We arrived on the 3rd of October to a misty Gothenburg harbour and were collected by Janne who took us to his daughter Josefin’s house who lives in the middle of Gothenburg. We then all wen with her and her delightful 3month old son Loui to Alingsas which is about 1/2 hour away from Gothenburg to where Janne and Cajsa live. It is a beautiful town of about 25,000 people with a lot of wooden houses and trees are all starting to change colour and others lose their leaves.
Most of the houses and gardens in the smaller towns we visited in Germany and in Alingsas do not have large fences or gates surrounding them. The average temperature was about 10degrees so it was cold outside but nice and warm inside the house. We all had lunch and their son Robert joined us at a lovely little Italian trattoria run by an Italian friend of theirs who has lived in Sweden for the last 40years. We had changeable weather – a mixture of sun,cloudy skies and rain but with Autumn here we couldn’t complain after all the good weather we have had. Josefin took us on a walking tour of the town which we enjoyed.
Aligsas has a festival of lights which runs for all of October and since 2000 leading lighting designers from all over the world have been invited to come and set up lighting displays and to demonstrate their expertise. It was a bit wet the first night so we didn’t venture out to see it. Instead the family all came together and we had a lovely dinner at home.
On Thursday Maurice and I had a relaxing day. We put on our walking gear and went for a long walk around the town and stopped for a coffee and a sandwich. Prices here in Sweden are much higher than in Germany with 1sandwich and 2coffees costing about $20.
In the evening Maurice went with Janne and eight other work colleagues from the local newspaper and friends went to see the lights of Alingsas on a horse drawn wagon with a stop to warm up with Swedish whisky and mulled wine. Cajsa and I and her daughter in law Therese went instead to a fashion show in town held at a shop which had everything from kitchen layouts to handmade Swedish designer ornaments and ceramics. After champagne and canapes we moved on to the dress shop to see the latest winter fashions. We then met up with the men and walked home.
On Friday Maurice and I caught the train into Gothenburg and walked around the city which has a very laid back feel to it. After lunch we met up with Josefin and Loui and we went through a wonderful fish market which sold an amazing array of fresh fish and seafood of every kind as well as per prepared fish dishes. Josefin then took us to her favourite old part of town where we had coffee in one of the many coffee shops in town.
We then went up to a tower on the top of a hill where we had a good view of all of Gothenburg. We caught the train back to Alingsas in the early evening. Cajsa and Janne had arranaged a dinner party for us and six of their friends and we all had a great night with a delicious fish and seafood meal.
On Saturday morning they kindly took us into Gothenburg where we caught a very comfortable bus to Oslo. It was a beautiful sunny day and the scenery along the way was of lakes and lush fields and forests.