We were on the ferry to Trelleborg. Mirinda had gone off for a walk somewhere and two little girls walked past where I was sitting with the dogs. They wore very serious faces, until they spotted Emma. This caused big smiles to engulf their faces.
I’m not sure how they felt about the elves though. Early on in the voyage, there came a rather deep throated announcement that an elf was requiring assistance to find his treasure. He wanted lots of kids to lend their expertise to the hunt. And they should meet him to help.
When the treasure hunt was set to start, a long line of kids, preceded by an elf, complete with beard and man bun, walked down the corridor next to us. A female elf brought up what I thought was the rear but she was followed by more kids, this time accompanied by adults. Mirinda figured they’d not realised the treasure hunt was for kids
A little while later, the two elves returned without their helpers. They were discussing something in English. I don’t know what they did with the kids but it was certainly quiet for a while.
The ferry (Tinker Bell) had a lot more passengers than when we came over in January. In the queue to board, we noticed more German cars than others. Given the traditional view of holidaying Germans placing their towels on sunbeds in the south, this seemed to dispel that myth.
I reckon they’re trying to escape the eternal roadworks by driving on Swedish roads.
We boarded quite quickly. The hotel was very handy, taking about 15 minutes through very early morning traffic (and more rain) to the port. I managed to navigate us around the myriad of lanes, even though I hadn’t had a coffee and I was decidedly damp.
We settled into a couple of chairs around a small table and waited for the off.
Departure was held up by a big boat entering the harbour as we were due to leave. Cabin access was also held up because there’d been a lot of cabins to clean from the early arrival. Not that that bothered us. The cabins were already sold out when I booked so we didn’t have one.
We just grabbed a couple of chairs and kicked back.
The crossing was delightfully uneventful and we landed in Sweden to glorious sunshine.
To be entirely fair, there was a bit of rain at one stage but aquaplaning was not a concern. There was also a bit of roadworks but, unlike Germany, it didn’t hold us up. At all.
We had one stop on the way to the Hotel Småland. It was at a set of services which boasted one of the biggest sweet shops in Sweden.
They had a lot of tiny customers.
How they remain tiny is hard to work out.
We reached the hotel at just gone 6 and had a good rest before dinner. Sleep has been a bit hit and miss for the last week so we were pretty zonked. Fortunately we’ll not be in a rush tomorrow and we should be able to get some rest tonight.
And, just in passing, this is the third time we’ve stayed at the Hotel Småland and we’ve now had rooms 300, 301 and 302. We’re obviously collecting them. And, please note, they are all the same.
