Day 58 Lysekil, Sweden

 And in the blink of an eye we are back in Sweden, this time on the west coast. Philip did another bike ride and I did a Land & Sea West Coast Exploration.  

Philip's ride was short, around 6.5km through the town of Lysekil and then onto the red granite cliffs for a 20 minute walk.  No ride is complete without a coffee stop! Here are some of his photos…...

I went from one ship to another today as my tour included a one hour 40 minute ferry ride to the little fishing village of Smögen.  Our bus collected us from the dock and we did a brief drive around Lysekil before boarding the ferry.  The day started quite foggy but the fog soon lifted into a lovely sunny day.

It is an enjoyable ferry ride as our friends were also doing this tour and we chatted most of the way. The ferry follows the granite coastline, weaving in between the 200,000 islands in this area.  Some you could hardly call an island as they are just rocks pokeing out of the water.  There are tiny fishing settlements tucked into small bays.  The houses are bright and colourful and almost all the same shape.  

We pass by some red granite cliffs where Philip did his bike ride.  This unique red granite was highly prized in the early 20th century for its large glittering crystals.  The landscape was rapidly becoming decimated from the mining and thankfully by the mid 20th century mining ceased.  The land is now a nature reserve.

  We finally reach our destination of Smörgen and once we disembark the ferry we are taken on a short guided walk around the lovely little fishing village.  We walk down narrow laneways where the houses are built extremely close to each other.  This was because the town originated on a chain of small islands and space was limited.  Eventually the gaps were filled in creating a densely packed town. 

Our guide leads us to the incredibly picturesque Smögen Pier boardwalk.  The boardwalk is not very long but it is a stunning landscape.  Colourful fishing huts line the inlet with the dramatic granite cliffs making a picture perfect background. 

If there is anything to complain about it was our free time of 40 minutes was not nearly long enough.  The shops that lined the boardwalk were fully of interesting things that I would loved to have browsed.  But, our bus awaits and in no time we are crossing the river for our return to Lysekil via the 40km inland road.  I arrived home from my tour around the same time as Philip so we decided to have a quick bite to eat and then catch the shuttle bus to explore Lysekil on our own.  Lunch was a "Destination Dish" of Swedish Meatballs, Cranberry Sauce, Mushroom Gravy and garlic mashed potato.  

And the starter of crumbed goats cheese was the perfect beginning to my meal.

It is Sunday here today so when we reach the town centre of Lysekil almost every shop was closed.  That was a little disappointing so after walking around the town centre we thought we might head to a bar for a drink.  But that was also a problem because the only bar that was open was open air.  Sitting in the warm sun and drinking alcohol is just not a good idea for me.  But we enjoyed our walk after lunch and this little Swedish town with a population of just 14,000 is a really lovely destination.

Tomorrow we head a short distance across the Danish Straits and back to Denmark to the town of Skagen.  We really are doing a lot of zig zagging!