Short trip to Gothenburg

From Kiel, we took a mini trip with Stena Line to Gothenburg on the weekend.

In the early evening, we boarded the ship and watched as the ship left the port of Kiel and sailed past Laboe towards Sweden under a blue sky.

The next morning, we arrived in Gothenburg around 9 am, where we had until 5 pm to explore the city.

Not far from the pier, there was a public ferry that would take us to the starting point of our tour through the city center.

Along the way, there were a few stops until we arrived at the Lilla Bommenshamn stop.

Our tour started at the tall ship Barken Viking. Next to it is Göteborg Utkiken, a building that was supposed to have an observation deck, but we couldn't find the entrance.

So we walked along the waterfront and past the modern opera house.

Maybe we were just too early: Many things seemed to open at 11 am, such as Maritiman, a museum consisting of 13 ships.

With the beautiful weather, we preferred to spend the day outdoors rather than in a museum. So we also passed by the city museum on our way to Kronhuset, the oldest secular building in the city.

In the courtyard, there are small yellow buildings where arts and crafts and sweets are sold - but not all of them were open yet.

It got busier as we arrived at Gustav Adolfs Torg with the City Hall.

On the city map, it looked like there was a pedestrian zone in the area, but it turned out to be a huge shopping arcade with even street signs.

We continued towards the city center across the Stora Hamnkanalen.

There, we made a detour to the cathedral, which was the third church building here after two city fires.

We continued past the beautifully green Rosenlundskanalen.

This brought us to the historic district of Haga, once a residential area for the poorer population.

After the district was renovated, it has become a popular (and expensive) residential area since the 1990s.

Here, we took a break in one of the numerous cafes and ate one of the huge cinnamon buns.

With our stomachs full, we then made our way up to Skansen Kronan.

No shots were fired from the fortress, but today you can enjoy a beautiful view of the city from there.

After descending, we encountered the track of the Göteborg Varvet, a half marathon taking place in the city center on this Saturday.

We walked past the racecourse, which was lined with many spectators.

It wasn't easy to cross the track due to the large number of participants in the race. But we eventually made it to Kungsportsavenyn, the city's grand boulevard.

At Götaplatsen, at the end of Avenyn, not only the runners turned around, but also we.

We made one last detour to Trädgårdsföreningenspark.

There is also an old palm house with a very tropical climate on this day.

At the main train station, we took the bus: Due to the race, we had to use the replacement service as trams could not run through the city center.

Despite a slightly longer travel time, we made it back to the ship on time in the evening.