South through Swedish forests and beautiful lakes

Day 10Fri 20th July 18

South through the Swedish forests and lakes to Mora 400 miles.

Slept well and still had my wallet in the morning 😊 Had a good breakfast, chatted more and then set off south again. After a couple of coffee stops and several hours riding it was time to part with Claus. We shook hands and swapped telephone numbers. I suppose the whole experience was a bit weird thinking about it 😎

I had no idea where I would end up that night so just kept riding through more forests and past more lakes, all very beautiful, till I could find a town big enough to have hotels.

 I stopped to fill up and wanted a sandwich and then I spotted the reindeer meat wrap; decided I had to try, especially as I had been dodging them on the road for the last couple of days 😊 tasted rather like smoked ham.

It was 9pm when I came to Mora, a large town on a big lake. 400 miles from where I started that morning. It was 28C even this time of night and I was knackered. There were 5 hotels in town, it was Friday night and obviously a busy tourist spot. The first 4 hotels were full, but thankfully the 5th had a room 😓

High point of the night was a really nice Thai meal and then watching the locals cruising round town in big old American cars, lots of them.. strange. 

Day 11 Sat 21st July18

South to Jönköping 300 miles

Another good breakfast and some route planning. Decided to make for Jönköping, a reasonable sized town on the shores of the largest lake in Sweden. Booked an hotel on Booking.com so pressure off, enjoy the ride. 

The road twisted through some great scenery, forests and lakes again. The Swedes love their lakes, camping by them, boating and swimming; it really is a very nice country away from the towns. 

Being Saturday there were lots of locals out for a drive; at one point I joined up with 5 red Ferraris, wow they are noisy ! A thought suddenly struck me; I have only seen 2 Teslas in Sweden, and one of those was Norwegian! Obviously no subsidies here 😊

By now I had joined a dual carriageway which was boring, I had bought a sandwich for lunch so decided to come off and saw a small side road which lead to a lake. I spotted a grassy track which lead right down to the lakeside and thought I’d try it. At the end was a little hut and a jetty which went out into the lake and had a table and chairs on it. Obviously somebody’s property, but there was no one to be seen so I sat out on the jetty and ate my sandwich looking out across the lake, beautiful moment, so quiet. 😎

I reached Jonkoping and checked in the hotel; after a shower went to look for somewhere to eat. Found Murphy’s pub; looked ok and ordered a burger. By the time I had finished the place was filling up with a lot of big guys and girls with tattoos and now there were 2 tough looking guys on the door dressed like soldiers and with batons on their belts 😱 Turned out that this place was the town’s heavy rock venue on a Saturday night 🤘Time for bed I decided before it all kicked off 🤣