Scandinavia

At 6 am the alarm went off and soon after we got up. Arjan came out of bed first, for Hilleke and Ciska it was a bit harder to get out of bed at this early time of day. When we were all dressed we packed all the luggage in the car. The hotel has a, free to use, PC and we used it to check the departure time and frequency of the ferry from Rødby to Puttgarden. It departs every half an hour at a quarter to and a quarter after each hour. Then we again had a delicious breakfast and after we had finished it we left around half past seven. The temperature was a nice 20°C. It was rush hour when we headed for Copenhagen, but it didn't cause us any delay. At a quarter past nine we arrived at the ferry terminal in Rødby. The ferry had just left, so we had to wait for the next one that shortly after that arrived. After all cars drove off of the ferry we were allowed to enter the ferry. And at a quarter to ten sharp we set sail for Germany for a crossing that lasts three quarters of an hour. On the ferry we had something to drink and we spent our last Danish money. After arrival in Germany we headed for the Netherlands. First we had some local roads before arriving at the German A1 and via Hamburg and Bremen we continued to Osnabrück. The more we came south, the warmer it became outside. At a certain moment the thermometer in car indicated 35°C. We are lucky to have an airco in the car else it would have been a warm and sweaty day. Somewhere along the A1 we stopped at a roadside restaurant to have lunch. On the traffic information we were warned for a blocked road near Rheine on the A30. This is the road we need to take from Osnabrück to the Netherlands. And indeed, just before Rheine we ended up in a traffic jam, the first one this holiday. The road indeed was blocked and we had to get off the highway. That went very slow as at the end of the exit there were traffic lights and the police was directing the traffic. An officer directed us to go left, but from there we had to find our own way. There were a lot of other Dutch cars, so we followed them, hoping they knew were to go. Our map mainly has only highways and important secondary roads so it was difficult to know our exact position. At a traffic light Hilleke went to the car in front of us to ask whether they had any idea of our whereabouts. They had been here before and knew how to drive, so we followed them. At a certain moment we arrived at the A31, which was on our map, so we took that highway to go to the A30 again. All in all the diversion had cost us at least 1 to 1½ hour. Just after the border we stopped to take a rest and to change seats. Arjan was driving the last part back to Strijen. We arrived at home around 7 pm. The end of a tiring day and also the end of an unforgettable vacation through three Scandinavian countries: Denmark, Sweden and Finland. In the 30 days of this holiday we had driven almost 7100 km, and apart from a small repair to our car we didn't have any troubles.