Biking, ferries, köttbullar and gummy fish
We’ve done plenty of driving the past few days, seeing this and that in the area. What could be more fun than driving through the countryside of the western coast of Sweden listening to ABBA on the radio? But we’d driven enough.
Sunday morning, five of us (minus Rune, who stayed behind) took the bikes and headed into Lysekil. When you live in the country, you have space for a lot of bicycles. It was a roughly 9-kilometer trip into town, mostly flat, along quiet country roads. There was little traffic, save for a few locals and the occasional lost Norwegian caravan. Swedes are quite respectful of bikers. And the last several kilometers we had the luxury of a nicely paved bike trail. Everything looks nice in Sweden, but not necessarily in an artificial, sterile way.
We cruised into town and headed straight for the ferry dock. Västtrafik, the local public transport company, runs the #847, a ferry, across the sound to Skaftö, calling at Östersidan and Fiskebäckskil. Our plan was to get off at Fiskebäckskil. A salty-faced, well-seasoned crew member cheerfully ushered us and our bicycles onto the ferry. There seems to be many such jolly, seagoing Swedes, all with swarthy sun-kissed faces. This jovial man reminded me of the Swedish Chef except he had a “Three Stooges” style bowl haircut and no mustache. We waited inside the ferry half an hour before departure. The trip across the water took barely 10 minutes, including the call at Östersidan. At Fiskebäckskil, we disembarked and began pedaling uphill, away from the marina. The bike trail continued as a gravel path along the waterfront. The kids were grumpy because they were getting hungry. We pedaled past quaint little brightly-painted cottages with wicker furniture on their decks. Some people live here year-round. I don’t know what there is to do here in winter, when days are short, nights are long and well below freezing, but during the summer, this place is a playground for swimming, fishing, sailing, kayaking, and sunning on the rocks and beaches. Lucky folk!
At one point, we made the kids even grouchier by stopping at a cemetery containing 13 local victims of a cholera outbreak in 1834, but from here it wasn’t much further to Grundsund, another village of quaint clapboard houses clustered on either side of the sound. Here we lashed our bikes together around posts near the public toilets (unisex, like nearly all public toilets in Sweden seem to be) and walked a short distance to a bustling harbor-side restaurant. Seafood is big here in Sweden, and you smell it in every restaurant. We waited to be seated, then when we were called, made our choices off the menu. There weren’t many: it was either seafood (salmon or shrimp), a hamburger, or köttbullar med lingon sylt och potatis, or Swedish meatballs with lingonberry preserves and potatoes. The ladies opted for the seafood options, the rest of us chose the Swedish meatballs. I cannot imagine coming to Sweden and not trying this famous specialty—rather akin to not eating a real hamburger in the United States; however, köttbullar are often on the kids’ menu. We were able to persuade our server to give me an adult-sized portion. The meal was very tasty, and I was quite full. Even better than the meatballs at IKEA. Of course, we had to save room for coffee and ice cream. Because the family has been taking good care of us, Zuza and I offered to pay for the meal. I was glad I ordered a non-alcoholic beer instead of a real one, which would have been twice the price. I nearly had a Swedish heart attack: the price for 5 people, no tip, was easily more than double what I might pay in Slovakia for a similar meal. But this is Sweden, and the food was worth it.
I staggered out of the restaurant, vowing to myself to not eat out very often and to stick to water. We walked around town, stumbling across a grocery store to pick up some snacks and another Swedish specialty I needed to recover from lunch: gummy fish! These are typically in a bin in the store and you "pick n' mix" them. This also kept the kids quiet on the ride back to the ferry.
Swedish gummy fish
Finally, we arrived back at the ferry dock in Fiskebäckskil and let the kids play mini-golf while we waited with a family from Germany and some other local families on bikes for the ferry to come and take us back to Lysekil. The ferry arrived, took us, then churned and heaved its way over the waves the short distance. The same cheery ferryman let us off and gave us a hearty Tack och hej då! (Thanks and goodbye!) Rune brought the car with a bike rack and waited beside the dock to take some of us back home by car. The excursion, including the ferry ride of about 4 kilometers round trip, was 27 kilometers. I'd call it a pretty Swedish day.
Typical storage houses in Grundsund