Gothenburg, Sweden

After a very relaxing couple of days we boarded our train to Gothenburg, Sweden’s second city, and only an hour and half from Båstad. We purchased a 5 Trip card from the transport desk in the station 90SEK each (£9), however we have since decided once you have dropped off your bags you can easily walk the city. After a few wrong turns figuring out whether to get a tram or a bus we arrived at our hostel Slottsskogen Hostel http://www.sov.nu/index.php/en/and checked into the smallest room we have ever stayed in. It was literally the width of me, with no window and those fold up beds like you would get on a train. It was only for two nights though and was comfortable enough and was a private room at a really reasonable price for Sweden!

The sun was shining and it was lovely and hot (so obviously Nick was happy!), even though it was nearly 16:00 by this point. We took a short(ish) walk to Skansen Kronan (the Crowned Fort) which overlooks Haga; the Old Town of Gothenburg, before stopping for coffees and cake in a really nice cafe where we spent the next couple of hours enjoying the evening sunshine, before taking a stroll along the riverside and slowly weaving our way back towards the hostel.

We only had one full day in Gothenburg so had already decided to try and make the most of it. We got straight on a bus to the main station to sort out our train tickets to Stockholm the next day and were horrified when the first train that came up would have cost us nearly £170!! Luckily we managed to find a cheaper train (£95 for both of us), so tickets in hand we set off to explore.

I had already read about the Röhsska Museum of Swedish Design, Fashion and Decorative Arts (http://rohsska.se/en/) and they had a temporary exhibition on Evil Design which sounded really interesting. After a short stop in a park close by to read our guidebooks and leaflets (did I not mention we had visited the Tourist information?!?), and for a quick sun-bathing stop (Nick’s idea of course!), we hit the museum.

Annoyingly, we are no longer under 25 so could not enter for £2, although the lady at the counter kindly asked if we were! The ticket price was only £4 each and the ticket was valid for one year plus you could use it in other museums so a good deal really. The museum had exhibits on Japanese and Chinese arts and crafts, as well as a timeline of Swedish Design from the 19th-21st Century, a little like the V&A's. The most interesting exhibit though was the Evil Design one (http://rohsska.se/en/aktuellt/nu-pa-rohsska-museet/64/), which took a really novel look at how design can be viewed in a negative way, for example how mass production in design through sweatshops is often overlooked, or how similar Calvin Klein adverts compare to Nazi propaganda about the perfect image of the Aryan Race (compare the two - it is quite frightening!), plus the fact that someone had designed, concentration camps and the Nazi flag and if a fashion designer say's or does something unethical does that make their clothes undesirable and therefore unpopular?. It really made you view everyday things in a new light.

Feeling successfully cultured, we walked to the “main square” to see Poseidon's Statue only to see a young student with his mouth to Poseidons special area. Apparently it is freshers week in Gothenburg and there were armies of young students being given tasks and dares to do to humiliate themselves - those were the days! From there we weaved our way to Slottskogen, a huge park in the centre of the city which is known as the Green Lung of Gothenburg which has lakes, a small petting zoo (we saw seals and even a moose!) and is where most of the locals spend their weekends. The sun was still shining and it was baking hot, so we settled down for a picnic and ended up spending the rest of the afternoon in there!

A quick pit stop back at the hostel later that evening and we decided to go back to Haga (the old town) for a last night drink. Sadly it seems to be more of a day-time destination as many of the cafes were closed. We did find a bar though which was lovely, albeit very expensive at £6.50 a pint, so after only one drink we called it a night (much to our bank balances relief) head back to the hostel for some food and sleep as we had another early start to catch the train to Stockholm.