My original plan after Jonkoping was going west to Gothenburg (the second largest city in Sweden), but there are not much interested me there except some museums and a “famous” theme park. Therefore I decided to change my route going southeast to visit Kalmar and then south to “Swedish Stonehenge Ales Stener” instead.

Leaving Jonkoping I arrived Eksjo which is famous for its wooden houses. Eksjo hosts the International Tattoo festival each year, and I was lucky to see the performance! Although everybody was watching under heavy rain, it was still a good show with different teams from 5 countries matching and playing the orchestra on the way!

      

After Eksjo lays the “Kingdom of Crystal – Glasriket” ahead, it is an area well-known of making fabulous glass products. There are several places with 100 years old glass factories acting as showrooms for tourists to visit and even try to blow glasses. The most famous factories are located in Kosta and Orrefors.

 

Then 2 more hours later I arrive in Kalmar, a town full of sport events! There will be the Ironman triathlon competition when I was there, and my host told me there are lots of cycling, running races, ball games matches during the summer, and it seems like everyone in town LOVE SPORTS!!

 

Kalmar Castle, another medieval masterpiece, you can see the beautifully designed tunnel and moat. I didn’t go inside because after several castles I have visited along the way, they are quite similar, yet still gorgeous!

 

A special dish in this region I want to introduce is called Kroppkaka, it is made of potato flour wrapping pork and spices inside. Quite similar to Rice dumplings we have in China, especially we eat in Dragon Boat festival. I like the way they put lingonberry jam, which is a very strong antioxidant fruit as a sauce! Try that if you haven’t taste rice dumplings before!

 

If you have time you can take a ferry or bus to the nearby island called Oland, with 2 dots on top of the “O”, there you can find more naturally reserved parks and forests, and it would be great to camp there for a night or two.

Thanks my host Johan that we cooked 2 delicious dinners together, and we went to a free summer concert to listen street music! Such a relaxing 2 days!

 

Jonkoping to Kalmar  210km