The Swedish Winter holiday Adventure

Today I am looking out of the window at the ice covered Arlando Airport in Stockholm,, Sweden on a beautiful cold sunny morning, awaiting our flight to London.

We flew into Goteburg, a city of around 700,000 inhabitants on the west coast of Sweden, four days ago, and stayed with newly found relatives, Hans and Eva. Eva is a great cook, and I am sure that her wonderful cuisine helped my sinus cold to clear up in record time. Hans and Eva took us for a tour around Goteburg, along the street where my late Grandfather, Alfred walked before he emigrated to New Zealand in 1903 and around the spacious city centre. Then we viewed the large harbour which is dotted with islands and reefs, which are the bain of sailors. In the hot summer Goteburg is famous for sailing and boating events, including, I understand the Volvo Round the world event. But on this very cold day there was no evidence of any boating at all. Gotenburg used to have some large ship building yards, which no longer exist. Today it has the second largest tertiary education center in Sweden. A very nice place, I felt, and with all the trees everywhere, would look beautiful in spring, summer and autumn.

The weather in Sweden during our visit, has been settled, due to a ridge of high pressure over the area, so we have seen Goteburg, probably at its winter best, and without the mist that apparently covers the area in winter.

There was frost everywhere, and when we departed Goteberg for Stockholm by train, we glided through a white frost world, white trees, white fields, white streets and white, steep roofed houses.

At Last!! 10 snow ploughs have cleared the runway so it is time to go......