Sweden Road Trip 2006- Day Two

If we thought that we had crap weather yesterday, we were mistaken. Today we have beyond crap weather. We woke up to the rain and it continued to rain through out the day. The worse part is the packing of the car in the rain. Just going back and forth from the car to the room made me pretty wet. Yes I did bring waterproofs and yes I am too lazy to put them on. So I got wet, plus the car was under a tree that dropped brown water drops on me. So my shirt is now beige with brown spots.

In the end, the youth hostel was a good choice. The staff were friendly and it had everything that we needed. M and I were thinking that perhaps we should run a youth hostel when we retire (at age 53 and 50 respectively). Have one of the ones that are only open for the high season and the rest of the year we can travel or do what ever. That way we have an income coming in, but we also have a long holiday season. A friend of mine owns a hotel in Kandersteg, Switzerland. She works 18 to 20 hours per day in the summer. She always tells me that she works so hard in the summer so that she does not have to the rest of the year, makes sense.

Back to the trip, we went from the hostel through Motala to Gränna. Gränna is famous for three things. First is the peppermint sticks which every second building is making them. The second thing is a polar explorer. He died. The third thing that it is famous for is bears, no wait…pears. Our purpose of the visit is because of the, oh wait, we did not come for any of those reasons. We came for a hiking map for the John Bauer Trail. We tried to download it from the internet, but failed. So this was a required stop. The guy in the tourist office was very helpful. He even gave us the hiking map for free. N and I collect brochures, which I am sure we will never really look at.

John Bauer is a famous Swedish artist. He was born in 1882 in Jönköping and died in November 1918. He was an artist, painter and an illustrator. He is perhaps best known for his nature/troll paintings. His use of light is fabulous. I would highly recommend looking him up. He has his own museum in Jönköping that is worth a visit.

The guy in the tourist office said the trail was very well marked and that it would not be a problem at all. Well, it was a problem. We found the trail markers to the section that we wanted to start in. We followed it around in Röttle. It went by several water mills and very cool buildings. After we went for about 20 minutes, in a very slow pace, we were back to the exact space that we started at. Now M and I are pretty experienced hikers and do not usually get lost, but we just could not find our way, well away. So we then went to a different section of the trail. N had fallen asleep and the rain had started to come down hard again, so we drove the small country roads next to the trail. The trail will be there another day.

We could not check into our hostel until 5, so we did a little exploring of Jönköping. It is the home of two museums. The first is of John Bauer, which we had been to before. The second was the world’s only match museum. You see, the match is actually a Swedish invention. The major match making industry was based out of Jönköping. In fact, at one time, every match in the world was produced in this town. Of course not today, but one can still go to the museum and learn about the good old days. Only problem for us was, it is Monday. So the museum is closed on Mondays. So instead we took a look at the weather, still raining, and decided to do something super Swedish in this weather. We went to Ikea.

The hostel seems to be alright. The rooms are clean, and they even have cable TV. The lady working hates her job, no question about it. She just radiates that point. Compared to the hostel yesterday, this one is packed. It looks as though this is a “commuter” youth hostel. What I mean is that people who are just in town on business or students stay here. Not the coziest one we have ever stayed at, but it serves our purpose.