Title refers to the sun rising in the North (NNE to be exact) here.
I feel I should fill you in on what I got upto on Tuesday. I kinda skipped that bit. It was a very eventful day. I was just feeling a little ill yesterday.
Back on Tuesday…
I left pretty early skipping breakfast and getting on my bike and riding into Sweden. I didn’t look at the time when I left or when I arrived but I was about 30 or so miles into Sweden when I saw the time was 9:20 so I must have been in way before 9am. After crossing the really long tunnel and then very long bridge in fierce and freezing winds, paid my toll and then entered Sweden I got interrogated at the boarder. They strip searched… my bike. Apparently, it’s illegal to import cats and dogs into Sweden, so that was a close call.
I made it to Sí¶lvesborg in good time and was in the information center/town hall by around 10ish. I was asking about the Lister Court House and was directed the right direction and whilst I was loitering in the information place a woman approached me. Worked out she was writing a book on Erik Gunner Asplund and had requested the keys to the premises to the court house so she could photograph it for her book. So that stroke of luck really put a kick in the right direction for my day. We talked about architecture all the way to the building, she seemed really interesting and her book seems great. Although, ignorantly I totally didn’t catch her name. The building is currently owned by a music school but there is a preservation order on the court room and the jourers deliberating room. However, luck had it that the care-taker knew quite a bit about the building and he talked to us about it in more depth telling us little annecdotes about how the judge used to live in the part above the court and how his wife would open a small observation window to let him know that his dinner was ready.
Here’s a pic:
Anyhow, having not had breakfast and having had that stroke of luck I treated myself to a plush lunch in a really nice cafe. It was totally inexpensive and it was like walking into a venue where only beautiful exist.
The ride to Alvesta was straightforward but that’s where it all went down hill. I had to ride another 20 miles back the way I came to get to a campsite, which I did to save money, but ended up spending as much, if not more than I would have if I had just gone to the Hostel. I had to join the Scandinavian camping association to camp there. Then I got a stomach bug from the water there, which made me really ill yesterday.
Proof:
