Day 1 – Manchester to Stockholm
Friday 12th August 2022
An early start today after a late finish last night getting our affairs in order and packing up for our trip. This is always a challenging day working out what we need to take and what we can leave behind. Generally Debbie says I am taking too much stuff, and then we have another conversation along the lines of: me “ well I have all the camping gear” and Debbie “no you don’t” and then we talk a little more and we realise I actually do have most of it – the tent/pegs/ cooking stoves/ cooking gear/ plates/ most of the food for the dall’s we make for our lunches etc. we know what we need and I do pack a lot of electrical gear such as for the Go pro’s and my charging cables for phones, headphones etc. I also take charging blocks as we will be camping quite a lot and it is important to charge our lights and phones each day. It is not easy to travel light when you are away for five weeks in potentially quite changing climate and weather conditions.
So up at 5.30, shower, cup of tea, quick breakfast, finish packing the bike boxes and closing them up, wondering how we are going to get six hand luggage bags into four etc. The taxi arrived promptly at 7.00 and we were at the airport, checked in and through security sitting with a Costa flat white coffee by 8.40am. Not bad and no evidence of any passenger chaos at Manchester airport anyway, and at last we could relax. After a couple of hours in Costa doing some emails, we had an easy boarding to find we must have overbought our tickets as we are sitting in the front, business class section of the plane with free food and coffee and lots of leg space. Not at all as we are accustomed on our usual carriers of Ryanair and EasyJet!
Two hours flying and we are about to land into Stockholm. We have just flown over the Swedish coast and I have seen a long road going along the coast that I expect ina few days we will be cycling down. It’s very exciting!
We arrived early and had our usual fun after passing through customs (first time I have been asked about how long I am staying and my Shengen days) building our dismantled bikes. An 18 minute super fast train to Stockholm and we were checked into our hotel in no time.
In the evening we strolled around the old town on Gamla Stan and met up with a couple of Debbie’s old friends who have flown in from San ftancisco to go on a cruise around the Nordic countries. They were very jet lagged so we had dinner then parted quite early – but agreed to meet tomorrow afternoon to visit the Nobel Prize Museum. All in all a very good first day and my nerves at the journey once again proved unecessary.
Cycle Touring Adventures! 