Bicycles, Chairlift, Train, and Classic American Cars

Today was another fascinating and varied day for us in northern Sweden. We cycled 57 miles through Sweden's High Coast region. The scenery was beautiful, and to get a closer look and overview we stopped midway to take a chair lift up a mountain. This lift, which is a popular tourist attraction in the High Coast, ascends to a mountain peak that is 295 metres high, only slightly higher than the 286 metres of post-glacial uplift that the region has experienced since the end of the ice age. This means that the peak was only 9 meters (29 feet) above sea level 10,000 years ago, and all of the land we biked along today was underwater at that time.

We ended our bike ride in the town of Ornskoldsvik, and from there took a 65-mile train ride to Umea. We had modified our route a couple of months ago to take this train on our last of 12 days in Sweden, in order to add one day (from 7 to 8 days) in Finland. Umea is the northernmost location of our 5-week Scandinavian trip. It is a university town with a population of 80,000. Its latitude, 64 degrees north, is the same as Reykjavic, Iceland, and further north than Anchorage, Alaska (latitude 61 degrees). Since Umea is so far north and we are close to the summer solstice of June 21, the period of sunlight is very long here today: sunrise at 2:21 am and sunset at 11:03 pm (20 hours and 42 minutes of sunlight). In fact, since our whole trip has been quite far north and close to the summer solstice, we have not experienced darkness at all during our trip: it has always been light out when we go to bed at about 10 pm and when we rise at 6 am.

Ever since arriving in Sweden 12 days ago, we have been surprised by how many classic American cars from the 1950's and 60's we've seen on the roads, in perfect shape and occasionally blaring 50's American music. Today, when we arrived in Umea, there was a parade of hundreds of classic American cars driving down the main street, with thousands of people lining the streets to watch. A local radio station had loudspeakers along the parade route, entertaining the crowd with 50's American rock and roll music. After watching the event for a while, we returned to our hotel room and, looking online, discovered that our observations over the past 12 days were accurate: Sweden is crazy about classic American cars, and is estimated to have more of them than any other country, including the US. An estimated 5,000 classic American cars are shipped to Sweden each year. The Umea classic American car show, called Wheels, is an annual event that our visit happened to coincide with, and the world's largest classic American car show, called "Power Big Meet", is held annually in Vasteras, Sweden.

Lake and farmhouse on our route

Heading up the chairlift

Sign marking 286 meters, the amount of post-glacial uplift, situated just 39 feet from the mountain top

At the mountaintop overlook

Scene from the chairlift ride down


A few of the 100's of classic American cars on parade in Umea

Town hall in the background

Our hotel in the background

Make sure the sound is on when you play this video

Entering the Swedish Hoga Kusten (High Coast): A 50-mile Geological Marvel

We learn a lot while traveling, since visiting new places stimulates us to read about them. We find that this is especially true on bike trips, as we end up in places we would never get to on a more conventional vacation.

Our trip today led us to learn about "post-glacial rebound", also known as "glacial isostatic adjustment". This is a geological process whereby land that was depressed by the huge weight of overlying glaciers during the last ice age rose after the glaciers melted. At the time of the last maximum glaciation, 20000 years ago, the ice was as thick as 3 kilometers. As the ice melted, land in various parts of the world that had previously been weighed down by the overlying ice rose up, but nowhere has the land risen as much as it has in a 50-mile stretch of Sweden known as the Hoga Kusten, or High Coast. This region lies along the coast of the Gulf of Bothnia, stretching from the High Coast Bridge at its southern end to the town of Ornskoldsvik at its northern end. The land here has risen 285 meters (925 feet) since the end of the ice age about 10000 years ago, and it continues to rise at the rate of 3 feet per century. The High Coast was named a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2000 because of its unique geological features and its rugged beauty.

To conclude of our 55-mile ride today, we cycled north across the High Coast Bridge, entering the High Coast region which we will explore tomorrow. The bridge itself, a suspension bridge over a mile long, is quite spectacular. Our lodging, the Björkudden Hotel, a 4-star hotel overlooking the bridge, is also spectacular. The views are amazing and the quality of the food is stellar.

Approaching the Hoga Kusten (High Coast) Bridge

On the bridge

Our hotel, with a glimpse of the bridge in the background

View of the bridge from our hotel room

Reindeer for dinner

On the hotel porch after dinner

Surviving a Thunderstorm, Then Arriving at the Beautiful "Stone City" of Sundsvall, Sweden

We started our morning ride today (Thursday) in overcast but dry weather. Five miles into our ride, a huge downpour suddenly, and unexpectedly, began. There was no place to find cover, so we had the unpleasant task of getting our weather gear out of our packs and putting it on, a several minute task, during which we were pelted with heavy rain. This left us wearing rain gear over wet clothes. We began riding again in this state, but a couple of minutes later lightning and thunder were all around us, forcing us to pull off the road (this time under an overhang of a building, protecting us from the rain). After 20 more miles of riding, cold and damp, we decided to end our ride and boarded a bus for the last 25 miles of our route.

Our destination town of Sundsvall was a truly pleasant surprise. Sundsvall is a large city for northern Sweden, with a population of 55,000 and about double that including the surrounding area. The city is a major industrial center and also houses one of the major campuses of the Mittuniversitetet (Mid Sweden University).

What makes Sundsvall special is its famous "Stenstaden" ("Stone City"), the aftermath of a great fire that destroyed the city in 1888. [Note: major city fires destroying large areas (termed "great fires") were extremely common prior about 100 years ago, when building were constructed of wood and fire protection techniques were limited. Rome had a great fire in 64 AD, London had several great fires, and there have been several in the United States including in Chicago and San Francisco]. Sundsvall rebuilt after its great fire, with numerous beautiful stone buildings dating back to around 1890.

The Stone City area is also full of excellent restaurants and cafes. Our dinner spot was a welcome change from the pizza/kebab joints that have too often been our only choice.

Under an overhang, waiting for the lightning and thunder to end

Cold and wet, boarding a bus halfway through our day's route

Rain gear hanging out to dry in our hotel room

Gloves and other small wet items drying out on a heated towel rack


Magnificent buildings in Sundsvall's "Stenstaden" ("Stone City")

Our dinner location

Fighting the Weather and Hills All Day

Conditions that prove challenging when cycling include rain, cold, hills, and, perhaps worst, a headwind. Put them all together and you have our bike day today (Wednesday). Our 55-mile ride north, from Soderhamn to Bergsjo, Sweden, was directly into a 15-mile-per-hour wind. The north wind brought cold air, so that today's temperature in the mid-50's was 10-15 degrees cooler than what we've had over the past few days. It rained almost all day, often heavily. Finally, today's ride was a roller coaster of ups and downs, rarely level, making our vertical climb for the day the second highest of our trip so far.

All in all, it was a challenging, uncomfortable day. We were relieved to reach our destination, a pleasant guest house in the in the small town of Bergsjo (population 1260). It was a joy to warm up via hot showers and lay out our wet clothes out to dry.

Heading out in the rain

Drenched within a few miles

A place to warm up in the mid-morning, 20 miles into our ride

Our day's destination: a guest house in Bergsjo, Sweden

Beautiful Cycling Along the Gulf of Bothnia

The Gulf of Bothnia is the northernmost extension of the Baltic Sea. Sweden is on the west and Finland on the east, and the two countries meet at the northern edge of this body of water. It is 450 miles long (from south to north) and 50-150 miles wide.

When we began planning our Scandinavia bike trip 6-8 months ago, we hoped to bike from Stockholm to Helsinki by traveling around the entire Gulf of Bothnia. We had to abandon this route when we realized that the northernmost part is so sparsely populated that the distances between hotels became too far apart, more than the maximum of about 70 miles that we're willing to bike in a day. So, instead, our route takes us up to Umea, Sweden, a little more than halfway up the Gulf. We then then take a ferry across the Gulf to Vassa, Finland, after which we head southeast to Helsinki.

We've been biking up along the Gulf for the past two days (Monday and Tuesday). Even at this southern part of the Gulf, towns and services are fairly sparse, so there are few places for us to take breaks and to have lunch. The scenery has been wonderful, with quiet roads through forests, farmland, and picturesque towns. Our overnight stops were nice, moderate-sized towns with a choice of dining spots: Gavle (population 71,000) on Monday and Soderhamn (population 12,000) on Tuesday.

Map of the Gulf of Bothnia


Scenery on Monday and Tuesday

Riverside homes with decks, in Gavle


Lunch and Rest Stops

Lunch on Monday

Lunch on Tuesday

Mid-morning rest stop on Tuesday. We prefer a place with cold drinks and WiFi, but this was the best place we could find to take a break. Carol is checking her email.

A Visit to a Swedish Landmark of Sorts: Ikea

Today's ride was a short, easy one – 50 miles with a tailwind – from Stockholm to Uppsala. Until we arrived in Stockholm, we had been unable to find places to dine in Scandinavia that serve Swedish or Norwegian food, since all we encountered were pizza/kebab joints and convenience stores such as 7/11. We learnt, in Stockholm, that if you search carefully and are willing to pay the price, restaurants serving more traditional dishes are available. So we had reindeer and elk on Friday evening, and Swedish meatballs on Saturday evening.

Sweden is the birthplace of Ikea, though it is currently headquartered in the Netherlands. IKEA, the world's largest furniture retailer, was founded in 1943 by 17-year-old Ingvar Kamprad (his initials are the "I" and "K" of "IKEA"). We had hoped to visit the IKEA in Stockholm, the world's largest, but it was closed due to the midsummer holiday, so we modified our route to Uppsala to take us to that city's IKEA. It was a new experience for Peter, who had never been to an IKEA. IKEA, incidentally, is a major purveyor of Swedish meatballs, so we enjoyed a helping of this dish during our visit.

Uppsala is the fourth largest city in Sweden, with 140,000 inhabitants. Two of its claims to fame are its University, which dates back to 1477, and the place where Dag Hammarskjöld – Secretary-General of the United Nations from 1953 until his death in a plane crash in 1961 – spent much of his childhood. The latter had special resonance with Peter, who was 12 years old when Hammarskjöld died and whose death led Peter to write a school essay stating that his goal in life was to become UN Secretary General. …still waiting for the call, alas…

Views from our ride out of Stockholm

Typical street corner: 7/11 on one side, kebab joint on the other

The Karolinska Institute, a prominent Swedish medical school


Images from Uppsala

Approaching IKEA

Dag Hammarskjold Way

 Uppsala University's oldest remaining building, dating back to 1630

Tourists for a Day in Stockholm … With a Personal Twist

Our ride to Stockholm yesterday was into a strong headwind. This is our most dreaded weather condition, far worse than rain. It's like biking uphill all day without the benefit of coasting down.

Our time in Stockholm – Friday evening and a rest day on Saturday – coincides with the major Swedish midsummer holiday. Friday ("Midsommarafton" [Midsummer's Eve] and Saturday ("Midsommardagen" [Midsummer's Day]) are celebrated each year between June 19 and 26, and are national holidays on a par with Christmas and New Years. We had expected, based on what we had read prior to arriving in Stockholm, that it would be a ghost town with all stores and restaurants closed, but the city is thronged with tourists and full of activity.

We joined the crowd as tourists for the day, leaving our bikes holed up in a storeroom of our hotel. While we are not museum-goers, we broke with this pattern and paid a visit to the Nobel Museum. Our interest was piqued by the special exhibit entitled "Making Peace", in part because Carol's maternal grandfather Henry Cadbury accepted the Nobel peace Prize in 1947 on behalf of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), a Quaker organization [click here for a link to his acceptance speech]. The award was given for the work done by the AFSC and the British Friends Service Council providing help for the needy during and after World Wars I and II. We saw the commemoration of this award during our visit to the museum, and also the commemorations of Nobel prizes in Medicine and Physiology awarded to relatives of our friend and colleague Beryl Benacerraf: her uncle Jacques Monod in 1965, and her father Baruj Benacerraf in 1980.

Inside the Nobel Museum

More tourist pictures