Netherlands to Sweden

Last Friday, June 9, 2023, we arrived in the Netherlands at about 5:30 p.m. at the huge harbour in Rotterdam. From there we drove straight to a campsite close to the city centre of Amsterdam. It seemed that we have been able to get one of the last pitches there. After a quick shower we headed to the city centre. Lukas has been here before, Sarah not. After a late dinner we just walked across the whole city. From the beautiful restaurants right by the canal to the red-light district, where people stood on each other's toes so that everyone could look through the famous windows. No matter which corner you turned, everywhere were so many people, some of them real party tourists. But that seems to be well known in this city. Sarah was especially surprised that the nightlife was not limited to a small neighbourhood, but was apparently all over the city. We also went for a drink in a bar and came back to the camping at 1:30 o'clock.

That's why the start into Saturday wasn't as early as usual. We refreshed our camper and around noon we set off to the north. Again, we had to drive many kilometres. Altogether it was 570 kilometres until we stopped at a resting place for the night just after the Danish border.

It is debatable whether or not Denmark belongs to Scandinavia. The Internet says not geographically, but culturally and linguistically it does. Perhaps the gateway to Scandinavia?

On Sunday we drove another 3 hours to Copenhagen. There we found an ideal, even free, parking place at a park right next to the city centre, and from there we visited the city. There was a lot of activity, after all it was a beautiful warm day. We went up and down the canal with the coloured houses and decided to go on a boat tour around the harbour. The tour guide was an Irish woman by the way. It was an interesting tour and offered a quick view around the city from a slightly different perspective. A tip from the internet led us to the Reffen Foodcourt for dinner on the other side of the harbour. Although we walked there for half an hour, we had a wonderful selection of delicious food from all over the world. African, South American, Filipino, even Raclette (but we didn’t take that). We stayed there almost until sunset, ate bites, indulged in a delicious dessert and enjoyed the last rays of sunshine. For the trip home, for which we would have had almost 2 hours by foot, we rented bicycles, which can be unlocked and used within a minute through an app. Copenhagen is probably just as bicycle friendly as Amsterdam and it is very convenient and safe.

Today Monday we went, this time with our bus, to the same corner where the food court is, because only two buildings next door there is a big climbing hall. On the boat tour the day before we learned that there is a huge waste incinerator on this site, with one of the highest climbing walls in Europe attached to the wall. Lukas flirted with it, but since we haven't been able to climb in the last months, an 80 meter high multi-pitch route would have been a bit too much. So, we climbed for about 2 hours in the normal climbing hall and went back to the food court for a nice lunch, because there was still plenty of choice.

Now it was time to go to Sweden! Over the famous but disgustingly expensive Öresund Bridge (67 Euros toll!) we drove to Malmö. The bridge is by the way well known from the crime series 'The Bridge', if you haven't seen it yet, you should definitely do so.

In Malmö we had a coffee in the castle garden and strolled through the city for a short time. It wasn't too exciting for us and that's why we stayed only for an hour. Now we are between Helsingborg and Gothenburg on a cosy picnic spot with a view of the sea and stay here for the night. From now on we continue towards Norway.