Day 13 – Gothenburg, Sweden

General information for Gothenburg or Goteborg, located on the southwest coast of the Kingdom of Sweden. Built by the command of a king, during its glory days in the 1600s and 1700’s, Gothenburg was a vital international port. Today, the population is around 500K, which makes it the second largest city in Sweden. Where our ship docked, we could easily see that the port is still very active. The city was founded some 350 years ago as a defense against repeated Danish attacks. Designed and built with the help of the Dutch and Scots, the city’s role was to be a gateway of trade and commerce to Europe. Today, the city is alive and vibrant. Plenty to do like visit the city’s historical sites and museums, or the many parks and maybe the simple joys of strolling along the broad tree-lined avenues with many shops and restaurants.

 Our ships dock was many miles away from the city center, so we decided the best course to take – was to take the shuttle into the city and then walk around. Walking around was fairly simple. If you needed to jump on mass transit, there was plenty of that right off of the city center square. We first set out to do some shopping. I have to say shopping was not a problem in Gothenburg. It seemed like the city center was one giant mall after another one. What looked like a simple storefront opened up to a mall inside (usually the complete city block). The prices for stuff was not too bad, considering that we are traveling. I found most of the prices in Gothenburg to be a bit lower than in Stockholm. We visited a few of the major sites but stayed away from any of the museum’s. I had seen too many museum’s on this trip.

My overall impressions:

• Very friendly people. Every shop that we went into, the people were more than willing to help you out. When we looked lost out on the street, strangers were willing to help get you back to familiar territory (City Center).
• Free wifi at McDonald’s! Again, I was able to get connected at all things, a McDonald’s.

  

• Ate lunch at a bakery that had plenty of outside seating. I did not have a hot dog, as the experience in Russia – with the hot dog outside of the Hermitage – just made me say – No More Hot Dog’s. Simple sandwich with local fresh bread and meats, was just the ticket. Dessert was a pastry with fruit! Yum…
• Once back on the ship – we had a great view of the shipyard from our room. Not great view, but watching the operations of container movement and loading – was quite the operation.
• Lastly, Gothenburg was the only port that had a send off for us. A local high school band (only some of the them) were there to play music. By late afternoon and just off the water, the wind was blowing pretty good and the temperature was down a bit. Those poor band members – their hats were blowing pretty hard. Their hands were cold, but they performed for about 20 minutes till the ship set sail. Then the raced to the bus to get warm.

This was our last port of call for this trip. We had our last day left – which was all at sea. Our journey was coming to a close… I had a great time exploring places that I never thought I would ever go to..