Day 3: Rolling Hills

After less than a half hour on the big eastwest road, we turned south through some quiet farm country. Everybody really does have a red house out here. I saw one place with red barns, red house, a red tractor, and red cars. And more than half of the cars we saw were defintely SAAB or Volvo. I read that one of the SAAB factories is not far away from here in Linkoping, so maybe the cars sell especially well around here.

Unfortunately, the road turned to gravel after a bit and stayed that way for about ten kilometers. I can see why the route planners sent us down here off the main road and the gravel was not as bad as some of the stuff we rode in Poland and elsewhere. It was nice country and it was definitely the quietest approach to the ferry dock.

This is a cute town which, as Yoel woud say, is in the book. This city has a nice church and happens to sit at the eastern end of the Gota Canal which links the east and west shores of Sweden with the help of many lakes and natural rivers. We had a nice walk around before settling down for a cheap pizza and soda. We couldn't eat all of our pizzas, so we put the extra in a ziploc for later.

We only rode abour 45km in the afternoon, but we had lots of rolling hills and a bit of a headwind. Also, this had to be one of the hottest days ever in Sweden. We stopped midway through the afternoon and a woman who was tending graves in the church cemetery made a comment about the heat. We pointed out that the wind didn't help much either. It is amazing how many people out in the middle of nowhere speak English really well. It is quite convenient of course.