August 3, 2013

Urban camping Gothenburg - Swedens second largest city

13-19 May
Destination: Gothenburg, Sweden





Type of vacation: Urban camping
 Budget: As low as possible
Priorities:

  1. Camping experience
  2. Close enough to drive to
  3. Big city feeling
Now I know camping and big city feel can be a contradiction in itself, but let me prove that taking the best from both concepts actually can work. Let me start by explaining what the idea behind this trip was.

Camping: My daughter loves it. Last year we went on our first full blown camping holiday to beaches of Jutland (western part of Denmark) where we stayed 10 days at a camping site Saltum Strand Camping in a tent. It wasn't just my daughter who liked it but my wife and I could also see the see the benefits of camping. Besides the obvious of saving a ton of money on hotel rooms, the kids love being close to the parents where they can be the center of attention (rather than the laptop). Also camping is treasured in Sweden as they have something called 'Allemansretten' which basically is a law that states you can setup a tent (almost) anywhere in the nature.

Big city feeling: What I love about big cities are all the new and different impressions. Walk a block and you'll see different people, architecture, sounds, smells and in Gothenburg's case good looking women (I know my wife will be reading this but don't worry she actually agrees). Anyway, I thought that mixing something that my daughter loves together with something my wife and I enjoy turn out to be a pretty good time.

Gothenburg is Swedens 2nd largest city and only a 4hr drive from our home. There are 2 ways of crossing over to Sweden and that is taking the ferry from Helsingør-Helsingborg or by taking a bridge between Copenhagen and Malmo. We chose the latter as we have a chipcard (Brobizz) for the crossing the bridge that gives us a decent discount.

Although Gothenburg is fairly short drive away we thought to spend the first 2 days making a camping stopover on the way, preferably at a remote forest lake with a picturesque view to of an elk/moose.
Now I can already reveal that it didn't happen. Before we left I went online, went to Google maps zoomed in on the an area south of Falkenberg, not too far from the freeway, where there I saw some forest lakes from the Google Sattelite and loaded the destination in on my GPS. Easy and simple, I thought. A few hrs drive later we came to the destination and to my surprise the lakes were not only dried out, but the forest path leading to the lakes almost tore off our car's exhaust pipe due to high grass and bumpy road. Not exactly what we expected so we decided to continue on in search for an ideal camping spot.

We ended up in a forest  with a view to lovely open fields, but best of all the spot was WAY OFF any road so we had the place to ourselves and could setup our camping gear undisturbed.

Now as cozy and fun it is to camp in the outdoors, after a day of cooking all meals on a bonfire, washing up with water brought from home, and being bit by mosquitoes I started longing for some civilization. My daughter was also easily persuaded to move on as her IPAD was almost out of battery.

Breakfast that would make any urban cowboy jealous


As we approached Gothenburg we all agreed our first priority was to get a proper shower so first stop was the Valhalla Swimming Hall. Not only could we shower but we swam in the indoor pools and enjoyed the different dry/wet saunas. All though we were now were clean and refreshed I wouldn't recommend the this swimming hall for kids. It was mainly used for swimming laps, and although there were multiple diving platforms (1m, 3m, 5m, 7,5m and 10m) they were all closed as the pool was used for swimmers. Could maybe just be due to the early time but still a bit boring swimming hall for kids.

After our swim we needed to plan what we were going to see while we were in Gothenburg so we stopped at an 'Espresso House' (equivalent to Starbucks) as they had free WIFI and power outlets. Yes!!! Finally we could recharge our phones and IPAD. We also looked for camping sites but as we called around to check for vacancy we discovered we had hit the busiest week of the year in Gothenburg. Not only was the city  hosting the Womens European Football championship, but they were also hosting the Gothia Cup. The worlds largest internation football tournament with 37.400 participants, consisting of 1545 teams from 75 different nations. It was evident that we were going to spend the rest of our trip as urban campers and we were confident that we were still going to get to see all the sites and attractions that Gothenburg has to offer.

We quickly discovered that with a Gothenburg City Card the entrance to all the major sites were included. As well as other benefits like free parking, free public transportation, and discounts. This was really good value so we got got a card (valid for 48hrs) but would wait to activate our cards until the following day. The rest of the day was spent walking around the city, eating out, making ourselves familiar with the different areas. As the darkness set in we had to find a place to sleep, so we drove around looking for a suitable place to park our car...we ended up in a local residential area. As I didn't quite find the area suitable for setting up a tent we instead moved around our bags and put the down the backseats and slept in the back of our stationcar. Not exactly the best sleep my daughter thought it was cool!



Day2 in Gothenburg:
• Alfie Atkins´ Culture Centre
• Universeum (low-/high season)

• Paddan sightseeing boat
• Guided tour by mini-train

The town was buzzing with excitement as young football players filled the streets. Gothenburg is the perfect place for shopping and store browsing as there are several large malls seemlessly tied together by an outdoor walking street also with shops. The Nordstan Mall has all the typical chain shops while you'll find some more local shops when following the main walking street (VasaGatan = Vasastreet).

Day3 in Gothenburg:
• The Maritime Museum 
• Liseberg Amusement Park

The Maritime Museum 'Maritiman' was a MUST SEE for me as I love war history and have always wanted to see the inside of a submarine. At this museum they had a whole fleet of ships you could walk around on and kids could even go on a treasure hunt, so this was not only interesting for me. As I saw the destroyer and submarine my childhood dream of being a submarine captain was finally shot down as I saw how little space the crew had to live on. This was definately not designed for a 'big' guy like me. Just climbing down proved a challenge as I was banging my knees against the ladder climbing aboard. It was however really cool and the crew were literally sleeping next to the torpedoes. How cool is that?


Next stop was Liseberg Amusement Park. You can easily spend the entire day at Liseberg. Amusement parks are always good fun and this park was no exception. In fact it is much better than our Tivoli in Copenhagen. Good variation of rides, high chances to win at the gaming stalls (never seen so many winners walking around 2kg of chocolate), and good variation of restaurants. The most unique thing I saw was actually a dancefloor with livemusic and guests were couples-dancing. Reason I highlight this is that in Denmark people are usually quite shy or conservative and it is unusual for us to dance in public spaces (except for nightclubs). But it was nice to see and as a long as the Mrs, didn't get any ideas of us joining in!



We stayed in the park until they practically had to throw us out when it closed at 23.30. This being so late we slept in the car again, this time just crashing in the parking lot with the windows covered with blankets for privacy.

I woke up before the rest of the family and noticed that there was a football match starting right next to the parking lot, so I might as well check out some ball. When the rest of the gang was awake we had the typical city breakfast latté and croissant at the local 7eleven. Since our Gothenburg City cards had expired we just agreed to take it easy and start by checking out the local skatepark for my daughter.



We found it close by and it was pretty decent. It was very bowl oriented but unfortunately it was mainly dominated by kids on scooters. While they did try to give room for my daughter they were just riding too fast and too close to her so she couldn't really relax and learn the lines of the park. In fact she took a nasty beating from the concrete. To our luck the park has a small shop where you can buy a few snacks and an ice cream that did wonders to cool down the bruise and lift her spirits. I sure am going to worry when she gets better and starts doing serious tricks.




We considered if there were any sites we had missed on our visit, but agreed that we had seen and experienced what we came for so we would turn the car towards home and enjoy the last of our vacation days in Denmark. As I recap I am impressed with layout of the city. It has a good mixture of shops, walking areas, canals, parks, and cool buildings.

Bonus tip:
If you are seafood lover you gotta visit 'Feskekörkan' or the Fishchurch which is an indoor fish market. It has it's name from resembling a Gothic church. Although the food is delicious and super fresh, be warned that prices are in high end.







July 30, 2013

Last minute pre-summer break to Greece

17-24 May 2013
Destination: Agia Marina, Crete, Greece

What do you do when work has got you beat to a pulp and there are still 2 months till your planned summer vacation...REPLAN!

This year I planned 3 weeks of summer vacation in July, but to be honest, I just couldn't wait that long. I had been complaining to Anne-Kathrine (my wife) and Clara (my 7 year old daughter) that I was in need of recharging my batteries.  I saw an opening in my workschedule. I had been working on a project for months and with 3 days before project delivery I was confident that I could finish on time. That meant I quickly got approval from my manager to move one of my vacation weeks to the following week. The approval came in on a Wednesday (15May)  and that meant I had just a few days to plan and find a holiday destination.

Type of vacation: 100% relaxation
Budget: 5000-7500 DKR ($885-1330 USD)
Priorities:
  1. Sunshine and as warm as possible (+25 degrees)
  2. Accommodation with a pool
  3. Family friendly
Ok, how do I decide where to go on such a short notice? Most important, budget was limited, so from Denmark the tight budget meant that I should probably focus on a package deal (airplane+hotel) to somewhere in the mediterrranean.


As the calendar read 16 May and I was desperate need for some summer heat, the first step was to check the weather forecast for the following week. The 3 common holiday destinations that had the highest temperatures were
  • Ayia Napa, Cyprus
  • Crete, Greece
  • Alanya, Turkey
This was perfect, as that narrowed down the possible destinations to look for and more importantly other places to avoid. After cross checking different travel agents websites with last minute deals, we found an online offer to Agia Marina, Crete, Greece from 17-24 May - however with unspecified accommodation for 3000kr. Basically that means there are no guarantees of type of accommodation - which in this case didn't suit my priority list as I needed a place with pool. So grabbed the phone and called the travel agent Bravo Tours and they gave us a good deal on the last minute flight but with accommodation Apartments Bravo Center Toxo. They recommended it for a family vacation as it had 2 pools, gaming room and very friendly staff at a total price of 4.924 DKr (873 USD). We decided to go for it even though it meant a mere 16 hrs until the flight. Just enough time find a store to get the mandatory sun block cream.




This was our first time travelling with Bravo Tours and we were a bit surprised when we stepped in the transfer bus at Chania airport and saw that most of the guests were 50+ years. Apparently this travel agent is popular with the older segment. I think it is because they guarantee Danish guides. On the other hand the guides were exceptionally thorough in explaining about the travel destinations. After a short ride of 30 min and 2 stops, we arrived at our hotel Apartments Bravo Center Toxo.



First impression was really good. The hotel exterior looked modern and we were greated outside by the hotel staff. First rule of hospitality is warm welcome and this the staff were really good at. The hotel had prepared check-in documents so this only took 5 minutes. As we walked towards our room we noticed how clean the whole outdoor area was. We were given room 210, which was a quite spacious 2-room apartment at ground level with a terrace out to one of the two swimming pools. Amenities included kitchenette with basic cooking pans and utensils, but we hadn't planned on using this anyway. Most important was a nice cold refrigerator with plenty of space for our beverages as well as air condition in both rooms.




The days were spent by the pool, relaxing and playing with our daughter. We were lucky there was another family with a girl same age as ours and they played a lot together.

One evening the hotels arranges a greek night. A greek dinner followed by traditional greek dancing. Be warned if you are shy as this troop does not take no for an answer and pulled everyone who could walk, up to teach us traditional greek dancing. One could think this would be a short 15 min session but an hour later we were still going at it. Anyway it was a good show and it seemed as everybody had a good laugh. This is what I love about travelling is that everything doesn't have to be so serious. Join in and interact with 'the locals' and by opening up and being able to laugh at yourself and you'll discover true warmth.



Things to see:

Chania city
I recommend visiting Chania city. It is only a 20min busride from Agia Marina. We bought a return bus ticket at the minishop across the hotel. Chania city has some really nice small shopping streets with all the local souvenirs. I was tempted to buy a chopping board made of wood from an olive tree. Make sure to see the marina. There are a lot of restaurants in this area, can't really recommend any specific for eating as we just had a drink at one of them.




Rent a car and see the island
It is also a good idea to rent a car for a day and see some of the island. We rented a small Fiat Panda for 60EUR. There are several rental companies in Agia Marina, so shop around to get the best deal. And remember to make sure insurance is incl. It usually is but remember to check the contract.

To be honest we didn't really see too much of the island on this trip. Our prioritization was to relax so we didn't make any plans and were quite spontaneous. Just to make sure that anyone else hungering for siteseeing here is a list of recommended 'Must See' tips.

  • Hiking the longest gorge in Europe, The Samaria Gorge
  • Visiting the remains of vast Minoan Palaces like Knossos, Phaistos and Malia
  • Relaxing in pretty waterfront towns such as Chania, Rethymnon and Sitia,
  • Spending a day or more in Heraklion with its marvellous Archaeological Museum


Evaluation:
I always ask myself after a holiday if would I come back? And in this case I would. The holiday package was excellent value for money. The weather was warm, and the hotel standard and staff were excellent.
So for this type of holiday I would happily return.

Bonus tip: 
The food at the hotel restaurant is of really good standard. There is an adeqaute variety of local and international dishes. Prices are also reasonable. I recommend the greek dish 'Stifado' which is a stew, served with tender pieces of beef served in a flavoured tomato sauce flavoured with anisseed, which makes the stew sweet, delicious and very distinctive. Yummy!