Start of the tolls!

Tuesday, May 12, 2015
Lomma, Skåne, Sweden
We are moving on to Sweden today and will be crossing the bridge we have been looking at for the last few days.
The Great Belt Bridge links the Danish island of Fyn with the next island of Zealand ( the one with Copenhagen). It starts off as an ordinary bridge out to a small island and then becomes a fantastic suspension bridge. The main central span is 1.6kms and is the 3rd longest in the world.  After several days of lovely bright clear weather today was overcast and misty. so we couldn't see much.
This bridge is a toll bridge, and as we are over 6m long ,the toll is 3 times that of a car!!!! 
- 360 Danish kroner!!   About £40.   We thought about using the ferry, but this would mean more driving and there isn't a lot of difference in the price.

We drove across Zealand and decided not to visit Copenhagen as we have both been there before and there is nothing there that we particularly want to see.   The best place for us to stay doesn't open until June 1st anyway.

So we made our way to the next bridge - The Oresund bridge which links Denmark and Sweden. This begins as a tunnel to avoid planes taking off/landing at Copenhagen Airport, and allows big ships to pass easily. This ends at an island, then there is an ordinary bridge and then a big suspension bridge, which ends at Malmo in Sweden.  This is the bridge which is the setting for the TV drama
The bridge is 5miles long from Malmo to the island and then the tunnel is 2.5miles long. The bridge carries 4 lanes of the E20 and underneath 2 railway tracks.  The Oresund bridge was opened on 14th Aug 1999.   When building the bridge 16 unexploded WW2 bombs were found on the sea bed!
Guess what? this too is a toll bridge - for us an eyewatering 690 Danish kroner/94e!!!!

By the time we arrived in Malmo it had started to rain. The first thing we saw on the ring road was a big Ikea - Welcome to Sweden!!!

We had identified a wild camping spot near Lomma - right on the beach. Wild camping is OK in Sweden as long as you are at least 150m from a house or cabin and not on private land.  There was plenty of parking and a wind surfing school., behind dunes leading to the beach. There was a good view of the Oresund bridge.   Way back from the beach were two new blocks of flats and a building site for more.  Several cars arrived with surfers and dog walkers, but we were the only MH.

The weather brightened up so we went for a walk along the lovely white sand. We met some Swedish women who asked us to take their photo and took one of us in return. We walked along to a marina and back through a posh residential, sea-front area and then through a small wooded area.  After the rain this was alive with birdsong, and one particular song stood out. We managed to catch sight of what we thought was a nightingale, high up in a tree. When we checked the bird book later it appears that nightingales don't reach as far as Sweden and this must have been a Thrush Nightingale ( No, not a nightingale with thrush!!)
Late in the evening we were joined by a German campervan with some windsurfers, so didn't feel so isolated.  We had a quiet night for our first experience of wild camping

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