We have just arrived in Kongsvinger in Eastern Norway after a wiggly journey across central Sweden. We can't post pictures here. ( a very kind receptionist has let us use the office computer in this 110 pounds a night hotel. It's the only one for miles - honest) Main roads in Sweden are not for cyclists We'll post a picture when we get to Oslo to give you an idea. So we have had to zigzag around, through some fantastic countryside. Norway is very hilly, not a surprise, but we think tomorrow will be downhill to Oslo.
Ted has understated the horrors of the Route 61. We were on a perfectly nice cycle path out of town and were debouched onto a two lane dual carriageway which rapidly went down to one lane and the space for bikes to about 12 inches. Our panniers were scrapping along the crash barrier and the vehicles coming past us at 100 KPH were scrapping the central divider. We came off at the appropriately named Kil and took the back roads through some beautiful countryside adding 30 Km to our journey. You might ask why we didn't do that in the first place. We did today - this involved 20 Kms on a dirt road which was amazingly smooth and infinitely better than any of the Russian roads we went on.
Now to the cakes - or lack of them - and even worse the complete absence of cold beer in regular supermarkets in Sweden. I thought the archaic rules about buying liquor in the state stores had long since disappeared - but no. It was not possible to buy beer stronger than 3.5 % in the supermarkets. That would have been OK but it seems that supermarkets aren't allowed to sell cold beer. Apparently most of the beer sold in Sweden is this low alcohol stuff - it would be interesting to find out if it is the solution to binge drinking. We certainly saw a lot of drunks in parks - and Ted had a very nice chat with one of them when we were having our lunch. The next day we were back in the bus shelter! Cakes are also seemingly impossible to find and Ted needs his fix every night. We found shelves of crispbreads and other healthy foods but no unhealthy sweet stuff.
