Sweden

I’d never heard of Gothenburg until I started looking at the VisitSweden website, trying to plan for us to explore the West coast of Sweden. It’s Sweden’s second city and noted for good food, culture, sustainability and ease of getting around. It’s all that and more. The bus from the airport brought us straight into the city center to a beautiful bus and train station.

We stayed at the Hotel Royal, the oldest hotel in the city and walkable to just about everywhere. One of the first things I wanted to do on Tuesday was find our way to one of the oldest neighborhoods called Haga for cinnamon buns.

Will is a master at finding restaurants that serve all day brunch/breakfast ( essential since we aren’t super early risers). But even after having a great breakfast, I was happy to eat part of a cinnamon bun with him.

Gothenburg is big on ‘fika”, the Swedish word for coffee break, so it’s really easy to find good coffee and lots of delicious variations of cinnamon rolls and other morning sweets.

As we wandered, we found the city has a mix of old, very old, and newer architecture as well as street art in many forms. It’s a working port with huge container ships as well as the Stena Line that goes to Denmark. One crane that worked on huge ships has been designated a historic building. There are stores and shops of every kind : yarn stores galore, high fashion and secondhand/vintage shops, hair salons on every corner, shoe repair and Scandinavian design furniture and home stores that had us ogling through the windows all week.