The beach at Bjärred

On Saturday, I woke up to see clouds outside; and a light rain was settling over everything. I still had a very strong desire to bike to the beach, though, and luckily I have friends as motivated as I am! Maria and Sarah agreed that it was still worth it to bike to the beach, even though the weather was sub-optimal. By the time we actually left, around noon, it was not raining anymore, but the clouds still covered the sky. We packed swimsuits, towels, and cameras, and set out with a biking map of Lund. We were a bit unsure about the direction of out destination, and we had to stop frequently to reorient ourselves. Finally we reached the sign pointing in the direction of Bjärred, the beach we were aiming for. From this point on, there was no bike path, only a very narrow road that looked like it stretched on for miles and miles through open farmland.

The farmhouses along the way were beautiful old stone buildings, some with traditional thatched roofs. We had to bike single file to avoid getting hit by cars as they shot past us. Finally, after biking for what seemed like much too long and coming to the conclusion that we had definitely taken the wrong road, we saw another sign for Bjärred. We could then see the ocean and the long bridge over to Copenhagen. We were biking into the wind the whole way, and we definitely got a very good workout. It took us about an hour to get to Bjärred, with a few stops along the way to take pictures.













Once we go to the little town we saw some fruit trees laden with apples and pears in someone’s driveway. There is a law in Sweden saying that you can pick fruit on other peoples property if the fruit would go to waste, so we picked away. We filled our bike baskets with apples, and had to lift Sarah up so she could get some really high ones. They tasted great and we each ate one before we continued on our way to the beach.









The sun was almost poking out of the clouds by this point and at the end of the pier we could see a patch of sun, perfectly covering the café were we aimed to have some lunch. We sat out there and ate and talked for quite a while. The café was glass on all sides so we could look out at the ocean. We dipped our feet in the water, but it was too cold to try to swim. If it had been sunny, though, we totally would have gone it!




For some reason the walk back on the pier seemed like the longest trek in the world. As you can see, it’s a very long narrow pier, and when it’s a bit cold, and very windy, it feels even longer.















The ride back home seemed very short compared to the journey there. I guess when you know that you’re going in the right direction the trip feels shorter. I am so happy that we made it to the beach, since I have been talking about that since I got here. It was not a hard ride at all, given that everything is completely flat here, so I will definitely try to do it again soon.



Amazingly, we did end up swimming once we got back home, because there was a pool party in Delphi! Somehow a bunch of people filled a pool with very hot water, and we hung out there for quite a while. Oh, Sweden!