In Karlstad

As I write this from our hotel room (the hotel's called Good Morning Karlstad), we have two and a half more days to go in Sweden, then we'll be in Norway for the rest of our trip. Today we took a morning train from Örebro to Katrinehamn (not to be confused with Katrineholm where we were on Friday afternoon and Saturday morning), via Hallsberg, Hasselfors, Degerfors and other such small stations, expecting to stay on this train all the way to Karlstad, our destination of today, but part of the track ahead was undergoing repairs, so we had to get off. I'm ashamed to say that Chris understood the Swedish message about this when I did not. Then a member of the railway staff came into our carriage to tell us in English about the replacement bus, confirming what Chris had worked out. The bus too went via intermediate stops on the railway line, but there was nobody waiting to climb in. Most of the way we rode along the E18, the main highway from Stockholm to Oslo, passing lakes, rocky woods, fields with grazing cows, red farm buildings.

At Karlstad we retrieved our luggage from the bottom of the bus and trundled it through the city towards our hotel, down the Järgsgatan. I had printed a screen shot of the map before leaving Ottawa so knew which direction to take. On the way we had a light lunch at one of the many coffee shops here, as in other Swedish cities. Also typical, I now realise, are the obligatory places on the map labelled Stora Torget, Radhuset, Drottninggatan, Kungsgatan, Trädgarden, Domkyrkan and so on, the cobbled traffic free areas, the riverside walks, the magnolias in the parks. Sweden is thoroughly growing on me. Every kind of person rides a bike, both in Örebro and here, such a pleasurable habit --- in the spring particularly. People have happy looks on their faces. Before we entered the waiting area at Örebro station this morning I took a photo of the hundreds of parked bikes outside it, so obviously the same thing happens there. This afternoon we sat on a bench by the river beside the Opera house in Karlstad, watching the passing cyclists, old, young, helmeted, unhelmeted, for a long time. Further along on our walk we saw an off-road digital counter making a tally of the walkers and cyclists passing by (and incidentally giving the time, date and current air temperature). The number of bikes counted today was approaching 1000.

This afternoon's wanderings took us down to the docks (new residential and commercial developments here, as in Västeras. As we set off beside the inner harbour, inre hamn, a cruise boat, the Stella Polaris, was pulling in. We walked from there to the end of a jetty from which we could see the industrial part of this port with its cargo ships, at the northern end of Lake Vänern, the largest lake in Sweden and in the EU. Having explored some of the waterfront and sat on a bench by the reeds, we walked back to the city centre through an underpass which gives the latitude and longitude of this point, N 59° 22' 11", E13° 30' 44". For the sake of comparison Chris searched on his smartphone for the Ottawa co-ordinates, which are N45°24'40", W75°41'53". In other words, we are 1551 km north of Ottawa, or only just south of Whitehorse, in the Yukon. Karlstad lies on the river Klarälven which originates in Norway.

Karlstad is one of the sunniest places in Sweden and today (13 May 2019) has been no exception. A sculpture by the bridge, the Västrabron, is of a 17th century waitress whose nickname was Sola i Karlstad (the Sun in Karlstad) because of "her sunny disposition". The tourist leaflet we picked up says that the Sandgrundsparken, on a pointed spit of land between inlets, is "a park with sloping waves and green valleys surrounded on both sides by one of the longest rivers in Sweden, the Klarälven." I was puzzled by that description, but when I saw it, I understood what the writer meant:

We had supper outdoors at a restaurant in the Stora Torget: grilled beef with bearnaise sauce and chips, delicious. The Fredsmonument in the middle of Karlstad's central square, celebrating "the peaceful dissolution of the union between Sweden and Norway in 1905" shows a female figure, Peace, stomping on the head of War (baring his horrible teeth) to do him in. Chris says she's a formidable woman, and we both like the concept!