Europe 2016: Gothenburg

Arrival in Gothenburg was a little behind schedule, with final berthing about about 20 minutes later than scheduled. It was another tortuous path through rocky outcrops and little islands to get into the Port of Gothenburg.

Fortunately today free shuttle buses into town have been organized, and just as well, as the bus ride alone is 30 minutes from the cruise terminal. As has been the case at the last few ports, free wifi is totally inadequate, so after trying to get a connection, most people just move on to town in the hope they may find something in the city. Sadly this did not turn out to be the case. Very little is free in Sweden.

Once off the bus, we walked down to the waterfront area and saw there was a booth selling tickets on a canal cruise leaving in 5 minutes. We quickly signed up and were soon on our way. Our experience so far on this cruise is that the canal cruises provide the best city overview, as anything that is important was built near the canal or harbour.

Not sure what this is about

Gothenburg is built on a muddy foundation and some of the harbourside buildings have a bit of a lean on them.

Because of the poor substructure all public transport is above ground in the form of trains, trams and buses. There is no subway.

There were some very low bridges we had to duck under as we left the harbour and entered the canal.

We passed the fish market, known as the Fisherman’s Church (it is on our list to be investigated by foot later.)

The Kings Park , along the canal side is like a botanical garden where one of every type of tree that is native to Sweden is planted.

There is a cultural festival on in Gothenburg at the moment and food stalls representing food from all around the World are gathered by the canal side near the Central Market.

Our guide does a great job of keeping us informed along the way

There is a lock that we pass by which is still apparently in use, but not part of this tour.

Another low bridge., and afterwards we enter a larger body of water .

This building was the Headquarters for the East India Company in Gothenburg.

This building, now the Casino, was known as the House of the Immigrants, as in its previous life it was the Immigration Building, and many Swedes left Sweden to find a better life we Sweden was beset by drought.

We passed the floating Maritime Museum on our way back to out starting point. Apparently it is one of the biggest floating museums around, with every ship accessible for inspection, connected by a series of walkways.

The cruise was great and the guide very good, providing us with the overview we were hoping for. We saw many of the highlights of Gothenburg from the boat and were then able to set off on foot to spend more time in the areas of interest.

Once back on dry land we set out on foot in the direction of Haga, the Old Town. Along the way I was continually looking for free wifi to check my email, as there are a few things going on with my super that I need to stay on top of.

We found a small Café that had a good connection, so bought some coffee and caught up with everything whilst we were there. It was then back on the road to Haga, which is only a very small section of the old town that has been commercialized.

Looking up, a side street we saw that there was a stairway that appeared to be heading up to a fortress high above the city. We decided to climb up and have a look.

The fortress “Skansen Kronan” was one of two fortresses built high over Gothenburg to protect them from invasion by the Danes, with whom they seemed to be at war with for a very long period of time, mainly battles over territory .

The views from up here were great.

Back down in the town our next destination was the “Fish Church”, the fish market which we have been told is a must visit, and worth staying for lunch.

We did stay for lunch and the XL Shrimp Sandwiches were terrific

After lunch we walked back through the city towards our boat, passing the old Hospital, which is now a University. It was built in a round shape, because at the time the belief was that disease lived in the corners of rooms.

We then ended up at The Market Building which housed some amazing produce.

Continuing on, we came t the Central Railway Station, where were in need of a rest room, and quickly found out that Gothenburg now holds the record for the highest cost of having a pee on our trip so far at 2 euros each.

We did not have to wait long for a shuttle bus back to the ship and arrived back there with 2 hours spare before sailing time. The Port wifi service was hopeless, but we noticed everyone was in the nearby Volvo Museum Café , so we went there, bought a cup of coffee and had full aceess to there very good wifi service for free.