Day 5: In Wallander's Footsteps

'On a gray September morning, two lonely figures wandered through the alleys of Ystad. A light drizzle fell on them as they suddenly...

stood in front of Kurt Wallander's house. 😂

After toast with jam or salami and banana yogurt in the accommodation, we set off early in the morning to Ystad, the home of the famous detective Kurt Wallander from the crime novels by Henning Mankell. The gray sky provided an extremely fitting backdrop as we strolled through the city following Wallander's footsteps with the help of a guidebook and visited his house, his favorite library, and other locations from the books and movies. Overall, Ystad is a very pretty, sleepy town with a beautiful beach and many small houses in the old town - definitely worth a visit even without Wallander.

After a stop at the pier, we treated ourselves to a coffee and a piece of cake at Wallander's favorite café 'Fridolfs Konditori' before taking the train back to Malmö.

After about a 50-minute train ride, we arrived back in Malmö and got a train reservation for tomorrow at the main train station. From here, we walked to Malmöhus Castle, which houses a museum with several exhibitions and is located in the middle of the city on an island. Due to the late hour, we decided to only walk around the premises and came across the very pretty castle mill and the somewhat neglected castle garden. By the way, it seems that Malmö ducks eat apples for dinner.

After a complete walk around, we decided to take a stroll through the old town. After watching the finish of a very strange race at Stortorget, we rested for a moment at the lovely little square 'Lilla Torg' before heading home.

And here the odyssey began. Malmö is an absolute public transportation disaster: bus tickets can only be purchased through an app or customer cards that must be bought and topped up at the train station. No, bus drivers do not accept any cash and nowhere is it explained how it works. The distances on foot are long and the street signs are poor, and there is a constant danger of being run over by cyclists. A question that automatically arises: what is the life expectancy of an average Malmö pedestrian?

Eventually, we finally arrived at the accommodation after a meal of burgers and calzone gave us some strength halfway through the journey.

Conclusion: Malmö definitely has some beautiful spots, but we all agree - it could be more tourist-friendly. Spending the night in Ystad with a day trip to Malmö would probably have been the better choice, but at least the accommodation was nice and we still had a lot of fun. 😄

Tomorrow we will continue to Västervik on the east coast. The journey will be long, so goodnight from us in Malmö!