Our last morning in Sweden began with another excellent breakfast at Bomans in Trosa. Mark discovered pancakes with lingonberry jam, which seemed an appropriately Swedish way to start the day, before we packed the car for the final time and set off south.
We had a fair distance to cover, but by now we have become rather good at breaking up a journey with stops which aren’t necessarily the most obvious tourist attractions. The first, although definitely an attraction, was Brahehus, the substantial ruin of a 17th-century castle sitting high above Lake Vättern near Gränna. Begun in 1637 by Count Per Brahe the Younger and destroyed by fire in 1708, it occupies a spectacular position on the rocks overlooking the lake.
What struck us, though, was how remarkably casual Sweden is about having a castle there. You pull off the E4 into what is essentially a motorway service area, park next to the petrol station, walk through an underpass and emerge beside the ruins. In Britain, something similar would surely have acquired a visitor centre, gift shop, admission charge, interpretation boards, heritage volunteers and a carefully branded tea towel. Here, the castle just sits there, free to wander around.
The service station did, however, provide fika, and a particularly good one. We shared two cakes: a square, dense almond-topped slice with a wonderfully sticky caramelised top, and a splendid domed cake covered in white icing with fine pink stripes. Once again we decided that our habit on this holiday of largely dispensing with lunch and having fika instead has been an entirely sensible one.
Our next stop was City Gross, a Swedish supermarket, partly because the Audi needed refuelling and partly because I always enjoy supermarkets in other countries. Not historic, not beautiful and almost certainly not in many guidebooks, but they offer a glimpse of everyday life which you don’t get from museums and tourist attractions: what people put in their shopping baskets, the brands they recognise, the things which are completely ordinary here but unfamiliar to us. Mark and I can happily wander around examining shelves of groceries, which probably says something about us.
Then we reached Helsingborg, and a stop which turned out to have rather more significance for me.
I first came here in May 1992 for the 14th European Scout Conference. I was much younger and still relatively early in an international Scouting journey which was subsequently to occupy a very large part of my life. Looking back at the online conference record, one of the names on the planning committee is Göran Hägerdal.
That stopped me for a moment.
Göran has become one of my oldest and closest friends in Scouting. Over the years we have shared meetings, debates, journeys, projects and meals, and developed all the shorthand that comes from knowing someone across decades of involvement in the same movement. And only a few days ago, Mark and I were sitting with him in his grandfather’s kitchen in Kristdala eating kroppkakor, before Göran and I went swimming in the lake.
To be back in Helsingborg 34 years later and to be reminded that Göran was part of the story right back then made the stop rather more than an exercise in nostalgia. So much of a life in Scouting is recorded through conferences, committees, appointments and events. Looking back, though, it is the friendships which matter most. Helsingborg was one of those early points on the map; Göran has remained part of the journey ever since.
From Helsingborg we continued south, eventually reaching the Øresund Bridge and crossing back into Denmark. Driving over it in the opposite direction from our journey into Sweden eight days ago felt like a natural end to the road trip. By the time we reached Copenhagen Airport, our grey and Teutonic Audi had carried us something over 1,000 miles, from the very south of Sweden up to Stockholm and back again, with a fair amount of meandering in between.
I had also become thoroughly accustomed to driving on the right, aided throughout by Mark’s helpful observations about which side of the road I should be on and his continuing interest in the correct negotiation of roundabouts.
At Copenhagen Airport we said goodbye to the Audi, returned the keys and, after eight days of relying on four wheels, switched back to the Copenhagen Metro for the journey into the centre. Out came the transport app I had downloaded and used on our first night in Denmark, tickets bought, and we were soon heading into town.
We checked into the Ibsens Hotel, our base for the final two nights of the holiday. After days of loading cases into the boot each morning, navigating Swedish roads and deciding where to stop next, it felt slightly strange suddenly to be travelling by Metro and on foot again.
We didn’t go far for dinner. Close to the hotel we found a Vietnamese restaurant which has only recently opened, and had excellent pho: hot, fragrant and exactly right after a long day travelling.
And so our Swedish road trip is over. Something over 1,000 miles, eight days and a great deal packed into them. We have seen cities and tiny villages, castles and nature reserves, coastlines and lakes, grand palaces and ordinary supermarkets. We’ve eaten extremely well, become enthusiastic converts to fika, met friends old and new, climbed towers, crossed bridges, sung ABBA songs, foraged for lingonberries and, in my case, gone swimming in a Swedish lake.
But perhaps Helsingborg provided the right thought on which to leave Sweden. Places are important, and revisiting one after 34 years can unlock all sorts of memories. But the real continuity is provided by people. I arrived in Helsingborg in 1992 for a Scout conference which Göran had helped to organise. This week I returned having just spent a wonderful day with him and Mark at his family home. Quite a lot has happened in the years between.
Now we have two days in Copenhagen before flying home. And tomorrow includes one appointment which has been sitting in the diary since before we left: lunch at Schønnemann.