Road Trip 2025 (8) - Västervik

Monday 11 August - Part 4
Västervik

We arrived at Västervik, a town of around 22 000 inhabitants on the East Coast, around 14:30 pm. A bit too early to be able to check into the hotel straight away, so we first parked the car down at the harbour (just a block or two away from the hotel), and went for a short "orientation" stroll along the water, before we went to check in (and then also moved the car to hotel's garage for the night). 
 

 

After checking in, we had a bit of a rest in our respective rooms, before we went out again around 6 pm to see some more of the town. It was a beautiful evening, and Västervik (the name meaning "West Bay") is one of those charming old towns with lots of old wooden houses along narrow alleys preserved. I took so many photos that I won't use them all in this post, but will save some for "later".

 

To not just walk all randomly, we decided to go and have a look at both churches, whose towers we could see sticking up above other roof tops.

St Gertrud's church, from the 1450s.

 

 

 St Petri Church from 1903-05

Coming back to the harbour area "downtown", the evening light there was just stunning!

 

Linking to Through My Lens 498

 

A Place by the Sea

 (Monday 5 August, cont.)

Although Tjolöholm Castle (previous post) is situated on the coast, while we were there we did not really get a sense of being at the seaside. So before we turned back home, I said I also wanted to go to some place where one did get that feeling. 

So we drove on a little bit further south, and found a place called Gårda Brygga ('brygga' is the Swedish word for 'jetty'). Besides a jetty for small boats, it turned out to also offer smooth rocks with a good view towards the open sea, and even a small beach with a small kiosk/café where we could buy something to drink, and sit for a while to absorb that seaside feeling...

 

 

More from Hunnebostrand

 

Leaving the quarry sculpture park behind us, we walked into the centre of the village to have a look around - and to find somewhere to have lunch.

Södra Strandgatan 1 - South Seaside Street

 

The whole seaside street  is kind of a museum in itself, with charming old buildings.
  

Here and there they had put up posters showing photos of what it used to look like in the past. Like the one above, from 1935. The text says that back then, there were still very few cars; but in the late 1940s, some buildings were torn down, and some boathouses made smaller, in order to widen the street for more traffic. And where there was a fish shop back in 1935, in modern times there is a lobster restaurant in the same spot.

 

 

On one of the boathouses, we found this door, with signs to indicate that this may be where they produce those "tourist" signs... The wooden sign "Gubb-dagis" would translate something like "Daycare for Old Men" :)

Many of the old boathouses now serve as quaint little tourist shops where you can buy for example souvenirs, art&crafts, or clothes. Around the corner of one such place I spotted this sign saying "Catch of the Day". I did not feel entirely sure whether to interpret this as advertising for clothes sold inside, or just a place to display recently "lost and found" items from the beach!

Having stopped here and there to read the menus outside restaurants along the street, we finally decided on one with tables outdoors, and offering the possibility to order "half" salads (without age restrictions). P choose prawns; as I'm not overly fond of shellfish, I stuck with my usual favourite - chicken... (The rest of the ingredients were the same in both salads.) My only complaint was that the benches we sat on were rather uncomfortable for one's back. (P suggested it might be intentional - to stop customers from staying on too long after they've finished eating...)

Well, when we had finished our lunch, it was time for us to continue our journey anyway!

The Fifth Day

On the fifth day, we said bye-bye to Lund, and turned back north again. While basically following the west coast in both directions, we still varied our route by choosing different small roads where we could, and stopping at different places.

Typical Skåne roadside view...

The red flowers are poppies

For example, on the way down (Day 2), we visited Sofiero palace and park on the outskirts of Helsingborg, but avoided going into the city itself. On our way back, however, we did go into the core of the city - and I'm choosing that word deliberately, because on a hill high above the city center, there is a medieval tower called Kärnan, which literally means The Core. 

This 14th century tower is the only remaining part of what was once an old Danish fortress, which together with another fortress on the opposite Danish shore of Öresund controlled the strait between Skåne (Scania) and Sjaelland (Zealand).

View of Helsingborg from a viewpoint below the Tower

Inside the Tower there is a museum. A lot of steep stairs usually makes me hesitate.... but as initially I wasn't aware that you were even allowed to go all the way up to the top... somehow (one floor at a time) I eventually found myself up there anyway!

View of Helsingborg from the top terrace of the Tower

Have to admit that once safely back on the ground again, my legs felt pretty shaky, though... So instead of walking down further steps straight down the hill to the city center (and then up again...), we got back into the car and navigated our way down there. We found both parking and a café/restaurant without too much trouble; still within view of the impressive tower up on the hill.

From "downtown" looking back up at where we had been...

From Helsingborg, we cut across one peninsula to the next one, where this time we took the long way around its coast.

Vejbystrand (I think)

Torekov, with maritime museum

Hovs Hallar - a landscape protection area with cliffs

And in the evening, we ended up back in Båstad for another lovely evening there (before driving the last few km/miles to the same countryside motel as on our way down, the first night).

The quayside here is one long row of various small eateries, and we chose a different one this time. 

Four Scanian churches from the Fifth Day:
Kattarp, Allerum, Torekov, Båstad

I have lost count of all the churches we stopped at, but am hoping to "revisit" some of them (with more photos and details) in future blog posts. 

 

Our World Tuesday