Lovely Nora - what's the score?

So far as the British are concerned 'Last of The Summer Wine' probably 'did for' Nora having any other connotation than 'wrinkled stockings', well, at least for the over the over fifties. In Sweden it means wooden houses, ice cream, lakeside walks and steam trains according to our Lonely Planet guide. After two niggling days by Lake Skagern, with a brighter day forecast, we decided to visit Nora and see if it lived up to the positive spin.

First we needed to top up with LPG. Arrangements differ from country to country as does the adaptor required. Denmark appeared to have only three places in the whole of Jutland with a pump, we visited two and one worked. Sweden has many more, but not on forecourts. You need to go to a specialist propane gas supplier. We had not reckoned on a queue, but gas is sold mainly in refillable bottles, similar to our Safefill, and is used not just in motorhomes but caravans, boats. BBQs, and patio heaters. 

We had to wait our turn. No self-fill here. The guy at the pump had no problem connecting us up - Sweden uses the same 'cup' adapter as France. He was less happy with the way our refillable cylinder had been fitted, claiming that it should meet the regulations governing under-slung tanks and have metal not rubber pipework. The problem is every single EU country have slightly different practises and each one is convinced theirs is the definitive European standard. Pump guy turned a blind eye to our alleged transgression and topped us up anyway. Expensive, at 11.50SEK per litre (£0.95) the most we have ever paid.

LPGill

The motorhome parking place for Nora is listed as free in a large mixed parking near the railway museum. It is, but a new paid for 'stellplatts' has just opened nearby with a credit card controlled barrier, sanitary block, ehu and that most rare of Swedish moho facilities - a drive on service point with grey water emptying drain. Yay!

So, how did Nora score so far as the Lonely Planet hype went? Taking its promised charms one by one:

1. Wooden Houses

It is true, the town centre abounds with pretty wooden houses, some rust red, others pastel shaded - cream or pale mint green. The stuccoed white church by Swedish standards was quite imposing, on the whole the Lutheran churches in villages and towns tend to be quietly understated as you

The town would get full marks for cute traditional buildings but for a couple of spectacularly unlovely concrete public housing blocks plonked in the middle. Why i post-war 'welfare state' architecture so dull, ugly and ill-proportioned right across Europe, on both sides of the 'Iron Curtain', in countries directly involved in WW2 and neutral states too?

So one mark deducted for the concrete blip.

Score 9/10.

2. Ice Cream

Our guidebook gushes about the wonders of 'Nora Glass', purveyors of scrumptious ice cream to townsfolk since 1923. Be ready to queue, warned Lonely Planet. In this respect they were correct, two orderly queues had formed at the windows. Being Sweden a stepped stool had been provided so children could peer over the counter as their ice-cream delight was prepared. Most became so excited at the prospect they almost fell off.

We chose the hazelnut rather than the grapefruit flavour. Rather than have dozens of flavours on offer the place has a rolling menu of daily 'specials. It clearly had become a local institution, public seating had been provided for customers and it has acquired a resident flock of opportunist jackdaws on hand to devour drips and spillages 

It is good freshly made ice cream, but given the months we have spent in Italy then we have become difficult to please. Score - because we have become gelato snobs - 8/10 

3. Lakeside walks

Nora's setting as well as its architecture makes it special. Sweden's smaller lakes epitomise the truth of Auden's lines in his eponymous poem:

A lake allows an average father, walking slowly, / To circumvent it in an afternoon, / And any healthy mother to halloo the children / Back to her bedtime from their games across: / (Anything bigger than that, like Michigan or Baikal, / Though potable, is an 'estranging sea').

The small town on low rising ground by the lake which is little bigger than a tarn is a beautiful spot. The lake itself has a large island in the middle which has been developed as a visitor attraction with children's activities.

Sometime after sunset we took a walk back to the lake. Standing at the end of a small pier the water directly beneath me was profoundly dark, slowly lightening through shades of silvery blue towards the low hills on the opposite shore - a moment of utter tranquillity.

Utter? Perhaps a slight overstatement, 'intermittent tranquility' is more accurate. Pointlessly circling the town with the determined boredom only older adolescents can muster, a lone youth shattered the peaceful twilight on a miniature scooter with an underpowered motor that sounded like a chainsaw when driven faster than about 20mph. He would shriek past us then disappear into the twilight becoming a distant annoying buzz in the background as he disturbed the peace of other neighbourhoods. After five minutes of relative peace he would returned to annoy us some more, the pattern repeating itself until about 10 o'clock when hunger, or fear of his mother drove him home.

So how should we score Nora's lacrustine delights? Surely we have to award full marks, it's hardly the lake's fault that the place has irritating adolescents - 10/10.

4. Steam Trains

The moho parking is right next to Nora's old railway sidings. The town is Sweden's Darlington, the birthplace of the national railway network, the place where in the 1850s the tracks connecting local mining villages adopted a standard gauge and a few a years later launched the first regular passengers services.

The mines are long gone and Nora's station was closed in the 1980s, at least so far as the national network was concerned. Since then the station and workshops have been run by volunteers and they have developed an impressive museum commemorating both Nora's railway heritage and the history of the nearby mining villages.

For a boy born in the mid 1950s who never quite acquired the Hornby train set he hankered after and the girl who grew up the the heartland of the Durham mining industry - it's got to be 10/10.

and Sweden's 18th biggest lake is....

Really this business of posting on FB then nicking the posts for the blog is getting to be a bit of a bad habit. I have never been very good at kicking bad habits, which is why the wine stash bought in France for the whole trip is not going to last us much beyond Copenhagen and why this is another filched Facebook post....

Otterbergets Bad & Camping is not bad at all, in fact it's one of those places you may be tempted to describe as a 'nice spot' if you were given to saying such things. It's by a lake with a forested shore, in other words it's in Sweden. Also, being 'not bad' doesn't mean it was great, at least from our point of view. 

Our arrival was complicated by yet another smartcard failure. We carry two camping discount cards, Acsi and Camping Key Europe, the latter card is useful in places like Portugal and Sweden where Acsi sites are less common. We bought a new Camping Key card specially for this trip and had used it without a problem in Denmark. When the receptionist swiped it here the system flagged up the card was out of date and we needed a new one. Gill pointed out that the expiry date printed on the card was 2020, so it must be valid. The person at the till went into 'the computer says no ' mode and got on her mobile to 'phone the boss'. 

In fact two bosses arrived - the site is Dutch run, a process of extremely straightforward problem solving ensued - where inadvertently or not, the gist of ensuing conversation felt as if this was our problem and at some inconvenience for the site owners they were going to have to find a solution. The solution was to book us onto the Swedish Camping Key system which involved typing all my personal details into their computer - Name, Address, DOB, email, mobile number - all of which was required because the Camping Key smartcard can be used as proof of identity and the mobile app is being tested in Sweden. This explained why a card bought in the UK is not going to work. All of this took ages and resulted in a bit of irritation all round. My general mood was not improved by the Dutch guy making a failed attempt at humour by suggesting that the girl on the computer's difficulties in finding 'Great Britain' on the drop down menu for 'nationality' was probably due to Brexit. Next he mistook my date of birth as 1945; I began to wonder if he was deliberately winding me up - really, do I look 74 years of age?

Finally after a protracted and slightly fraught process we were booked-in for two nights. Our next request, again a simple one, proved equally inexplicably tricky. We needed to dump our grey water. There was a simple reason why our waste water tank smelled as if something small and furry had drowned in it and was now slowly decomposing, sadly our dish water had been festering for days. It is really tricky to find places to dump waste water in Sweden. For all the excellently designed 'stellplatts' at marinas and by canals, with heated showers blocks, spotless stainless steel chemical WC emptying points, few places have grey water drains. The folks running them are very apologetic, but that is no help whatsoever if alien ectoplasm is multiplying exponentially beneath your van's bathroom floor. 

OK, it was pure happenstance that an English cess-pit on wheels had rolled up at precisely the moment Mr. Dutch Campsite owner was fixing the only waste water dump in southern Scandinavia. Our need definitely placed us in the difficult customer category. 

'I will finish in 15 minutes,' he asserted somewhat icily. We found a temporary pitch and settled down to have lunch until the service point became serviceable. The young woman in the tent next to us gave us a hard look, we may have accidentally transgressed the three metres separation rule. It all made us feel quite at home, Caravan Club sites have exactly the same stuffy, rulebound atmosphere.

Half an hour or so later we went in search of the waste water dump, its whereabouts had been circled in bold on the campsite plan we had been given, especially to help the these two stupid foreigners I think. The place was nowhere to be found; we even tried turning the plan upside down, but it still remained a mystery. This was because we had been looking for a drain, not some strange Heath Robinson contraption attached to a flexible pipe stashed in a shed. In fairness we had once come across something very similar at Camping Koroni on the Peloponnese. 

However, whereas Zorba the Greek's moveable drain was crafted out of bits of plastic drainpipe stuck together with duck tape, the installation we were faced with now was a much more substantial affair. Built with solidity of Soviet era tank, the stainless steel 'drain box' on wheel was attached to the culvert by a flexible heavy duty rubberised hose. A long metal handle attached to the box enabled long suffering moho owners to guide the contraption under their van and line it up with the grey water outlet. I turned on the tap, the steel box filled with smelly water but none drained away. Gill popped back back to reception for assistance. 'Make sure the pipe is perfectly flat' campsite guy advised grumpily. It was true, I had not noticed a small kink in the hose near where it disappeared into the ground. Now perfectly flat, the waste water slowly drained away. The receptionist had followed Gill back, she observed us momentarily, advising 'Water does not run uphill you know.' A needlessly acid remark I felt under the circumstances.

Should we let these small incidents get us down? Probably not, but a series of minor setbacks do have a cumulative effect, and how you are treated does matter. If people are kind then it's easier to brush off glitches, if they are sarcastic it becomes more difficult to take things in good heart.

Nevertheless, this lake-side camp site is in a beautiful location and there are four way marked hiking trails leading off from the entrance. So we wandered off to find them, choosing the 'white marked track' - the shortest at around 6km.

Through the forest

with occasional views of the lake...

with time to pause for thought, such as 'my that is a tall tree',

then back to the campsite....

A little track leads down to the shore. The lake beach has soft sand and gets fabulous sunset views.

Most people don't seem to budge from their pitches, the lake shore was mostly deserted apart from us.

It would be difficult to sit indoors with this happening about 200 metres distant.

Getting out to explore the area without a car is a bit tricky. Cycling opportunities are limited unless you are into off road stuff. The site is down a single track road off the E20. It does not seem to interconnect with other minor roads so it would be impossible, so far as we could tell, to explore more of the lake area without returning to the busy dual carriageway.

This goes someway to explain the camp site's popularity with caravanners, not just from Sweden, there were a few from Germany and Holland too. They weren't a very affable bunch, a friendly smile was rarely returned. The site is perfect if 'peace and quiet', nice views and places to go for a day out are your top priority, which is I suppose what you would hanker after if you owned a caravan. 

This led us to speculate that Sweden may be like the UK, traditionally a caravanning nation where motorhome ownership has only risen sharply in recent years, appealling particular to the recently retired. In Sweden you see very few vans more than a couple of years old, many swanky A class models, almost all owned by fellow sixty somethings. If this is the case it is unsurprising that sites lack well designed drive on motorhome service points because up until recently there was little need for them.

Next day it rained incessantly. The site itself does not have its own WiFi but you can buy access on-line to a national provider. Costing about £2.50 for 24hrs, it's not too bad. The signal was a tad 'wafty' but with patience it proved good enough to update the blog which was now lagging a week behind us.

There are places, like people, where you simply don't hit it off. In other circumstances we probably could have been perfectly happy here. As it is, it will remain in our memories as somewhere slightly odd. An example - once again we took a stroll down to the lake. Aside from following one of the hiking trails, when the weather was too chilly to lounge about or cook outside, staring at the lake was just about the only other diversion available. Apart from us, the only people on the beach was a woman and a girl aged about seven or so.

The woman may have been the same person who glared at me yesterday for parking too close to the tent next to us, she was some way off, difficult to be sure. Anyway, the two may have been mother and daughter, if they were, they seemed very disconnected.

The little girl perched on the playground swings motionless, the woman sitting 15m or so from her reading. Then she moved further up the beach and worked through a few yoga poses...marjariasana, chakrasana...

Left to her own devices the child alighted from the swing, removed both her yellow wellies and entertained herself by filling one boot with sand, then pouring it carefully into the other. The entire scene unfolded before us with the quiet, monochromatic solemnity of a Scandinavian art house film from the mid 1970s, uncanny and oppressive.

We need to move on tomorrow. Not far away is a town called Nora. Our guidebook says it has nice wooden houses and a famous ice cream shop. Also the sun might come out.

Along the Gota Canal

Still no Wifi - yet another 'cheat post' from the FB. site:

A few more photos too, this time with the odd comment here and there.

About 7km. down the canal from Sjötorp the next place, Lyrestad, is equally attractive and if anything even busier. Remember 'Pernille' - the fairy godmother of Glyngore  in Denmark? This place has a male equivalent in the guise of a hi-vis jacketed elderly chap who visits the place three times a day to collect the 225SEK fee (not cheap these places at £18.50  per night). He is a mine of information about the locality and likes a good chat - which is great. In the process we learned that Lyrestad is pronounced 'Leeshterd' and if we wanted to cycle to a particularly pretty spot 'Hajstorp' about 7km further down the canal was a good place to visit.

'

Again the sanitary facilities were accessed with a smart card (deposit 100SEK). When you leave you can get your deposit back at the 'Daisy Cafe' up the road - it's all very homely

It's a beautifully situated place, unless the it gets completely full everyone gets a waterside view, beautiful to wake up to this -

In the evening we wandered a kilometre or two back up the tow path towards Sjötorp. After the last couple of days gloomy weather clear blue skies certainly lifted our spirits, chilly though, by evening barely into double figures with an 'edge' to the breeze. Both of us are from the Northeast of England, we know that sharp wind. 

The light was stunning. I like the whitewashed Lutheran churches you see in the villages, though plain, they have a certain understated grace.

We took our hi-vis helper's advice and headed towards Hajstorp. Though the parking areas were full of motorhomes the canal-side path was quiet, few cyclists and no one whatsoever on the water. Perhaps it comes alive at the weekend.

Gill swapped Whatsapp messages with Sarah in Lisbon. 'It looks so English,' she observed. If you take a shot without the typical rust red Swedish wooden houses, then its true - it does look very like East Anglia -  1350 miles is a long way to drive only to realise you appear to have arrives in north Norfolk.

Beside Vänern

No Wifi - more cheat posts from the FB. site....

I am not sure what more there is to add - a few more photos maybe.

Our original plan was to stay overnight at the lake side parking at Lidkoping, perhaps taking an afternoon ride along the cycle way. We didn't - the bright sunny photos belie the single digit temperatures and an icy wind blowing straight down the lake from the Arctic. The only other vehicle in the place was hot hatch pulsating with drum and bass. It was occupied by a lone young male who sat motionless contemplating Vänern's grey expanse - the outer manifestation of his inner hopelessness?  Maybe he was just at a bit of a loose end.

We gave up on Lidkoping and decided to head up the eastern shore of the lake to Sjötorp , another overnight stopping place that had received very positive reviews on Campercontacts. Though the main road was rarely more than five kilometres from the shore the huge expanse of water remained invisible. The landscape was dead flat.

A throwaway comment as we drove along - maybe the lake was once much bigger and we are driving along the old bed. A bit of googling later revealed just how much of an understatement that was. The Ancylus Lake formed an enormous body of fresh water, the huge Vänern lake was a little bay in this giant freshwater ocean  - an end result of the last ice age. We are not talking about millions of years ago but 7500 years before present - Neolithic farming by that point spread well beyond the eastern Mediterranean to the Seine valley and the north of Poland. We live on a highly dynamic planet.

We arrived at the Sjötorp parking - a lovely spot - only to discover that it was a really popular weekend destination for Swedish motorhomers - every place was taken. We did have a plan B, we headed to Sundsörn Camping, a few kilometres to the south, next to the bridge to the lake island of  Torsö. In sunny weather it would have looked great. In drizzle - the back of beyond - a notice in the parking area instructed new arrivals to book-in at the cafe by the bridge. It was a long walk.

Spot the ever intrepid Gill

'Bridge Cafe[

Stylish in a homespun way

In the end the place was OK, the facilities clean and functional. As in previous sites statics predominated, mostly locked-up, once more 'zombie-land' - just us and a German camper on the tourist field. 

good facilities

lake view - in drizzle

Next day - Monday - plenty of space at Sjötorp. It's easy to see why it is so popular, a pretty spot where the Gota Canal locks join Vänern lake. 

You pay for parking at the lock-side cafe  - very friendly and helpful people. There's a really good place next door selling smoked fish and homemade dressings. We  bought some smoked salmon topped with lemon pepper for lunch. It was so delicious we called back later to buy a portion of the herb topped salmon for tomorrow.

Smoked fish shop