Today was a driving day through lovely landscapes. The relief of the land is low, with the hills being crystalline basement rocks scoured flat by the passage of the glaciers of the Ice Age. Most of the "hills" support fairly open forests, and in between pasture and wheat are being grown. To me the wheat looks ready for harvest, but I imagine the farmers are letting it get as dry and dense as possible.
Our first stop after leaving Stockholm was at the Dream Park in Enköping (self-proclaimed city of parks). The Dream Park is a smaller portion of a bigger park where a landscape horticulturalist went crazy planting any imaginable flowering plant in Sweden. Not being flower aficionados we limited ourselves to enjoying the kaleidoscope of colors and pushed forward to visit the Church of Notre Dame (Vårfrukyrkan in Danish), which is a 12th century Catholic Church that was converted to Evangelic during the Reformation. The glass windows and wall paintings are very nice.
We then drove to the Ship Museum near Vasteras. This open-air museum is someone's private collection of full-size replicas of boats from the Viking time (which to us looked smaller than what the movies represent--but let's remember that the Vikings were traders, and probably had a greater need for cargo boats than for fighting boats), an amazing replica of a Hansa trading boat that you could visit, and toy versions of trebouchets and other medieval tools and technologies.
We were getting hungry, but before going to Vesteras we stopped at the Anungshög (meaning Anungs Mound) archeologic site. This was a Viking royal burial site, where after the burial folks piled dirt to a height of 10 meters or so, and then planted a dolmen with all sorts of beautiful runes and built fine "ships" by marking the oval outline of ships with large stones. Archaeologists speculate that the mound was the meeting location of the people's council, or Ting, where disputes were aired in public and conflicts were resolved by the elders of the community.
Vasteras, the largest town in our itinerary, claims to be one of the oldest towns in Sweden, going back to the early medieval period. We thought the center would be defined by narrow alleys but were disappointed. Old houses have the same aspect of heavy log constructions painted in dark red we saw in Viby, but the whole area around the cathedral was rebuilt in later times as public buildings. By this time it was too late to think about lunch, so we stopped for a coffee and Géraldine bought herself a chocolate ball, which is some type of pastry loaded with chocolate and coated with coconut shavings. Great if you are looking for a sugar high!
We took a small detour to see the Hljesta petroglyphs, which we visited taking advantage of an old "law" of Sweden: The Right to Wander. This "law" gives anyone the right to wander through fields and farms (as long as no damage is done) at your will. In this case we wandered behind a barn to look at two granite floors, leveled by the glaciers, where close to 100 petroglyphs have been painted. There are several dozen ships represented, as well as several human figures and all sorts of geometric designs. The site is a registered historical landmark, but I have my suspicions because the red paint looks suspiciously new and bright. The petroglyphs are not scratched unto the rocks but simply painted on them, and I find hard to believe they have withstood several hundreds of years of exposure to sun and rain.
Géraldine booked a B&B at Ervalla, and when we got there our friendly hostess, Christina, welcomed us with open arms. She is so cute. Her English is good but not great, an she has the strong accent that we have heard in the movies, with many interjections of "Ja, ja". But her smile was beautiful and we will spend a very comfortable night here. We have two bedrooms but the flat is pretty much ours because there are no other costumers. Through the windows we have a fabulous view of rural Sweden, which on a sunny day like today would be hard to beat anywhere else.
At the suggestion of Christina we drove 20 minutes to Nora to look for our dinner. Nora is a pretty town, by the side of a lake, and in comparison has a bustling afternoon life. Even though it was already 6:30 pm the sun was shining brightly and people were taking a boat out or simply basking in the sun at the center plaza. We ate on the terrace of one of the restaurants by the plaza, fully enjoying the sun and the people watching.
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