Another day on my own, and with decent weather. I thought of hiking at first, but I needed to be back in time for Adrian’s swim school, and I didn’t have the use of the car, so I could only do something shortish or relatively local.

But: I did have my bike, so I went cycling instead. Tired of the local nature reserves – Judarskogen, Grimsta, Järvafältet – and inspired by a cycle trail description I found online, I decided to cycle all the way to the other side of town, to Saltsjöbaden.

(In the end Adrian came down with a stomach bug so the family returned home not long after I left, and Adrian did not go to swim school, but I found that out too late.)


I’m normally not hungry first thing in the morning, and I saw no point in hanging around at home while waiting for my appetite to appear. So I packed a simple breakfast and cycled away, and had breakfast in the little park beneath the City Hall. Hundreds of tourists were swarming around the City Hall itself, but not many were interested in the little park, so I almost felt like I was there on my own, as long as I kept facing the right direction.

The route onwards to Saltsjöbaden was pleasant enough but not very exciting. Saltsjöbaden itself had some interesting sights, including two old wooden open air bath houses.

I was feeling hungry again and thought I’d treat myself to a decadent brunch at Grand Hotel Saltsjöbaden – but this place had apparently not understood the br in brunch and only started serving theirs at 12, at which point it’s a lunch and not a brunch in my opinion. I wasn’t interested in hanging around for another half an hour, so no brunch today. Just a simple soup lunch in a local café instead.

After Saltsjöbaden and Solsidan, the trail left built-up areas behind and went mostly through forest for a while. It also got close to the rocky seaside at times, which I liked. I had been hoping to get many more views of the sea, so when I finally got some views here I stopped for a long photo break.

After the forested areas, the way back home felt like doing my daily commute. Even the Tranebergsbron bridge was there like a dear old friend.


This trip was part experiment to figure out a suitable length for future day trips on bike.

I cycled about 75 km in total and felt that I could have done more. When I am out hiking, I tend to start feeling my legs after about 20 km or so. Cycling is a milder way of moving, and as long as the road is flattish and I don’t push myself, I feel I can keep going almost endlessly. (Which is probably far from true, really.) But I wasn’t feeling particularly cocky on the uphill parts at the end.

Hiking, I base my plans on an average pace of 3 km per hour including all breaks, and I’m never too far off. Cycling, my speed varied massively: from barely above walking pace on the twisty little forest paths, to “whoo this is nice” going downhill on straight, wide, empty asphalt roads. All in all I was out for nine hours, but I’m not sure if I can generalize all of this to any kind of average at all. I took longer meal breaks than I usually do on my hikes. And of course I cannot take photos while I’m cycling, or even look around as freely as I can when I’m walking, so I had to stop whenever I wanted to do that.