I was feeling better today. We had a lovely breakfast at the hotel and hit the road. Riding down the main walk along the canal I found out how great it is to a have a bell on the bike. There were about 8 people across the path. One little DING from my bell and they all turned at once and swiftly moved over so we could pass.
Heading out of town, we continued on the gravel trail beside the canal.
Part of the bike trail is a bike ferry up part of the canal to a lake.
We then went on a lovely one-lane country road.
Oh look! A house with BOTH red and yellow!
Made it to Linkoping before 4 pm. It’s a relatively big city compared to the cute little towns we were in the previous nights. We searched for our Airbnb.
Is THIS it?!?
Um. Yes.
Ok, the back entrance looks better.
And it’s totally cute inside!
Oh, and there’s a greeter cat named Puma!
Went down town to see the sights and have dinner.
Then we went to what we translated as Church Garden. I LOVE gardens! … It was a cemetery. Not the plantings we had anticipated…
OSMAnd provided two alternatives to get from Linkoping to Kisa. It flipped back and forth depending on whether I selected the “Consider terain” option. In the end I picked the option that appeared the most direct and easy to navigate. Not the route considering terrain.
We climbed more today with a number of extended hills. I considered before I left home replacing my current 32-tooth rear cassette with a 36-tooth cassette (something I swapped out on Linda’s bicycle to make her more able to climb). Kinda missed that I hadn’t done that for myself today.
We found a lovely AirBnB in Kisa. Linda spent part of the evening talking politics with the host.
Today was lovely! The weather was perfect – temps now in the low 70s, beautiful puffy clouds, and idyllic Swedish countryside. But also hills. Lots of hills! Did I say I LOVE this e-bike?!? Yes, I still do!
Got to our cute B&B in Kisa.
The host, Roger, was great. I sat and chatted with him a bit on the deck. He explained some basics of Swedish politics. We talked about how great the biking is in Sweden. He says the Swedish are very focused on safety.
He also explained the houses that are painted red. In olden times, the wealthy folks had red brick houses, often with sandstone on the corners. When less wealthy folks could afford to paint there wooden structures, they chose a similar red and would paint vertical corner slats in white.
He had no explanation for all the yellow houses, although I keep seeing yellow brick houses, so maybe it’s the same copy-cat explanation.
We left Soderkoping at the traditional 10 am. The path out followed a canal with many locks (once three locks back to back!). The path dead-ended into a bicycle-specific ferry that took us 6 km through the canal to the other side.
After that the day followed meandering byways. The temperatures dropped today into the low 70s, with scattered clouds.
Except for the section of one-lane country road, we followed dedicated bicycle path all day.
Until the last 20 feet or so we didn’t have any problem finding our AirBnB. But we found our way in, got cleaned up, and road back into the city to explore and grab dinner. All told about 59 km. We saw 7 cycle tourists today, even being off Eurovelo 10.
I was still feeling bad – sinuses and chest bothering me – so I went to the apothecary in town where a very helpful pharmacist got me some allergy meds.
We strolled around the town, which has a cute pedestrian area along the main canal, which is active with lots of boats.
There is also a second canal that is mostly full of vegetation and some art, enjoyed by the local wildlife.
Rick hiked up to a scenic overlook while I watched boats going through a lock.
Feeling under the weather. Likely allergies from all the nature we are biking past. While Rick wandered the town, I partook of the ($10 – such a deal!) spa facilities, including pools, jacuzzi, sauna, rain showers, and back to the jacuzzi. Ahhh!
I awoke to the forecast driving rain. Starting at 6 am and previously to stop at noon or so, now forecast to end at 2 pm. With flood watch alerts, and the weather radar suggesting the worst of the weather to occur just before that.
Linda woke to find her allergies … aren’t allergies.
Planning ahead inversely can make schedule changes more difficult. Instead of cycling to Linkoping today and staying a couple of nights, we’ll now stay in Soderkoping another day, and spend only a day in Linkoping (despite our 2-day reservation) to put us back on schedule. The weather will pass and Linda will hopefully feel better tomorrow. I can explore town further, go grocery shopping, etc. while Linda sleeps (I expect more spa time). I messaged our AirBnB host in Linkoping to let him know our updated plan.
I wandered about town in the rain for a while. Later Linda and I went out to pick up colds meds. I climbed the path to the local scenic overlook.
Linda stayed below and watched boats pass through the canal lock.
Last year I gave Linda my secondary (and larger) panniers. That eventually meant she carried more stuff (food) and thus more weight. This year we started off with me using the larger panniers, so I would default to more of the weight. With the e-bike, that equation swings back the other way. Tonight we swapped the panniers back to Linda having the larger panniers. We would have made the exchange in Stockholm regardless, but the few extra pounds won’t impact the range of the e-bike.
Linda’s allergies kicked in and she had a hard time sleeping. I finally woke her at 9:30 am so we wouldn’t miss out on breakfast.
We had our second ferry today. We’d planned lunch for arrival at the terminal. If we had to wait for the ferry, we could eat while we waited. As Linda pointed out, welcome to socialism. We rolled onto the ferry just before it departed. No fees, no fuss.
On the other side a cyclist waited for the return trip, but instead chose to have lunch with us. A German cyclist with not much farther to go today. He’s headed north, to eventually take a ferry back to Gdansk Poland and home. He said I looked like I’d done this a lot (with no explanation as to what that meant!)
The route today (our last day on Eurovelo 10) included far fewer hills. Instead we rode with long sections of shallow gradient. We stopped for a break every 10 km (with the longer lunch break at 36 km) ending the day with 66 km under our wheels.
Today felt like we had our groove on. With me riding in front at my own pace, I’m a lot more comfortable. Linda used more “e”, but the shorter distance and more level terrain left her still with 5 bars on the e-bike at the end of the day.
To Linda’s dismay I missed a turn near the end of the day, riding 3 km past our turn. While we ended up on only slightly larger road, after rerouting the net result saved us a kilometer or two, so she forgave me.
Part of the solution to our overall trip navigation routed us to tonight’s quite nice hotel in Soderkoping. Once we settled in, I set off to explore Soderkoping. Linda set off to explore the spa.
I used to mention the mundane tasks of every day, but I generally don’t bother any more. Most every day there’s hand-washing clothes, shopping at a grocery store, packing and unpacking, charging the electronics, checking over the bikes, etc. Today’s remote route included nothing even vaguely like a store, so we’ll go shopping in the morning.
The German cyclist from earlier today mentioned that Soderkoping resembles a tourist trap. Riding into town, a small tourist trolley carried the associated tourists around town. Multiple lively restaurants sit along the local canal, and interested features made Soderkoping a cute tourist town.
Six cycle tourists passed us today. 20 passed us yesterday! That should decrease as we leave Eurovelo 10 tomorrow.
Yesterday evening we rode directly through Nykoping to reach the hotel. With a slow start this morning, we wandered into Nykoping. Which on a Sunday morning also had a slow start.
We walked to and around the castle and museum. We both decided that it was too hot to play putt-putt in the sun, especially given our sun exposure for the past couple days. Nearby we found an open air flea market.
We then spent several concentrated hours working on navigational woes. Planning to cycle only ~60 km each day, while avoiding camping, doesn’t provide enough (or in some cases any) options for accommodation along the Eurovelo 10 route. Throughout that discussion we struggled across multiple tools (booking.com, Airbnb, warmshowers.org, Trivago, Hostelworld, hotels.com, STF, etc.) unable to stitch together the remainder of the Sweden trip between availability and distances. Ironically, the chosen path on Eurovelo 10 also fell too short at that pace by a couple of days for our arrival in Oskarshamm and our ferry to Gotland.
The only option was abandoning Eurovelo 10. Our route will now leave the coast, riding a larger circle before looping back to Oskarshamn. Most of the days should now be around 65 km with a short day and a long day (still not 110 km!), and another layover in a couple of days. I can definitely say I now have reservations for the trip in Sweden.
