Thursday 30 July 2009

Scandanavia or Bust.

While the Netherlands was all very nice, great to see friends, etc, it was somewhat flat.

So with tired limbs all nicely rested we set off through Germany (picking up 10 more crates of emergency beer for Mick's wedding) then on to Copenhagen.

Copenhagen was lovely for a short visit. We left the van in in a city center caravan park and spent a day sight seeing.

We took a water bus down the river, through the city center's canals and on down to the sea. On the way back we detoured through Christiana (a great big hippie colony in the heart of Copenhagen) and then back to the van.

Unfortunatley neither of us are very good at remembering to take pictures so you will have to trust us that the city is cool. A clever mix of the old and the new all on a waterfront setting interwoven with canals.

From Copenhagen we drove through the new tunnel/suspension bridge link to the south of Sweden.

On the bridge Jess was informed of some very happy fammily news (Jess's sister Kate and bf Paulo are soon to be Kate, Paulo +1) so no pictures were taken of this engineering marvel.


Uddevella in Sweden to see Mick and Katrin was the next stop.

Thankfully Uddevella is in Bohslan in Sweden and is anything but flat. Rock everywhere. Some of the best single pitch climbing in Sweden.

After dropping the beer we went for a little climb on a bit of rock in the center of Uddevella.

It was a rainy Thursday but we got out climbing properly on the Friday before festivities commenced. Beautiful rock with clean straight cracks. We didn't jump on anything hard but it was still good to get out.

The wedding itself was great. Lots of Mick and Katrin's friends who we had met before plus numerous other new ones made it a weekend to remember.

The reception was held in Gustavsberg (a quaint little seaside resort just south of Uddevella. The weather stayed dry despite an ominous forecast and the Happy Couple said yes (in Swedish) at the appropriate times.

Success all round.

Then on to the serious buisness of socialising and dancing...

Gus had a near miss on the dance floor as Jess swung him off his feet Irish country dancing.

There were many other near misses and a few deliberate hits. [Section deleted to protect the guilty...]


Pictures speak a thousand words so i will leave the rest to those:




Despite all Micky's worst fears, the beer did not run out and no-one went thirsty.

In fact there was still beer and wine left over for quiet drinks on Sunday.


On Monday we returned to the rock.

Again, beautiful clean lines on perfect rock. Good company too with many climbers at the wedding we had quite a party at the crags.

Hope every one got home ok. It was great spending time with you all. A special thanks to Linus for helping us find our way round the various climbing spots.

At the moment we are undecided whether to stay in Sweden a few days more or high tail it for Chamonix in the Alps....

Stay tuned.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

Great to hear the wedding went well :)
Pics are great, love Katrin's outfit! x

Andy S said...

Loving the updates. If you head South again to the Alps, have you thought of stopping in Ith, just south of Hannover? We spent 3 days there last week. There's a free topo online, and a 3 Euro/night campsite right at the crags run by German climbers. Couple of pictures on my diary, see the link.

Unknown said...

It has been awhile since I checked the blog. Nice to see the trip has been marvelous thus far, I am sure this trend will continue. Ah, such great posts! M & K's wedding looked fabulous. And congrats Jess on finally getting that PhD thing you've been fussing over.

Ryan said...

Sounds like it was a great party! As far as climbing goes, those were beautiful rocks. You guys must have hands of steel at this point. :)