So, around one month ago I went to Sweden, again. Technically just for shopping in Charlottenberg, as previously, but it turned out to be quite a spontaneous trip. And those are always the best ones!
We didn’t plan that, obviously. Me and my partner just wanted to go for a food shopping (actually, he had to shop, I was just a travel companion; I never say no for any kind of trip!). We only knew that we have quite a lot of time, and there’re signs of city named Karlstad almost everywhere, so it has to be quite an important place. By car, it’s around 106 km from Charlottenberg, 1,5-hour drive, so not that bad. And after all, why not?
The drive itself was quite chilled and fast because those two cities are connected by 61, Swedish national road, which is a huge highway. Generally speaking a good ride, and the weather was so nice!
Karlstad, capital of Värmland County, isn’t too big. From its structure (city plan) it reminds me most of all of Kristiansand; it’s square-ish, and every corner looks similar. Really easily had we fallen into a loop, we went through the same streets twice or even more, not even noticing. But there’s nothing bad about that – the city is really beautiful, with nice architecture and happy people everywhere.
There was only one problem: bikes everywhere. Don’t get me wrong, I support using bikes to get everywhere, but being scared everytime another bike passes me was ridiculous. They drive on the sidewalk, on road, literally any place, so you can’t expect them. I don’t know if there are no strict rules about that in Sweden or what <confused>.
The city has a bunch of beautiful places to catch a breath on, like this park or a little boardwalk by the river Klar. Actually, the city is surrounded by water, anywhere you would go, you will end up by the river or some pond, which is nice.
People really enjoyed the good weather, on the boardwalk there were tons of young people just hanging around, playing some music or just talking. The best place to chill!
After being only on breakfast and bunch of snacks the whole day, we started to get really hungry, so we decided to find some nice place with a garden. There’s nothing better than being in a restaurant on such lovely day and being able to eat in the restaurant’s garden! The O’Learys was our choice. I took a classic dish, fish’n’chips, and he took, I think, a schnitzel with bbq sauce.
After that awesome dinner we went for the last walk by the river Klar and waited a little bit for a sunset, but there was no good place to view it, unfortunately. But we caught some nice sunsets on the way back home.
Right now, in Norway, there’s a thing called midnight sun. It means that the Sun doesn’t go down fully, this sunset you can see on pictures was following us up until around 1-2 am. On one hand, it’s really beautiful feature, because you can’t really say “Oh, I missed the sunset, not again”, because it lasts longer. But on the other hand, it’s hard to fall asleep if you don’t have thick and dark curtains in a bedroom because the light will wake you up.
And the most ridiculous thing happened soon when we crossed the border, in Norway. Police stopped us! I was so scared when I saw those police lights in the wing mirror, but we weren’t speeding or anything like that, so I didn’t know what was happening. There was this really kind police lady that just wanted to investigate if we have drugs or we have too much alcohol (you can’t take too much alcohol or cigarettes into Norway). I mean, I could understand her. Two people from two different countries, not Norwegians, passing the Swedish border at around 2 am. That’s suspicious! But it was all good after all.
I hope you guys liked this little travel post. I know it’s not Norway, but I thought why not post also some other countries if I happened to be lucky enough to visit them. So here you go! Next time will be something from a closer place (and more familiar one).
Have a great week everybody!
againorway 
One thought on “Karlstad, Sweden.”