

Borek · Aug 1, 2010

Day twenty first (July 22^nd)
(when we visit church that was not stolen

)

Luckily it was not raining in the night - or perhaps it was not raining strong enough. But the weather was getting better with each hour, so we not only managed to fold an almost dry tent, but also had a lot of fantastic views during the day. Fantastic views even before we go to the Borgund stave church. To get there we had to move from one valley to another, that meant driving up to almost 1400 m above the sea level, to a completely treeless high land (Valdresflya). Interestingly we have seen the same phenomenon I wrote about earlier - birch as the most resistant tree, growing even higher than the spruce.

And the church (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Borgund_stave_church) was fantastic. Hundreds years ago there were over 1000 similar churches all over the Norway, but only several remain, judging from the pictures I have seen of those the one in Burgund is the most interesting one, dissimilar to any churches I have seen earlier in my life. It is much smaller than I expected after seeing the pictures, but it was definitely worth of making this additional 700 km.

Camping was expensive, even more expensive than those far north, on Magerøya island. Expensive, more expensive, Norwegian. For us, Poles, western Europe is relatively expensive. In western Europe Scandinavia is considered to be expensive, and Norway is expensive even for Scandinavians from other Scandinavian countries. Our neighbor at the camping was a really nice guy (Andre's compatriot) and will be remembered for two reasons - first he jumped to help to put the poles through the sleeves seeing me doing it alone (Marzena left and went to check where the toilets and kitchen was, that's how we did on each camping), and later he proved snoring can be heard outside of the camper.

Somewhere high, on the way to Borgund:

Borgund stave church itself:

And a detail:

Borek · Aug 1, 2010

Day twenty second (July 23^rd)

Night was surprisingly cold. However, we have our old sleeping bags with us, as a special reserve - they were larger, so we can use both new ones and old ones at the same time. Actually we combined old ones into one large and crawled inside in new ones. It was not easy, but looks like inside both we can sleep in warmth even below freezing. Note that our new sleeping bags are rated as +7 deg C minimum, but we are both rather slim and not as hot as we used to be

Road was again nice and twisted, just as I like, but only till Gjøvik. We went there hoping to see Skibladner suggested bo Arildno, but no luck - Skibladner was somewhere on its way between cities over the Mjøsa lake. Probably other day of the week we could manage to see it, but its Friday schedule worked against us. Short walk in Gjøvik (not much to see, to not say nothing to see) and off we go. And - for the first time since at least Helsinki - we were driving on the congested road, in a traffic jam. Luckily not for long, just enough to remind that world is not always as beautiful as in the last two weeks. On our way to low prices of Sweden we visited fortress in Kongsvinger - it is refurnished at the moment, so is partially in scaffolds and partially closed, but still shows how such places were built in 17th century. There is also a nice old town below.

We stopped on the camping around 20 kilometers behind the border and paid 80 SEK for two persons, tent and a car per night. Last night in Norway we have paid 200 Norwegian crowns for the same - and you have to remember that Swedish crown is around 80% of Norwegian crown. This comparison is not completely fair, the camping in Sweden is the cheapest we have seen so far and camping in Norway was not only the most expensive but also had a better standard, but this better standard means reception open 24h per day and restaurant at the camping - for which you pay separately. Other than that both campings have paid showers, very similar kitchen facilities (which are things that we use) and wireless internet. This is crazy.

Borek · Aug 1, 2010

Day twenty third (July 24^th)
(when we see rocks carved by humans and rocks carved by glaciers)

Today we plan to drive for just about 200 km, so no hurry - but somehow we managed to be ready about an hour earlier than usual. Most of the time we drove through a rural Sweden - completely different from the mighty forest we have seen before the Norwegian loop. No large fields, as terrain is rugged and in many places rocky, but many patches of meadows (mostly mowed down) or crops, with farms scattered throughout the country. That's completely different from the landscape we are used to in Poland, in Poland there are villages surrounded by fields, in Sweden there are no well defined villages, mostly single farms separated from others.

Main target of today's drive - rock carvings in Vitlycke Museum. No, we are not great fans of this type of art, it just happened to be close to our way and we decided to compare it with what we have seen in Alta. I know, I will sound boring, but our first observations are not about the rock carvings, but again about money. In Alta everything was behind the fence and we had to pay, here everything is free, both rocks and museum. There are much less carved rocks here (or at least much less rocks to see, from what I understand there are much more, but they are scattered in the large area). In a way they are very similar, although in Alta there were more animals, while here there are much more ships and boats - but that's not necessarily true, that's my opinion after seeing just a small sample.

After seeing the museum we decided to just spend some time on the shore, after all we are on the coast. Where we went there was no beach (perhaps there are beaches in other places, we don't know), but rocks. I guess Andre would like them, as they are an obvious witnesses of the past - they are nicely polished by glacier and they carry traces of abrasion. Weather was perfect for us, not hot, but just warm enough so that we felt comfortable without bathing suits. Rocks, Sun, sea and dry vegetation on the rocks - a little bit surreal in Sweden, as that's the landscape we are used to see two thousands kilometers to the south, in Croatia.

Later we had a problem finding place for night. Campings were large and packed and we don't like crowd, so we planned to camp in the wild, but it turned out to be very difficult. While completely legal, it is not easy to find a good place in the well developed country where each suitable place is already occupied by crops, pastures or houses. After almost an hour of unsuccessful driving we finally decided to stay at a camping - and it is probably the worst place we were spending night so far, with next tents just a few foots away and campers/caravans around. But that's just for one night.

Rock carvings near the Vitlycke museum:

Abraded landscape:

Port in Fjällbacka:

Borek · Aug 1, 2010

Day twenty fourth (July 25^th)

Just because night starts with a clear sky doesn't mean it can't end with a rain. I can't say for sure as I was sleeping, but I wasn't sleeping well (Marzena took a large part of the airbed and I wasn't able neither to push her back to her side nor to find a comfortable position on what she left) and I think I haven't heard the rain till it was around 8 a.m. In effect I was forced to strike the tent wet again. And it rained for most of the day, it stopped around 5 p.m. or something like that, so we even didn't stop to take any pictures. Instead we lost our way near Trolhattan and we were going in circles. Road looked like a maze of twisty little passages, all alike. To some extent it was funny, to some extent it was irritating. Reason was simple - we didn't want to follow main roads. Once you are on the highway you race through the country very fast, but you can't see the country - for that it is better to follow local roads, sometimes blocked by sheep, sometimes blocked by harvester or tractor - that's my favorite way of traveling. We were not in a hurry, but we also have no map precise enough and without the nuvi navigating such roads is next to impossible. Finally we aborted the idea and went back to the main roads. Sadly, it wasn't possible to follow local roads far in the north (there are no local roads there, they are happy to have the main one), it is not possible to follow local roads in the south (no nuvi).

Somewhere on the road we found a ATM and - as we were almost out of cash - we decided to get 200 SEK. Somehow Marzena misread the instructions and took 2000 SEK. Now, instead of being short on cash, we have too much.

Using main roads reaching our target destination was a breeze. And our destination today was a Grimeton Radio station, the only one left almost intact of the several VLF radio stations built in the mid twenties of the last century in an attempt to build worldwide telecommunication network. Why here? There were three such radio stations in Europe, one of them was in Warsaw (or more like in a village Babice - then outside of the city, now in the city if I remember well). Warsaw radio station has been destroyed by Germans during WWII, Grimeton radio station is very similar and I am sure group of my friends (interested in history if Warsaw) will be happy to see pictures taken here. But we got to the radio station about half an hour after it was closed to visitors, so we just took a few pictures of antenna masts and building and went looking for camping to get back tomorrow. First we drove to Ullared camping but after seeing the line of cars waiting to enter we decided it doesn't make sense to wait. From what I found Ullared has a large and popular shopping center and people come here from all over Sweden. We are not that into spending our money here, so we went to look for other camping, closer to the sea. And on our way there we spotted a nice, large parking, close to the nature reserve, with nice green grass and enough place to put our tent - so we are camping in the wild tonight. We are not alone - there are two campers less than 40 meters from us, one is from Norway, other one from France.

Grimeton antenna, as seen from the place where we have slept (six masts of it, the single, thin pole is a modern TV antenna):

Borek · Aug 1, 2010

Day twenty fifth (July 26^th)
(devoted to ancient radio techniques)

Day started with a nice, dry weather. After packing we went to see the radio station and Alexanderson alternator - interesting to see an electromechanical solution to what was later done using just electronics. Funny thing - we have learned that one of the reasons for selecting Grimeton as the radio station localization was its name - easy to pronounce in English speaking countries. Other reason was much more technical - there is just an open sea, without any obstacles, between Swedish coast and Long Island (where the main radio station of the system was located), that helped in the signal propagation. As it was still early after leaving Grimeton we drove to the coast for another walk, and then in the direction of Ystad. Somewhere on the way there we passed the 8000 km.

There are important differences between the way farm buildings here and farther north look like. Barn in the north (both in Sweden and Norway) was a two storey building, with a ramp leading to the upper part. Barns here look very similar to the barns in Poland - one level, and large doors on two sides, so that it is possible to drive a haywain through. In general there are a lot of similarities between the buildings here and in northern Poland, probably both areas were settled/developed at the same time and/or by the settlers coming from the same places.

Today's camping is small and a little bit strange - it is just a part of a farm, with showers and toilets in one of the farm buildings, and with farm smells hanging in the air. But it is cheap, clean and the water in the showers is nicely hot, so we don't complain too much.

Grimeton radio station building:

Alexanderson alternator itself - actual alternator is the large round thing in the back, everything else is just to keep it rotating at the correct speed (above 2000 rpm). Output power was in the 200 kW range.

Borek · Aug 1, 2010

Day twenty sixth (July 27^th)
(when we see a stone ship and sail away in an iron one)

Perfect weather all the time, perhaps even a little bit too hot. After striking the tent we start going to see Ales stenar - that's why we came here. We want to take pictures, but it turns out to be quite difficult - there is a crowd around. Especially around a guy telling people about his own findinings about the astronomy of the place, and how most of the stones are related to the calendar of the vikings. IMHO he draws far fetched conclusions, even if it is absolutely obvious that the ship orientation is based on the cardinal directions.

Next step - Karlskrona. There was a runestone somewhere close to the road, but I completely forgot about it while driving. As usual we want to bard the ferry, but we are not sure if we will be able to buy tickets - and as usual, we buy tickets for the next ferry without any problem. We wanted to see the city, unfortunately, we don't have much time and without working nuvi we are just afraid we won't be able to get to the harbor back in time. Even trying to find McDonald which we have seen close to the harbor we got a little bit lost, so we decide risk is too high and we just wait for the ferry sitting in the car. Around 9 p.m. (or a little bit later) we depart in the direction of Gdynia. That is the most expensive night of the trip - in a two berth cabin which is probably smaller than our inner tent (although a little bit higher).

Ales stenar:

Maglehem church - not that it is in any way special, but we liked it and stopped to take pictures.

Borek · Aug 1, 2010

Day twenty seventh (July 28^th)

We were waken up at 6 a.m. with a "Morning has broken". Nice, but way too early, I think my watch wasn't sure how to place the hands, it is not used to being watched before 8 a.m. Weather has again changed during the night and it is raining, but this time it doesn't matter - at least it doesn't mean problems with striking the tent. Gdynia welcomes us with a heavy rain - but from here we have again working navigation, as I have a good map of Poland in CSx. Not that getting to Warsaw could be difficult, it is one of the main roads in northern Poland and I know it relatively good. I hoped to see my relative, but we have not told him when we will be in Poland and we got to his country house where he spends each summer it turned out he was not there - he went to his home in Sopot just two days earlier. So we hit the road and went directly to Warsaw. We were home back just before 4 p.m.

arildno · Aug 1, 2010

Thank you Borek, for that presentation!
And thank you, for all the money you generously left behind here in Norway! :devil:

waht · Aug 1, 2010

Most amazing trip Borek and Marzena. I'm in awe at the scenery and interesting stops.

OmCheeto · Aug 1, 2010

Argh. https://www.physicsforums.com/showpost.php?p=2751719&postcount=34".

Good to see so many familiar landmarks though in retrospect.

The world needs more great road trips.

Monique · Aug 1, 2010

I did a road trip through Norway last year (for a week), an absolutely beautiful country! I'm sure you both had a great time, although I think the distance you covered is really vast.