I got to Kræmmersten with the first rays of the sunrise. It was one of those very cold autumn mornings that sometimes strike in during early October. Vagn was late, and whilst waiting, I entertained myself with the horses that were put to graze on a withered grass pasture. Strangely enough, the fresh grass was only outside that pasture area, and when the horses saw me getting out of my warm car, they happily ran up to me. I gave them lots of grass, and we quickly became friends.
Vagn and I had planned to go on a weekend flying trip; we just didn’t know where to. We monitored the weather, and it kept changing. We wanted to leave Friday late afternoon, but I had a busy week at work, and couldn’t leave earlier on Friday, nor had I the time to prepare for the trip. On Friday evening we could see that the best weather would most likely be on the west coast of Sweden, and agreed to fly to Höganäs early Saturday morning, and decide on the final destination from there. The first leg of our journey:
When we took off, it was still a bit cloudy:
But as soon as we reached southern Sweden, the skies became clear, the sun was shining, and it immediately affected our mood in a positive way.
Kullaberg looked so irresistible in the sunlight – we went for a round tour. Had a look at the lighthouse, Nimis and Arx art works on the northeast side of the peninsula, and talked about going to Höganäs for a weekend soon, go hiking on Kullaberg, visit all these great places again, as we did for a couple of years ago.
The wind was north east that day (and therefore it was so cold); we landed on the runway 06 in Höganäs:
Despite early morning, there already were many pilots in the flying club. It was so nice to get into a warm place, and to have a cup of tea with a chocolate ice-cream for breakfast! Well, I had some fruit when driving to Kræmmersten (it is one hour drive from my home), but Vagn was late and hadn’t manage to have anything for breakfast.
We checked the weather, and decided to go to Varberg. None of us has been there before, and we love exploring new places. It was a busy morning in ESMH – we had to wait in a queue for takeoff:
The second leg of our journey went via Ängelholm and Halmstad:
The visibility was excellent – we could see the Danish island of Anholt on our left. We flew north, the cockpit was in the shadow, and we were freezing. But that didn’t spoil the pleasure of flight – the views on our way were breathtaking.
A coast in Sweden, somewhere near the Utteros nature reserve:
I love this play of colours and shapes, and often take many pictures flying over such beautiful areas.
Soon we reached Varberg:
In Höganäs, I booked a hostel for us, somewhere near the Varberg Fortress (photo below). I didn’t check where exactly that hostel was located, and when we flew by, we just admired the impressive fortification:
Later we found out that the hostel was actually in one of the fortress’ buildings – in a former prison! Then I understood why during the booking I read “price per cell“! I did notice the word cell, but thought it was the wrong automatic translation by google, and didn’t pay much attention to that. That’s how you can end up in a prison…
The half-island of Getterön where the Varberg aerodrome is located (photo below). We landed, and were welcomed to the flying club that had an excellent cafe on site. On right base to runway 12:
We were not hungry, but freezing, and a cup of coffee with dark chocolate helped:
The cafe was full of visitors, most of them had no relation to aviation – they just came by because they liked the place. There were aircraft models hanging over the tables:
On one of the walls we saw a newspaper article about Simone Aaberg Kærn, and her visit to Varberg. Simone is a well known artist, pilot, and adventurer from Denmark; Vagn and I were very proud.
We took our bikes and left for the town.
After a short waiting time in the garden, we checked in to our charming hostel-prison:
It was a nicely restored building, with large and light rooms that didn’t resemble prison cells. Uneven floors, stoned walls painted in white, one window left with the original bars, candlelight and flowers. There were some leftover croissants, and we ate them all.
We went biking around, and headed to the marina first. I love public art, and there were many beautiful pieces around Varberg. One of them on the photo below – “Spirande snäcka” (Swedish: Spire shell) by Walter Bengtsson (1996), with hilarious birds and the coat of arms of Varberg on top.
This car, decorated with the Swedish and US flags was driving slowly around the streets:
The driver played loud music with windows down. We didn’t figure out what it was about, but it was fun and attracted lots of attention.
It was +1C but so wonderful to be in the sun! We had a small leisure break on the square in front of the Kallbadhuset (Swedish: Cold bathhouse). People were coming to the square to drink champagne, or have a cup of coffee, or just sit down and read a book. It was a lovely place…
Birds didn’t seem to be afraid of coming close. One of the seagulls next to me was screaming loud, it sounded like “go away, that’s my place!” The seagull was targeting Vagn’s banana he neglectfully left unattended. I warned Vagn about it, but he didn’t listen (typical men!).
The bird grabbed Vagn’s banana and ran away with that. Then Vagn began screaming!
It probably sounded so awful that the seagull dropped that damn banana and gracefully walked away, not even looking back. And Vagn got his banana back. We laughed a lot!
Varberg is a relatively small city, with about 30,000 inhabitants, but a very captivating one. Varberg church on the photo below, was completed in 1772 as a replacement of an elder church from 1687 that was destroyed in a fire in 1767:
On the Market square in front of the church we saw this cute sculpture of a boy carrying water:
One of the older buildings in the city centre:
Though Varberg has a number of fine restaurants, like “Happy Fish” located right next to our hostel, we didn’t feel like going out for dinner. ICA Quantum has really good take-away salad bar in every supermarket, with lots of healthy and unhealthy choices including fish, meat, veggies, and so on. You can mix everything the way it suits you. I have been their loyal customer for a long time. So we got ourselves two bowls of those salads, and had a very nice candlelight dinner in our hostel’s lobby, reading aviation magazines we borrowed from the Varberg flying club.