Travel journal #1 - Stockholm, Sweden - How we wrecked an Audi A4

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Hello one and all and welcome to the beginning of my travel journal, where I will post about my adventures around the world. I thought that entry #1 should be about my most recent trip, one centered around Stockholm and the neighboring cities. Hope you will enjoy.

A couple of my friends invited me to join them on a 3 day city break to Stockholm, Sweden. I was a bit reluctant at first but I recently saw this quote online "Money will return but memories wont" and decided why not.

We took a flight from Budapest Airport in the early morning of 29th of November, of course it decided to snow right when we were leaving for a nordic country to enjoy the snow, arrived in Stockholm after a short flight and rented a car. Unfortunately, I wanted a Volvo V60 since it's a pretty popular Swedish brand, which looks really nice, but they gave us one really nice spec'd Audi A4 (there are some photos later in the post).

Budapest Airport

The first day/arrival day was pretty uneventful. We got the car and headed towards the Airbnb we booked where the check in time was after 2 PM, so we took a stroll around the neighborhood.

Airbnb area

After a short nap we decided to head into town and grab something to eat. After a quick drive and a small walk we stumbled across a strange light piercing the sky, which come from this tree.

We stopped at the first restaurant we found, Nytorget 6, where the atmosphere was nice but the food not so much. I decided to have a half-chicken with fries that had a strange tasting sauce on them and some salad.

A strange looking half-chicken

We ended the night with some weird tasting Swedish beer from the one and only Lidl.

In the second day, we got up bright and early and started on a small road trip up north towards Uppsala, a city famous for its university and one of the oldest cities in Sweden. However, we weren't really interested in the university but in the prominent Uppsala Cathedral, which according to Wikipedia was built between 1272-1893.

You cannot really understand the immensity of the building until you see it with your own eyes.

Some photos from inside

After the stop in Uppsala, we continued our way north, to Gävle mostly because we saw a nice image of a Lighthouse online so of course we had to see it. The 120 km drive was snowy and in some places blizzardly.

The destination was Bottenhavets Sjötrafikområde, which for some odd reason, all 4 of us didn't take a picture of. However, we took a lot of photos with the surroundings.

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A nice looking lighthouse, courtesy of Wikipedia



Some sort of coast guard/pilot vessels

On the way back to our rented house, we stopped in Stockholm to enjoy a Christmas market but we got to see a Christmas tree, which was of course closed, and some food. I only ate beef once in my life before which I didn't really liked, but when in Rome (or Stockholm in this case) I decided to give it another try. And let me tell you , it's been a very long time since I ate something as good as this. It just melt in your mouth.

In the 3rd day we found a cool animals sanctuary online so we decided to visit it of course. The place is called Öster Malma Wildlife Park and is situated about 100 km south of Stockholm. The place also has a castle that acts as a hotel and also smaller cabins that you can book. The area is pretty nice, you have forests, open areas and also a lake nearby.
As for the animals that you can see, not much to say as we definitely went in the wrong period. You could only see a group of moose, which I guess were a family and a lot of deer.

We also stopped by to see the Christmas Market at Skansen, which was a bit underwhelming. We expected a lot more since it took place in a open-air history museum but it was mostly some lights hanged on trees. At least you could buy authentic Swedish food and different types of meats, hopefully not reindeer.

The restaurant of the day was a very popular sports-bar kind of place ,O'Learys Hötorget, judging by how difficult it was to find a table. The barbeque ribs were delicious and filling enough to last throughout the day.

The following morning, we got up at 6 am to head towards the airport and only 2 corners away from the rented house, disaster struck. The one who rented the car decided to ignore the roundabout and drive straight in it (joking of course, it wasn't intentional but a mix of tiredness, lack of attention and icy roads lead to misfortunes). The car was completely undrivable with a broken left front suspension and some kind of liquid leaving the car.

A sad and wrecked Audi A4

While this unfortunate event wouldn't be that bad, the fact that we had to be at the airport in the next hour with it being 35 minutes away, a race against the clock begun. We needed to decide who would remain behind to wait for the tow truck with the driver. While the decision was pretty tough, me and one of the friends decided to head towards the airport in a very speeding uber. The rest of the group spent the day in the airport waiting for the next flight home.

If you've made it this far, thank you for reading and can't wait to share my next adventure.
Stay safe and remember: Your next great story is waiting to be written - bon voyage!

Photo taken from Pixabay