Gothenburg, Sweden

Heading north, my next stop was Gothenburg. The campsite I found, Lisebergs, was quite expensive (about £32 per night) but with good facilities and close enough to the city centre for easy biking. To the other side of the campsite was a vast network of forests, gravel tracks and wide river bends, a runner's paradise, and it gets packed with locals after work on a nice evening. Unfortunately, the rain was rather stop-start for most of my stay but I managed to clock up a good number of miles.

Gothenburg is Sweden's second city and the centre is split by a series of canals and the Gota River. North of river used to be the industrial harbour, an important port in it's day, but now the huge redundant cranes sit motionless on the docks. It is now a region with nothing of interest to visit. On the south side of the river, there are still plenty of smaller private yachts and the area has been spuced up with the addition of large sculptures as well as the Utkiken Building and the industrial style Opera House.

The City Hall is right in the middle of town in a square next to the canal. Outside is a statue of city founder Gustav Adolf pointing to the ground and saying "this is where I will build my town". These blue-green bronze statues seem to be a feature of Scandinavia in general but Gothenburg also features a few old buildings where the roof has been clad to a similar effect.

Other museums, sculptures and interesting architectural buildings of note are also located in the centre or towards the southern region of Vasastan. In the south of Vasastan is the Gotaplatsen Square surrounded by several museums and a sculpture of Poseiden. When it was unveiled, the sculptor was told to reduce the size of the poor bloke's genitals after it caused so much outrage!

Next to one of the canals is the Tradgardsforeningen (or Garden Society Park) which is a large area of flowers, gardens and water features. It even has a big conservatory with desert and tropical plants in. The park apparently gets full of locals later in the summer when the weather is nice.

The nightlife in Gothenburg is pretty quite and boring without much going on, much like Helsingborg really. Onwards towards Norway me thinks...