Buses, submarines and scooters - Friday 16th September

Apologies for no blog yesterday - we didn’t do a fat lot except drive to Malmo, find a campsite and gawp at the approx 16 km long Oresund Bridge which we will be crossing tomorrow, to Copenhagen. 

We decided to stay here for 2 nights and do a bit of exploring of the town. The campsite is lovely, with friendly, helpful people - and really cheap, compared to everywhere else we have stayed in Sweden - and the children’s bathroom facilities are gorgeous so I had to take some pictures!

This morning, we hopped on a number 34 bus into town, then hopped off and onto the number 4 bus which would take us into the heart of Malmo old town, close to the museums. Richard, not understanding the concept of travelling by bus, shouted to Lynn ‘stop, don’t press the button’ which she had just pressed … to stop the bus. Lynn thinks Richard thought that the bus would stop immediately, a bit like an emergency stop on a train, rather than pressing the button to just notify the driver to stop at the next stop! He thought she might get a fine…!

 

We jumped off the bus like 4 leaping gazelles and headed off, across a park, to the Malmo Castle and Museum, bought our tickets for the vast sum of around £4 each and then asked to be pointed in the direction of the submarine and the technology and maritime museum. Which were all fab. 

The submarine was a bit of an eye opener - and I’m embarrassed to say I was forced into some extremely unladylike positions when trying to move through the hatches. As were Lynn, John and Richard (‘unladylike..’? 😂😂 see incriminating pics…). One toilet and a tiny weeny kitchen to cater for the entire crew, approx 30 men, but they would have to be small men…!

The rest of the technology museum was really interesting and entertaining; Lynn and John pedalled a bike to try to provide enough energy for a house and both managed 4 appliances, but they didn’t quite have the energy to power the toaster. The four of us did a one-sided tug of war against a weight to illustrate producing 1kw of power in 1 second, which we achieved, and then Lynn tried out driving a Fire Engine but failed on the height test - there was no cushion to sit on.

We then went to the Kommandant’s for lunch where the boys finally had their long-awaited ice cream for pudding and Lynn and I had gluten-free pancakes, raspberries and ice cream. Yum!

We strolled back to the Castle museum and wandered around there for a bit, where Lynn stroked a giraffe, we saw a stuffed moose, we viewed snakes, toads, monitor lizards, stonefish, other fish, lots of frogs and lobsters. There was an aviary too but we gave it a miss - Lynn wasn’t too keen! We saw exhibitions on fashion, art, modern art…..and visited a dungeon, which we came across by accident whilst looking for the loo. To be honest, we had lost the will to live, our energy and also were by now lacking in enthusiasm for much more. Our hearts were willing but our bodies were spent. 

Deciding we needed to get back to the Bobils, we dragged our sorry selves back across the park in search of the number 4 bus stop. We found it easily, fortunately, and managed to heave ourselves onboard the next bus, where some well mannered young people voluntarily gave us their seats…..until we noticed the seats were reserved for ‘old people’ (as shown by a graphic of a bent old person with a stick). It was the first time I was glad I was a bit of a wrinkly!

On staggering off the bus (gazelles were long gone), and being faced with the walk back to the campsite, Richard decided he would sign up for an electric scooter. He was soon whizzing along the cycle lane like a teenager and I think we all wished we had signed up too. John had a turn and decided it was the way to go, saying we should cross the Oresund bridge on them, but as Richard found out, once you leave the bike’s designated ‘area’, they go to half speed and you continue paying for them until you return them to their ‘zone’. We thought you could use them and drop them wherever. Not the case at all! Richard ended up walking virtually all the way back to where he picked it up to drop it back off again 😂.

Tomorrow we cross from Sweden to Denmark across ‘The Bridge’. How exciting. Copenhagen here we come!

High 17 degrees, low 11 degrees, mileage (from yesterday) 240km.  Cost of campsite £22 per night.