Gothenburg - Sweden travel tips

August 9, 2009 9:15 AM

Suggestions for things to do, places to visit/stay/eat and general tips from Gothenburg to Stockholm.

We'll be hiring a car and taking 8 days to get from Gotherburg to Stcokholm in early September, any tips appreciated. We're reasonably active and open to ideas for outdoor activites. Visits to cultural and historical sites, natural phenomenon are of interest. Out of the ordinary accomodation would also be of interest.

posted by biffa to travel & transportation (5 comments total)

Göteborg - Stockholm is a 6 hour drive, so you better plan for extensive detours on the way :)

I'd probably loop down south along the coast, and check out e.g the Varberg castle, Båstad, various parts of Skåne (tons of stuff to see and do), perhaps a daytrip over to Copenhagen from Malmö, then up on the east side with Öland including Borgholm, a tour back into darkest Småland, and then the archipelago south of Stockholm, and round off with Stockholm itself. Leave room for improvisation.

For accommodation, you could mix camping (get a cheap tent or use cabins) with a couple of nights on hotel. Shouldn't be too crowded in September, I think.
posted by effbot at 9:37 AM on August 9

Well, one of the things that may help to slow your progress down a little would be to take the road via Jönköping - Linköping. With a good guide book, you ought to be able to find a lot of stuff to do.
Close to Gothenburg, there's Gunnebo castle, a charming late 18th-c large villa type of thing, with tours and a good kitchen.
Between Borås and Ulricehamn, somewhat south of the route you'd be taking, you'll find Torpa stenhus, a small castle from around the 15th century.
Then, you could explore the possibilities around the lake Vättern.
We just found a terrific place to eat and stay west of Vättern, the so-called "English" villa in Ryfors just before Mullsjö. Right now their website was behaving weird, so I won't link to it. Look for Ryfors and Engelska Villan.
The island on Vättern, Visingsö, might be worth a look.
Further up, Vadstena could be a place to go...
Finally there are various castles and things in the Nyköping area, and you can take a small ferry and cross over to Drottningholm, that's almost in Stockholm.

If you take the more direct route, the E20, make sure to take a trip to Lidköping and Läckö castle (they have a reasonable restaurant), and to visit the cathedral in Varnhem.

Early September could be anything, weather-wise. Mushroom season too!
posted by Namlit at 12:26 PM on August 9

Does E20 really qualify as a more direct route these days? E4 is both shorter and quicker, as far as I can tell (and both Google maps and my GPS agrees). And fewer speed traps too...

But eight days on either is a lot of time. I'd definitely take a bigger detour.
posted by effbot at 12:35 PM on August 9

Seconding heading down the coast. Down past Helsingborg to Landskrona, take the boat to Ven, an island in the channel where Tycho Brahe had two observatories (I belive one of them got renovated last year), from there on to Copenhagen, from Copenhagen to Malmö, Malmö to Österlen, a very beautiful region. Head towards say, Simrishamn and then move up the coast. Check out Stenshuvud and be sure to drink some apple cider at Kivik. Swim in the sea around there, there's beautiful sandy beaches. Hook up to the E22 around Kristianstad (cute medium-small sized town, with a very good Chinese buffet).

Blast past Karlshamn (smelly town) and Ronnby (teenytown) to Karlskrona. Karlskrona is just beautiful and the whole town is on the UNESCO Heritage list. Stay out at Dragsö camping (in a cabin if you like) and make sure to do a Pike Safari one evening. Come up to Kalmar and go over the bridge to Öland (Islandland!). The harvest festival is on in September at some point. Go all Roxette at Bornholm. Öland Zoo is roadside-attraction style shabby, but the animals appear to love the place and have babies left right and center. Right now they have baby tigers and lions and lemurs. Their cirucs show is also quite cool in an oldschool soviet way.

The cool thing about Öland is you can take the boat from there to Gotland. Gotland is amazingly cool, check out some rauks and pick the fossils out of a handful of sand on the beach. Check out Visby the medieval town that is the capital of Gotland. Unfortunately the restaurant Clematis has closed (if you ask around somone might know a similar place, but you can eat medieval swedish style in Stockholm at Sjätte Tunnan if you like that sort of thing. Not been there myself, Clematis was fab though (as long as your cellphone didn't ring!).

The boat from Gotland goes to Nynäshamn south of Stockholm. On the way past Södertälje you might like to check out Tom Tits Experiment. Unlikely as it souds it's a science playcenter. Haven't managed to make it there myself yet, but I've heard amazing things about it if you are a bit of a geek.

Stockholm I will leave to others (I hate Stockholm). If you have to choose between islands, pick Gotland. Have fun, and perhaps september might be a good time for a meet-up in Sto?
posted by Iteki at 12:55 PM on August 9 [2 favorites]

Many thanks for your suggestions, we'll be sitting down to figure out what we fancy tonight.
posted by biffa at 7:56 AM on August 17