I have spent the last two days exploring more of Gothenburg with my friend Stacy. I helped Pia move her makeup supplies down to the ground floor in preparation for her move to Ystad to work on the upcoming Wallander movies being made there. I left Pia‘s house on Sunday morning, saying a final goodbye to everyone. I stopped for lunch in Alingsas, an adorable town about a half an hour away from the Gothenburg airport. I spent some time wondering through the old part of town. Not many of the stores were open, partly because it was a Sunday morning and partly because a lot of people are on vacation, and like in New Zealand, smaller shops just close for a couple of weeks or a month during summer holidays. I found a wonderful café, the Nygren Café, where I got a salami, brie and beetroot sandwich, a chocolate covered coconut macaroon dessert called a kokostoppar, along with a cappuccino. I sat outside in the courtyard with many other folks enjoying the beautiful weather. A few birds were very interested in my food and kept visiting my table. Then I went out for a walk along the winding Forsan river which is lined with trees. I found a Labyrinth made of large rocks and an old mansion with beautiful gardens. There was a display of the history of Fika in Alingsas, apparently that is where the idea of Swedish Fika actually started. They even do guided Fika tours! If I have an opportunity to go back, I might see about doing one of those. Then it was time to head to the airport and pick up Stacy! It’s a gorgeous drive there, all views of trees and lakes.
Her flights were all on time and soon we were on our way to our B&B. It is a cute little place in the basement of a large house in a beautiful neighborhood. There are five rooms, we had the largest one which had three single beds in it. Stacy wanted to keep moving so she wouldn’t fall asleep and also needed some caffeine so we walked to the Tradgardsforeningen which has a café right outside a lovely rose garden. Because it was a Sunday afternoon in the middle of everyone’s summer breaks it was a very busy place! We got a cinnamon bun (kanelbullar) to split and a slice of rhubarb cake with a warm vanilla sauce on top- it was very moist and yummy! It was so relaxing sipping our coffee and talking about our upcoming adventures while looking out at the roses and the people. There were also lots of birds very interested in our food! We went for a wander through the gardens then up through the busy part of town that has lots of restaurants and coffee shops, and eventually wound our way back to the B&B, stopping at the local ICA grocery store to pick up shrimp salads for dinner. We were both pretty wiped out so headed to bed as soon as we were done with dinner.
