How We Got to Hestra

There were only two times on our trip that we thought we might need to rent a car to get to the places we wanted to visit. The first was in Denmark where were wanted to visit the Mårup Kirke and Rubjerg Knude Lighthouse - which we managed to get to by public transportation and walking (as covered in an earlier post). The second occasion was in Sweden when we wanted to get to Hestra, the farm where Beth’s grandfather grew up.

One problem we didn’t count on was trying to rent a car on Sunday. Doing internet research we discovered that the only place we could rent a car from in Gothenburg on a Sunday was the airport (which was a fair distance from the train station and our hotel). The other problem was that renting a car for one day simply wasn’t economical - most car rentals only became reasonable with a rental of a week or longer. So the next option was public transportation, combined with cycling. We found out that often Tourist Bureaus had bicycles to rent, and we knew that it was possible to take bikes on the train (at least in some places) so we started checking into that option. The reason we were looking into bicycles was because the closest we could get to Hestra by public transportation was the small town of Fristad which was still about 10 kilometres from the farm.

So here is how our travel adventure unfolded: We started off by taking a bus from Gothenburg (or Göteborg as the Swedes spell it). The bus depot was in the same building as the train station, so that was handy. We first looked at taking a train from Gothenburg to Borås but the trains didn’t run as frequent on the weekends, so the bus became our best choice based on our schedule. Once we got to Borås we walked to the Tourist Bureau to check on renting some bikes. In talking with the Tourist Bureau people we discovered that we would have needed to get the bikes back by the time the office closed, which was 3 PM, and there was no way we could make that happen. So time for Plan B.

Back to the Borås Train Station (which looked pretty cool - see the picture), and went inside to buy some train tickets to Fristad. The next problem we encountered was that there was no one in the ticket office (because it was Sunday). There was an automated ticket machine, but it didn’t like any of our credit cards. As a last resort we figured we should be able to buy a ticket directly from the conductor on the train. When the appropriate train pulled into the station we got on board. The trip to Fristad was not that long, less than half an hour, and in that time no conductor ever came through our coach… so when we arrived a Fristad not knowing what else to do we simply got off. It turned out to be a free ride! (I felt justified in this because the stupid ticket machines didn’t accept any of our cards - we tried to pay, honest!).

Now the question was how to get to Hestra from Fristad. The good news was that there was a local bus service that stopped right by the farm (the bus stop is actually called ‘Hestra’) but the bad news was that the bus wasn’t running that day since it was a Sunday. This was where we had been planning on using the bicycles, but that plan fell through, so then we contemplated walking, but it seemed to be a bit far for that, so finally we decided to call a taxi. There was no pay phone at the train station, so we went wandering in search of a pay phone, eventually ending up at a gas station where we asked the attendant where the closest pay phone was. When he found out we were trying to call a taxi he offered to do that for us, and within ten minutes the cab was there.

We showed the cab driver a map of where we wanted to go and he said he could do that for us, and I asked for an approximate price which he quoted and which seemed reasonable. So we loaded in the car and drove to the farm. When we arrived there we asked the driver if it would be better if he waited for 10 minutes, or came back to get us later. He said he would wait and even turned off his meter while doing so!

When we found out that we were invited to stay for coffee, and that Bjorn (the current owner of the farm) would drive us back to Fristad, we sent the taxi driver on his way with a big thank you and a (hopefully) decent tip. Beth will write about our time at Hestra, but I will conclude this post by explaining how we got back to Gothenburg. Bjorn did drive us to Fristad, and by that time it was raining pretty good (including some thunder and lightning) so Beth and I were glad the bicycle option didn’t pan out - we would have gotten soaked!

From Fristad we ended up taking a bus back to Borås simply because the bus was available before the train. As this was a local bus we were dropped off somewhere other than the train station (where the regional buses were based). It took a little wandering and asking to make our way to the train station, but eventually we found it, and having just missed the hourly run to Gothenburg, waited for close to an hour in an outside bus shelter (much like you would see at a city bus stop) until the next bus arrived. At least by that point it was no longer raining.

The trip to Gothenburg was uneventful and eventually we were back in our hotel room glad to have survived our transportation adventure. I did a little mental calculating and the way I figured it, even with the taxi ride, we probably spent as little as a third or a quarter of what we would have spent renting a car for a day… so in that way our adventure was definitely worth it.