How do you know it's the beginning of fall? Exactly! You get wet more often than usual. Fortunately, we've had all the time in the world and could sit out almost all the rain showers!

What's more, our tick balance has taken a turn for the worse. One has now caught us after all. Hopefully it will be the only one!

In addition to the rain and the ticks, I would now like to introduce Tilman's new discovery: "Svenska Kyrka - the largest public toilet provider in Sweden".

Saturday 16.09.

"Dear diary, today I went to IKEA with Ilinca. It was really nice. We even ate hot dogs at the end!"

This is what my diary entry could look like today! But a lot more happened! Friends of Ilinca and Oreen were there for dinner. So there were at least as many nationalities at the table as there were people! Crazy this globalized world! Of course we had tacos for dinner, as befits well-integrated foreigners in Sweden. All in all, it was a very colorful evening and we thought it was really cool to get to know more of Ilinca's friends. 5 years was quite a long time!

Sunday 17.09.

After we had all started the day very lazy, we didn't set off on foot into the city center until late afternoon, but still in beautiful weather. Ilinca, Oreen, Tilman and I took the familiar route into the city center to Ilinca's favourite café. Sometimes you just have to relax and enjoy!

Back at the apartment, the 'indulging' continued. With frozen pizza and another teen/high school movie from the USA. Oh, this "normal life" has its advantages too!

Monday 18.09.

The start of the new week also heralded the start of our last leg of the tour. We got up together with Ilinca so that we could say goodbye to her before she went to work. With Oreen's help, we packed all our things, including the bikes, into the elevator and transported everything back down to the street. There we had to said goodbye to Oreen. He said that the last week had felt like his cousins had been visiting. So we left Uppsala with the firm intention of coming back soon.

The landscape in Uppland is characterized by small, scattered farms, narrow roads and rolling hills. In contrast to the last few weeks, we wanted to take things slowly and planned the route so that we had 70-80 km per day to cycle to Lund. Accordingly, we took plenty of breaks. Sometimes here at a lake, sometimes there at a lake until we arrived back at a lake for the night. Here we once again awoke an armada of mosquitoes and had to eat our evening meal in the shelter of our tent. Counting all the mosquito bites, I discovered a fat lump on the back of my neck near the hairline and asked Tilman if he could have a look at it. A tick... Unfortunately, this now ruins our "tick-free record". We must have caught this one in the little wood in Uppsala. Unfortunately, all we can do is keep an eye on it for the next days...

Tuesday 19.09.

Ida to headquarters.

Status report: the mosquito front has unfortunately not abated. It even seems as if they have brought in reinforcements. We are being overrun. Request support.

Ida Ende.

This morning, it wasn't so clear who the winner of the "Tilman and Ida vs. mosquitoes" battle was. All sides got a good fight.

After escaping the massacre, we drove in along the water to Våsteros. Sounds like something out of a fantasy saga, doesn't it? As we continued to follow the Mälarsleden, we also passed through the town's harbors. This is where the wealthier people live. Beautiful houses with balconies overlooking the lake, sailing boats and small yachts as far as the eye can see. We followed the idyllic cycle path to the Lidl supermarket on the edge of the town. A good breakfast is a must :-) Having breakfast at Lidl also had another advantage. When it started to rain heavily, we immediately had somewhere to shelter. Then the bright sun came out again and the sky was blue. Without a cloud. Only the headwind remained. I guess this is the start of fall. We rode on, fighting the wind, and 20 km later we took another break on the park bench. Time for a nap. The grannies walking past with their walking frames were very amused and somehow also generally in a very good mood. Kind of cute! As the wind picked up again and the dark clouds became more and more threatening, we sought shelter again. This time under a railroad bridge. Not a second too late, because the downpour started out of nowhere and lasted half an hour. Today we were lucky again with the shelter options. And as the saying goes? All good things come in threes. After driving straight ahead next to a road and the railway until we reached Köping, we found a store with a covered parking lot just as it started raining heavily again. Lucky us!

The last few kilometers were then, fortunately dry, on small, partly asphalted, partly compacted paths. We passed small farms and houses until we ended up on a large park meadow for a swimming spot. Surprisingly, it was already getting dark at around 19:45 and so we pitched our tent in the approaching dusk. Far away from any trees, as another storm was forecast for the night.

Wednesday 20.09.

We woke up safe and sound in the parking lot. It's kind of crazy how safe you feel in your little tent!

Unfortunately, the weather wasn't quite so promising. It was very hazy and we got a bit wet from time to time until we reached Örebro, when the "cloud" we were driving through turned into larger raindrops. On the outskirts of the town, we found a small shelter. Next to a Lidl, of course.

As it "stopped" raining every now and then, only to start again 5 minutes later, we even stayed in our little shelter for a few hours. What did we do there? Sleeping, chatting and playing Punto. Until the sun finally came out again!

This allowed us to see Örebro and its imposing castle even in the best lighting! We really liked the city! Extremely well maintained, beautiful and with a medieval flair.

We didn't make it much further than a few kilometers past Örebro, then a beautiful, calm lake cast its spell over us. This will probably be our camp for the night.

Thursday 21.09.

Tilman was a bit of a morning grouch today. That's just the way it has to be, so I set about packing up all our things - oh yes - and taking photos of the amazing morning sky.

We then dismounted the tent together and drove to Kumla to have breakfast in front of our favorite tour supermarket. The sun was shining beautifully on the solar cell, but we knew that it wouldn't last forever. The next day at the latest, one or two big rain clouds would catch up with us. That's why we wanted to cover as many kilometers as possible today. So we drove on through Kumla looking for a toilet and Tilman's new motto "Svenska Kyrka - the largest public toilet provider in Sweden" proved true once again. I found what I was looking for in the community center next to the church.

For the rest of the day, we mainly cycled along small roads. Through forests, over hills, through pretty villages.

We then entered the next larger town, Motala, along an idyllic canal that led us to the mouth of Sweden's second largest lake, Vättern.

Somehow driving along the water always has a calming effect. As the sun was already approaching the horizon, we visited Vadstena. Originally only because we had seen the outline of a castle on the map and were curious. This "detour" was definitely worth it! The town is like something out of a picture book from the Middle Ages. It even has a pilgrimage town for the pilgrims on the Brigittenleden. The castle was also anything but small, very well preserved and surrounded by a large moat filled with water.

A little while out of town, we started to search for a campsite along the road, preferably with some sight-protection. It's not so easy to find a good spot on farmland like this.

Friday 22.09.

Another early morning. When we poked our heads out of the tent at around 6:30 am, we witnessed a beautiful sunrise that illuminated the small clouds on the horizon in red-orange from below.

Everything was quickly packed up and we were on the still relatively empty road. The weather was very strange, as the clouds stretched across the sky like a veil. Not necessarily thick, but not so thick that the sun could beat them.

As we drove around the Mytenumragten Omberg, we came across an old monastery ruin in Alvastra. It was still quite well preserved and thanks to Tilman's internet research we also found out that it was an old cistine monastery and that after its "fall" the stones were used for the castle in Vadstena, which we had seen yesterday, among other things.

Somehow everything is connected here on Vättern. There are also several pilgrimage routes on and around the lake. Examples are the Brigittaleden, Klosterleden and Franciskusleden. It's super exciting to see them all together!

We then took a break in Ödeshög with the aim of spending some time in the library. As we were a little early, we sat in front of the main square for a while and ate curd cheese from the ICA. Suddenly a nice, blonde woman came up and spoke to us in Swedish. My reply "Tyskland" was probably not the right one, because she quickly realized that we probably didn't speak Swedish. She was from a local newspaper and thought that our bikes are very funny. She actually just wanted to do a quick shop, but probably saw a good story in us. One moment you're eating breakfast, the next you're giving an interview. That's how life works sometimes. In the meantime, an older gentleman came out of the library and said that there was Wi-Fi in the library and it was warm and everything. We promised in our bad Swedish to come in straight away. So we did and are now sitting in a extremely cozy library. Or how they say in swedish "Lagom".

When it was time to leave, we drove to a place with picnic tables. Unfortunately, we realized that although it would have been a very nice place to camp, it was unfortunately forbidden. Just then, a Swedish mountain biker came by and we asked her if she knew of a good place. She said there was a ski club in Ödeshög where she often saw caravans parked and she knew the people there. Alright - lets go!. She asked and we were allowed to pitch our tent on the grass there - even with a shower and sauna! What a great end to the week!