Month: May 2017

Journey to the Southernmost and South-easternmost of Sweden

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skane-map
Map of Skåne is retrieved from here.

As a new resident in Skåne (also known as Scania in English), I received a complimentary JOJO card valid for two weeks to travel around the region for free with Skånetrafiken. This promo applies to every person who has just moved to Skåne and is registered in Skatteverket, the Swedish Tax Agency. Skånetrafiken itself is the public transport provider in Skåne that runs services throughout the province. With Skånetrafiken, we can travel with single tickets, Skånetrafiken app and JOJO card. The complementary JOJO card is worth around 650sek (equal to approximately $75), so it really is a good deal. I didn’t want to waste this opportunity for sure. I’ve been to some municipalities in Skåne like Lund (of course! 😆 ), Malmö, Lomma, Landskrona, and Helsingborg, but there are still lots more to explore. Too bad, the card arrived in early May when I was preparing (then having) a trip to Stockholm (Stockholm is outside the Skåne area by the way so I couldn’t use the card there). Thus, I missed my first week of the complimentary period and only had few days left to travel around the region (sigh!). However, thanks to Zaki Habibi (who insisted me to have a weekend getaway), I was at least able to visit these three counties in Southernmost and South-easternmost of Sweden:

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When in Stockholm

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Just like any other capital city in the world, Stockholm has what a capital could offer: the dynamic, the excitement, the access and the availability. The city itself is very hectic with people commute here and there every minute. But, unlike other capital cities, which tend to be polluted, Stockholm is awarded as the cleanest capital city on Earth (source). This makes traveling in Stockholm is physically and mentally refreshing 😊 .

In Stockholm, you will never run out of idea how to spend the day. Even when the weather is surprisingly weird (for example sleet on May, yes, May! 😅 ), there is always something to do or somewhere to go in Stockholm. And indeed, my 4 days stay there went by in a glance. So, here are the places we managed to visit during our stay in Stockholm:

  1. Skansen Open Air Museum

Located on the island Djurgården in Stockholm, Skansen is the first open air museum (a museum that exhibits collections of buildings and artifacts out-of-doors) and zoo in Sweden. This place is perfect for family outing as you can spend the whole day here learning about Swedish culture and history, petting the Scandinavian animals, having a picnic or even having elk meat for lunch (and that’s exactly what we did 😁 )

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“Sola i Karlstad” (The Sun in Karlstad)

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Haven’t posted anything since last month because I was distracted by other (let’s say) “projects” 😄 . But hey, now I’m back again. And this post will be the beginning of my traveling series, as I want to write some posts about Swedish cities I’ve been visited on April and early May 2017. I’ll start with Karlstad, then the capital Stockholm, then southern and east southern part of Skåne, especially Ystad, Simrishamn and Trelleborg.

So, let’s start with Karlstad.

Karlstad is a city in the Värmland province in Sweden, where Sweden’s longest river, Klarälven, runs into Sweden’s largest lake, Vänern. I went there during the Easter break at the beginning of April so it was supposed to be Spring but Sweden has that so called April Weather (when weather is so unpredictable) so it wasn’t that “springy” after all 😆 . We took the SJ regional train from Lund to Karlstad (with short transit in Gothenburg). In total, it was around 6 hours trip including the layover, but with scenic views during the trip and Wi-Fi on board, it felt like two hours. Haha.

The symbol for Karlstad is a smiling sun as Karlstad is often associated with sunshine. Karlstad is indeed reputed to be one of the sunniest towns in Sweden. That’s why the slogan of the city is “Sola i Karlstad” (the Sun in Karlstad). Originally, it was referring to a beautiful girl working as a waitress at several inns in Karlstad named Eva Lisa Holtz. She was well known for her “sunny” and cheerful personality so she got the nickname “sola” which means “the sun” in the Värmland accent. Nowadays, the expression also refers to its reportedly sunny weather (Wikipedia).

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