Today we get up early and have breakfast right away. Within 30 minutes we pack and load the car, clean the cottage and check out. Slowly but surely we are getting into a routine!
Today we have quite a stretch ahead of us. The first stop is an ICA, as usual, this time to pick up lunch. Sunne is a larger town, so there is a salad bar and fresh bread.
Our next stop is the “Båstnäs Car Cemetery”, an abandoned car cemetery in the middle of the forest, close to the Norwegian border. This place was founded by two brothers who discovered and exploited a legal loophole in the post-war period. Importing cars into Norway was forbidden, but importing car parts was not. So the two brothers collected many cars, took them apart near the Norwegian border, brought them across the border as individual parts and put them back together in Norway. Until the end of the 1980s this was a lucrative business model.
We drive through the forest for hours, passing the occasional small cluster of houses. The road gets narrower and the forest denser, until suddenly we see cars appear in the middle of the forest. The cars become more numerous and a few buildings join this curious gathering. We park our car off the road and hope that we will find it again, because in this abandoned area there are estimated to be more than 1000 vehicles hiding in the forest, which is dense in places.
The place is teeming with seemingly forgotten cars. There are saloons, coupés, convertibles and other vehicles from the 1950s to the 1970s, some of which are even piled on top of each other.
Lots of car parts, such as engines, tyres, suspension parts and shock absorbers, are also piled up next to the former workshop.
A very interesting visit and certainly a place that will stay with us for a long time.
Afterwards we drive on to our next Airbnb in Åmål. It is a small town on Vänern, Sweden’s largest lake. Our cabin, however, is a little outside town and lies next to a small forest. We walk through the forest and discover a little spot where we can get down to the lake, with a view of a lighthouse. It is wonderful to read there to the sound of the lapping water.
In the evening we have rice with red wine sauce and broccoli, cauliflower and cheese patties.
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