We were surprised to find that most places in Sweden accepted only card payments; the entire country was virtually cash free.
We enjoyed driving through Sweden. Blue sky and sunshine displayed the agricultural landscape at its best. We saw terracotta painted traditional farm buildings alongside neatly ploughed fields, huge dairy cows ruminating in grassy paddocks and trees bright in their autumn colours. Verges and hedgerows were neatly trimmed and there was very little litter, even in urban areas. Travelling at our sedate speed we reckoned it would take 5 or 6 days to reach Tromsö in the north. Diesel cost £1.20 a litre – cheaper than in the UK.
The country felt pleasantly un-crowded. Not surprising when you realise that the land area of Sweden was almost double that of the UK and their population was just over 10 million as compared with our 65 million.
The Swedish language was totally incomprehensible to us but people easily switched to English as soon as they realised we didn’t understand them.
