Trip to Lake Siljan

Friday, 1:15 pm, I leave the container, with a small quantity of clothes, some food and my sleeping-bag.

1:45 pm, my train leaves Stockholm Station to reach Leksand at 4:50 pm.

There, I go to the town centre in order to find my way to the youth hostel. And, unfortunately, a really few people speaks English. I eventually find the hostel, but not the owner : he has left, but has also let me the key of my room. It's a really nice place, I even have got a TV !
Unfortunately, there's almost no one : just a couple of old Swedish and of young German, with who I spend my dinner.

The evening, I watch on TV « My big fat greek wedding », a nice movie.

On Saturday, I leave the hostel at 9:45 am for a trip across the hills just next to Siljan lake. I sweat blood to find my way, but I eventually start walking around 10:30 am.

It's cold, and very wet ; fortunately, it doesn't rain. Because of the forest or the clouds, I can't really see the landscape. However, there's always a nice house or a small (uninhabited) village to get fascinated. This is precisely in a uninhabited village (Granberg) that I decided to have my picnic. I guess that Granberg is occupied during the winter and the ski season, cause it's close to the Granberget ski resort.

I don't spend too much time eating because I'm getting cold cause of the wind. I climb down the hill to reach Yxen Lake, where I take some pictures, and come back at home, by another path, threw Styrsjöbo, a really nice village verging on Styrsjön lake. I have unfortunately to hurry cause rain is getting stronger and stronger ; half an hour later, I'm f**king wet, and finish my trip in a car I have hitched. To cap it all, my feet ache a lot because of big blisters.

In the evening, I watch the football match between Djurgården and Örebro (4-1 for Djurgården), and an episode of Without a Trace.

The day after (Sunday), I leave the youth hostel at 10 o'clock, in order to reach Rättvik in the afternoon. I've planed to walk all along the verge of the lake and to visit Tällberg, a small and typical village. I have my picnic in a small pear next to Hjortnäs, and reach Tällberg a couple of minutes after. I'm a little bit disappointed by that place, really nice, but not as much as expected.

It still remains 13 km to cover to Rättvik, and my foot hurt me a lot. So I decided to hitch a car, but there's so few. Thirty minutes later, a car eventually stop, with 3 retired people inside who speak a really good English. They're really interested on me and my trip, so we speak a lot. They drop me in Rättvik Station.

As the youth hostel is not yet open, I buy some food and take some pictures of Rättvik from a very long pear (620 metres).

I finally come back to the youth hostel to take a shower (I stink !) and eat something. I spend my evening discussing with Australian guys who are on a 1 yea trip across the whole Europe, watching TV and surfing on the web. Then, I go to bed cause I'm really exhausted.

On Monday, I leave the hostel around 10, and try to hitch a car on order to go to Boda, 15 km far from here. I wait more than half an hour that a Mercedes would stop. The driver speaks a poor English, but he understands where I want to go. Thus, we don't chat to much, he just explains me that he went once to France for his job. He drop me a few minutes later at Boda church.

I walk then to the Styggforsen National Park, where I can find a waterfall. It's quite nice, but could be better. Moreover, the rain starts and I'm compelled to find a shelter if I want to keep dry. The shelter will be a small watermill, where I take my lunch.

As the rain stops, I come back to Boda across small paths. There I decided to come back to Rättvik (17,8 km far from here) walking in the countryside.

After one hour walking, I get lost, but eventually find my way after have wasted at least 30 minutes. I walk through beautiful landscapes, forests, small villages, lakes, etc. But unfortunately, rains appears again and force me to find (again) a shelter. I find a woodcutter house (or something like that), where I wait patiently than the rain stops, a few minutes later.
Then, I finish my trip an hour and a half later, with very painful blisters, and sit on a bench in the station, waiting for my train.

Three hours later, I'm in Stockholm Centralstation, find my bike where I had left it ; 15 minutes after, I'm in the Container.

To summarize, I walked 75 km across the nature, without any map. A very nice experience !

I'm sorry, but adding the pictures take so many time, so I don't do it again. Look at the French version.