Kalmar

When we woke up at Wikegårds camp ground we got surprised by a pretty and colourful sunrise. The plan was to leave Öland and drive to Vimmerby and Lönneberga to „visit“ Michel, one of Astrid Lindgrens‘ protagonists in a a series of audiobooks and movies that had really marked our childhood:)
On the way we stopped at Borgholm Castle and in Kalmar, where the famous Kalmarer Union was established by Denmark, Sweden and Norway. As we arrived in Kalmar it was raining and we escaped tried to escape it in a warm and cozy Café where we had coffee and glutenfree snacks (again you see me very happy kn front of the food). Still since we wanted to see the castle we fought our way theough the pouring rain in our Birkenstocks which in the end we could almost wrench out. The castle was very big and the view over the sea and the rest of the city was nice too, even though we didnt see that much considering the weather. We made our way up to Vimmerby and stopped at a small river for lunch where we had salmon, cucumber and philadelphia on crackers. Vimmerby and Lönneberga did not quite meet our expectations. There was a small Michel statue in a hut and as we drove a bit further there were a couple of red houses but it was all pretty deserted. Anyways first we wanted to drive all the way to Stockholm to be closer to the city, but then we found a nice camping on our way which even had a sauna! In order for us to be 100% sure we would get a spot in the sauna we made a reservation plus made a reservation for a nice place for our van right next to the water. On our way we saw the sunset on one side and really dark clouds on the other, it looked as if the world was going to end every second. When we arrived there it was already late but it wasn‘t completely dark yet so we could settle down properly, install everything and have dinner. It was beautiful, the whole camping was decorated with lights, it looked like a magical forest. Nene even managed to light the fairy lights that were hung up around our van:) There weren‘t any people in the camping though or we just couldnt see anybody. After dinner we got ready and went to look for the sauna. There weren‘t any signs or anything so we just started walking around and eventually looked it up on google maps. Nene was really sure that he had seen it so we walked and walked in that direction only to end up in front of a private building which definitely was not a sauna. We walked back and had almost lost all hope as suddenly we found it. However when we got in we saw we had to light the fire ourselves and there was barely any dry wood and just one small lighter. We didnt give up at first but after several attempts we admitted to ouselves that it was quite hopeless, so we walked back to the van. Our mood wasnt the best anymore but we decided to make the best out of the next day and set the alarm very early to arrive at Stockholm before 10am.Read more