Karlstad, Sweden

We have now travelled from Denmark to Sweden and after some expensive and slightly bewildering booking procedures we boarded a train and 6 hours and two changes of trains later, we arrived at Karlstad to be greeted by Karina and Alistair.  Karina is a friend of old whom we last saw in Santa Barbara, US five years ago.  She is a Swede and has moved back to Sweden largely as a result of the relative cost of medical care here (reasonable) and the US (very expensive).   She and Alistair, the tiny 12 year old Yorkie are our hosts for the next fortnight.

Here is Alistair next to his sandbox.  It is difficult to appreciate how very tiny he is unless you see Alistair next to some other object. 

Alsitair is an amazing contrast, I imagine, to Charlie, the Hungarian vizsla, who we are going to look after in Oslo at the next leg of our Scandinavian journey.  We have not yet met Charlie, only his owners, Jane and Ofer, but I am familiar with the size and energy of vizslas.  Alistair is cute and lively but does not have the energy level of a pointer.

Here I am with Karina in her lovely spa on the deck of her house.  We had a spa last night just before going to bed which is a wonderful experience.

The house here is remarkably similar to the Santa Barbara house but this one has a lovely deck overlooking a green common.

The next morning we went for a very nice walk on the shores of Lake Vanern the largest lake in Sweden and also in the European Union.  It is also the third largest lake in the whole of Europe after two lakes in Russia.  The town of Karlstad is located right on the lake.

We spent part of the morning taking a walk along the shore among the beautiful undulating big flat rock formations and easy walking paths near the grassy shoreline.  There were some people swimming but not many.

In the afternoon we had a game of croquet.  Karina has a set.  I have never played the game before, Andrew had tried it once.  I must say, I am hooked.  I can see we are going to be spending a lot of afternoons perfecting our techniques here in Karlstad and once we are back home, I am going to persuade the master of my universe that we should join the local croquet club.  Our friends Denny and Rob in Newcastle/ Bribie Island are devotees.

It was a surprising amount of fun and a game of skill and strategy.  I have played snooker and there are aspects of croquet in strategies that remind me of the table game.  In the set of instructions Karina kindly provided, croquet is described as a wonderful game for parties and family gatherings because it is both extremely competitive and extremely sporting.  It is also apparently, one of the hottest games in the US today.  I had always thought of it as a rather upper class game played in the United Kingdom.

Karina has a surprising amount of lawn in her back yard and it is very flat, hence we could easily play croquet on it.  She has a device which we have never come across, a grass cutting robot, in much the same style as the more familiar cleaning robots back home.  It has its own docking station.

Because the robot is going to be doing its own thing again tomorrow, we could not leave the croquet wickets (the white gate-like metal pegs you stick into the grass) out on the lawn ready for our game tomorrow.






Karlstad has a population of 61,000 and is reputed to be one of the sunniest towns in Sweden.  Certainly, Karina's big south-facing windows (in OZ north-facing is best but we are on the opposite side of the globe) let in the sun all day which is lovely and it reminds me of our own sunny house in Canberra.

Walking down the main pedestrian mall in the town.

View of the houses on the Klaralven, Sweden's longest river which runs into Sweden's largest lake.  The town is built on the river delta.  Klaralven also flows through Norway.

The Stads Hotel, the biggest and most elegant hotel in the town.

This twelve arch 168-metre bridge is the longest stone bridge in Sweden.  It was built between 1761 and 1811.

We are having a relaxing lunch in downtown Karlstad.  Alistair, as a support dog was allowed to join us.