June 19: Day 49, Rest day in Sundsvall
Rest day today. I slept in until 8; breakfast ends at 9 so I couldn't be too lazy. They had some good muesli, and even had berry yoghurt! And an infinite supply of coffee. All the Scandinavian countries seem to drink a lot of coffee - even more than the Netherlands. It's normally filter coffee though, lattes etc are not always an option at restaurants. I think I need to stop hoping to see pastries at breakfast though; they have bread rolls and that’s probably as good as it’ll get.
I went for a walk through town at midday. There’s a spectacular bridge over the harbour: “Sundsvallsbron”, ie “Sundsvalls bridge”. I was keen to get a good look at it and that mean walking all the way to through the city center. It was quite hot today; that doesn’t ever seem to a problem when I’m on the bike, but it was while wandering around town…
From left to right: the sky at midnight last night. The roofs often have barriers, presumably to control how the snow slides off. Sundsvallsbron. The museum; unfortunately it’s closed for Midsommar.
I stopped in at a cafe for lunch, and had a traditional (?) Swedish sandwich with meatballs and cubed beetroot filling. I’ve had a few other sandwiches like that here, but didn’t make the connection that it was Swedish. Now I know!
The city center has some friendly plastic dragons, all different poses, all painted. I photographed two, wish I’d got more now.
From left to right: Swedish sandwich, note the filling which is purple from the beetroot. The two dragons.
Ended up going out to an Italian restaurant for dinner, to take care of some pasta cravings. The dessert was excellent, pastry and icecream with hot chocolate…
What I’m listening to: Bjork. She’s Icelandic but that’s basically local, right? Here’s one from each of her first three albums.
Bachelorette: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Th7QmZiz6Lc
Hyper-ballad:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r2Kai_fkIks
Come to Me: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1ueuTiYm4A
