My Resistance friend who already had made it to Gothenburg wrote, that he’d in Gothenborg this evening, still. I was a bit in between maximizing bike distance and visiting and actually seeing the city of Gothenborg. So I decided for the sevond, especially after my landlord in the Stromsted-suburb had told me that there was a train from Stromsted Station to Gothenburg. Eight km were not enough for one day’s cycling, but I started towards the city. There I found me a delicious breakfast at a street food place, sat at the harbor and just enjoyed. After that I rode to the train station and checked their itinerary. Train every other hour, but now a bus instead of a train (no bike)
So I waited for the bus driver and asked and this man ensured me that all other trains were trains and very well bike transporting. So I set off to make my way South for a bit more, something around 40km, to one of the next train stations. Again, beautiful landscape, low resolution GPX, and a lot traveling along the highway. In Tarumshede I found the train station, got the bike into the next train – some passengers told me which app to install and I was shocked to hear that a 100km ride by train was just ten Euro.
Getting something like this in Germany- unthinkable. Yes, the 9Euro ticket. Now 49 Euro. And you can go all over the place. But still a huge mess if you don’t know if you can take a bike or not. When you can take a bike. And – this train just came. And was comfy to board.
Two hours later I arrived in Gothenburg. My last smurf water from the anomaly has been sacrificed to my thirst.
I had booked a traditional hotel, met up with my friend for some Sushi and beer, got to sleep fairly early because I knew I had a two night-bus ride in front of me.
Next day I knew I had to board a bus at 3:40 at night. So I had a full day in Gothenburg, could do some sightseeing, etc. My bike got chained close to the station, my luggage got locked away in the train station. So I was free to go through town, doing an ingress mission of the greenhouse in the botanic garden. Did a boat tour, just because my friend had recommended that. Visited the markethall, getting some cheese and rhubarb curd and Knäcke for the family. Visited an outdoors shop (who can avoid that??)
The boat tour took me an hour and I could see the tall ship Viking from the seaside, the red-white lipstick building and many a more things.
I went through town through the main street, shopping mile, saw a strange rainbow on the ground and needed a little girl to figure out where this came from
After this I found me some food, in a very nice streetside restaurant. Then I still had many hours to kill, so I decided to visit a cinema. Barbie or Oppenheimer – my decision was clear and Oppenheimer is a decent movie, where I did not understand the Swedish subtitles but could follow the OV sound track. Still time, so I found another mission to do, which went close to midnight – out of town. I seriously could not finish it. At Midnight right away I did my daily mile, just because it would be difficult to do this while flixbussing. And then the shock. The railway station was locked up. Google maps had prepared me when I entered the coordinates but until I saw I did not believe.
In the meantime I had unchained my bike and pushed it in search for an entry. Luckily I found one open door, rescued my locked-away bags, and found a bench to sit and wait.
Until Security threw me out of the building. My protest that I was waiting was ignored. We have a station to wait in buut you may not wait. Supposedly they had had trouble with loitering people. Vagabondy as I looked like with my overladen bike.. whatever. I walked my B2 into the Niels Ericson Terminal, the Bus station. Found a bench. Waited.
Until Security threw me out of the building. Wait. No. My bus was due in an hour and they threw me out of reach. They promised the’d open up in half an hour and I could catch my bus. And so it happened. Okay, 40 minutes. But I caught my bus, had the bike mounted, and under bright green light the bus took me to Berlin. Because this is the most direct path…….
