Today is our last day in Stockholm. We sleep in a bit longer and go for a leisurely last breakfast at this hotel. There are croissants, scrambled eggs and knäckebröd. Then we pack and check out. We take the Arlanda Express back to the airport, where we pick up our rental car. The name Arlanda goes back to a naming competition announced in the magazine Året Runt in 1958. The jury liked none of the entries and proposed Arlanda itself, because the airport lies in the parish of Husby-Ärlinghundra, known in popular parlance as Arland.
We get off at a deserted terminal and have to wait a long time for the bus transfer to the car rental station. At the start of the pandemic Swedavia, which runs the airport, moved all of Arlanda’s operations to Terminal 5, and at times there was virtually no commercial air traffic. At the car rental station we complete the remaining formalities and get the keys: It’s going to be a Peugeot 3008 plug-in hybrid with 4WD!
The four-wheel drive comes from a second electric motor that drives the rear wheels. We will need it almost two weeks later, on the gravel road to the Grodkällan på Slengmyren bog and on the snowy, muddy roads to the Reivo nature reserve. We drive this car for just over five weeks, all the way up to Abisko and back to the Stockholm area.
The car is very pleasant to drive. For the first 40 km we don’t hear an engine, because it runs completely on electric power. Elegantly and silently, yet still with plenty of power, we drive along the lovely wide roads through the endless forests of Sweden. According to Statistics Sweden (SCB), 68 per cent of the country’s land area is forest, and in Dalarna, where Borlänge lies, it is 79 per cent. On the way we do some shopping at an ICA Maxi and pick up our first stock of provisions for the trip. We shop at ICA many more times on this trip.
Our destination for today is Borlänge on the Dalälven river. Domnarvets Järnverk started operating here in 1878, and the ironworks has shaped the development of Borlänge ever since. Today SSAB makes high-strength steel there. After a few hours on the motorway we reach our Airbnb for the night: A very cute little tiny house that, amazingly, really has everything in it, from the bed and a kitchen with stove, oven, microwave, fridge and coffee machine to the shower, a chill-out corner, freezer and dining table. The car stands on a gravel area between birches and conifers, next to the little house with its grey wood cladding.
We enjoy the last rays of sunshine of the day on the terrace in front of the little house and read. For dinner we cook spaghetti with cherry tomato sauce à la Annina.
After dinner we phone family and friends in Switzerland and end the evening with GNTM (Annina only) and an episode of The Big Bang Theory.
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