Europe 2019
We left Umeå early in the morning on the 29th of June and we spent the whole day turfing inland Sweden. Our first stay was Stockholm, where we met up with my sister for a long, long walk and some wonderful Thai food at Mariatorget. Our next stay was Malmö. Along the way we once again did a lot of turfing and we also visited The Karin Boye Memorial in Alingsås where she died in 1941, and Sweden's only preserved medieval stave church at Hedared. In Mariestad we met the turfer Pilgrim, who we had met some years earlier in London.
After Malmö we traveled through Denmark, thus earning the Turf medal Denmark Explorer. We arrived in Bremen in the evening and had a magical evening walking the old city center. Our next part of the trip took us to the Netherlands, where we visited the national park Drents-Frise Wold, chatted with Pilgrim again in Kampen and admired the jugend houses of The Hague and the beauty of the seaside resort Scheveningen. Our travels in the Netherlands rewarded us with the Turf medal Netherlands Explorer. We also visited parts of Belgium, Antwerp and Bastogne.
In Luxembourg City we took a walk in the city center and tried the Skyliner of Luxembourg. After having seen Metz and Nancy in France we arrived in Heidelberg in Germany. We had dinner at a nice restaurant in the old town. On our way to Stuttgart we visited the world heritage site of the monastery Maulbronn, the more modern Porsche Museum and the Mercedes-Benz Museum. At the Porsche Museum Lizette tried Maultasche, an old traditional dish originating from Maulbronn. In Stuttgart we bathed in Mineralbad Cannstatt and also went to Ulm and Nuremberg.
Our next part of the journey took us to Reichenau on the Boden Lake, St Gallen in Switzerland and Vaduz in Liechtenstein. We have been to Vaduz several times but never actually seen the castle before. We both loved it. After Vaduz we drove north again, to the small town of Schwangau, where we saw the small church of St Coloman, the Neuschwanstein Castle, and Lizette went for a steep walk up to the Marienbrücke with wonderful views of the castle itself. The next day we woke up to the sound of horses and hooves on the pavement and took a guided tour of the castle Hohenschwangau, where the parents of Ludwig II stayed during the summers. We then followed the Romantische Strasse to Wieskirche. The church is simply amazing and the view of the Alps spectacular. We had only planned to stay a few minutes but ended up staying several hours admiring the church and having lunch at a restaurant nearby. Lizette once again had her beloved Maultasche. From Wieskirche we continued to Linderhof Castle for another guided tour. With our minds filled with new knowledge of castles and churches we decided it was time for something else for a while and took the cable car to the top of Zugspitze, the tallest mountain of Germany. It was as usual quite foggy at the top but we managed to see some snow.
We stayed the night at Dasing, went shopping the day after in Augsburg and visited the castle of Dachau (castles - again!) before we set out to meet up with our friend Stefan at the airport in Munich. By now it was raining cats and dogs and we were happy to check in at our hotel in Piding. The next day was hot and sunny and we drove to Salzburg for some sightseeing and turfing. Stefan tried Mozartkugeln (chocolate) and we visited the house where Mozart was born. Our next stop was Bad Reichenhall, where we feasted on goulash, knödel and schnitzel before we had to flee the heavy rains by driving to Berchtesgaden and Ramsau. In Ramsau we showed Stefan the famous Malerwinkel and Lizette went for a walk to the small graveyard of St Sebastian. After another night in Piding we went to Innsbruck, where we fell in love with the town. We had Mongolian and Italian food and walked in the parks and the city center. I got the idea of having some vintage posters on the wall when getting home.
We drove on, through the Brenner pass and the Dolomite mountains to Dürrensee, where we had lunch. and then on to Cortina d´Ampezzo in Italy. Cortina is of course famous for hosting the Winter Olympics in 1956, and they will host the games once again in conjunction with Milan in 2026. I bought a marvelous replica of an old poster from 1956.
Our next stop was Klagenfurt in Austria. We stayed at the Seepark Hotel next to Wörthersee, where we took a walk in the park and relaxed. The idea of creating an Olympic Games Poster Wall when getting home was more or less finalized at the hotel. The result can be seen in the last picture among Lizette's pictures. We crossed the Alps again and arrived in the Slovenian capital of Ljubljana, just in time to see the presidents of both Slovenia and Macedonia! We visited the cathedral, the castle, did some turfing and saw a lot of graffiti before we left for Zagreb and Croatia. In Zagreb our ways parted since Stefan was going on to Belgrade a day later, and we were beginning our long drive north again. We said our goodbyes and went on to Maribor in Slovenia, where we explored the old town and had some dinner before driving to Graz in Austria. On our way from Graz to Bamberg we stopped to admire Walhalla. In the evening we arrived in Bamberg, which was beautiful as always.
In Meißen we visited the Meissen Museum for a guided tour on how they make the famous porcelain. It was really impressive to see the amount of work that goes into each piece. After Meißen we headed for Dresden, where we spent a few days shopping, walking, turfing and listening to opera at Neumarkt, the large town square in front of the Frauenkirche. In Leipzig we continued walking and turfing and visited the churches of St Thomas and St Nicholas, and the university. We also had a wonderful dinner at Auerbach Keller, the old restaurant appearing in Goethe's Faust. After Leipzig we drove north again, made a short stop at the Bauhaus of Dessau, and then visited the Military History Museum of Gatow. We had actually been planning a visit to Gatow for years, but never gotten round to it. With temperatures reaching the 30s we had to cut the visit short and move on. We left the car at our hotel in Berlin and went for a shady walk in Tiergarten instead, and tried turfing by voi-scooters. In Berlin we went to the Flakturm III and also visited the newly opened Eastside Mall and the new branches of Five Guys Restaurants.
Between Berlin and Hamburg we set a new speed record for the car with 234 km/h. After the ferry at Puttgarden-Rødby we spent the day turfing in Skåne before checking in with friends at Ljunghusen. The next day was spent in Skåne, Blekinge, and Kronoberg turfing before we hit the hotel at Nyköping. In the evening of Friday July 26 we arrived at Umeå.
Length of Stay: Saturday June 29 - Friday July 26 2019
June 29-July 1 Stockholm
July 1 Malmö
July 2 Bremen
July 3 The Hague
July 4 Luxembourg
July 5 Heidelberg
July 6-9 Stuttgart
July 9 Schwangau
July 10 Dasing
July 11-13 Piding
July 13 Innsbruck
July 14 Klagenfurt
July 15 Graz
July 16 Bamberg
July 17-19 Dresden
July 19 Leipzig
July 20-24 Berlin
July 24 Ljunghusen
July 25 Nyköping
Means of Transportation: Mercedes S212
