rashbre central: spooky castle town with mud

Saturday 21 July 2007

spooky castle town with mud

Why Kalmar?
Kalmar in Sweden is on the eastern coast around 300 kilometres south of Stockholm. It was supposed to be the venue for a two day pause in the travelling, in what was expected to be a delightful hotel set in grounds overlooking a tranquil view of the sea.

Not quite.

The hotel was in grounds which were were being converted into an area to contain a new cultural centre. Most of the surroundings were a building site. There was no real view and the room was really too small to house occupants and baggage at the same time.

Nothing for it, after a stroll around the town, it was easy to make a decision to pull the plugs and move on a day early. Late afternoon meant an overnight stop here was inevitable and so evening saw me pulling a heavy case or two up some steep stair into a poet's garret.

By the second drink everything seemed better accompanied by a plan for an early morning departure.

Its reassuring to know that a whole trip would have some moments of texture and this was one of those episodes. So after a walk through the 'muddy' parkland adjoining the castle (a great test for some recently acquired flip-flops), it became an evening watching Swedish subtitled television and then preparation for an early departure towards the Gotecanal and onward towards Stockholm.

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