Kalmar and the Glass Kingdom - from Öland to Växjö

In the morning we set off from Öland and drove back to the mainland to Kalmar.

First, we walked through the “Old Town”, where a few wooden houses still stand.

Kalmar is one of the oldest cities in Sweden, where the Kalmar Union, uniting all Scandinavian kingdoms, was signed in 1397.

After seeing many castles the previous day, we decided against a visit to the castle.

Instead, we walked through the adjoining park and solved a crime riddle from the app “Adventure Lab”.

During this, we learned that trees can also be vaccinated, as we had to help the commissioner find the missing vaccination.

Just like the policeman in the little story, we also felt like taking a break in a café afterwards.

Afterwards, we went to the island of Kvarnholmen, which has housed the town center since the 17th century.

To protect against Danish attacks, there was a city wall around the center, which is still partly preserved today.

In this district, there are noticeably many stone houses for Sweden, to provide better protection against fires.

After our tour, we left Kalmar and headed west into the Småland Glass Kingdom between Nybro and Växjö.

This area has a long tradition of glassmaking, and today there are many smaller glassworks that create artistic everyday objects and decorations.

On the region's website, one-to multi-day tours to various locations of glass art are suggested. We decided that visiting an exhibition was enough for us, and we drove to the “Glass Factory” (Glasmuseet i Boda).

We were received very friendly and then allowed to walk through the exhibition on our own.

Various works by modern artists were presented.

There was also a section of the exhibition dedicated to the history of glassblowing in Sweden.

Various special exhibitions accompanied this.

For one project, workshops were conducted with women from the South African artist association “Ubuhle”.

The works of these female artists are made entirely from glass beads in various shapes and sizes.

Our last stop was the nature reserve Notteryd, where we spent the night at a small hiking parking lot.

We also had time for a short hike, which took us through the forest and along the shore of a lake.