Yesterday, Mer proclaimed that she had never clambered around ships until she met me. Today she amended that to simply, “I never clambered until I met you” as we added rocks to the mix.

We left Goteborg to drive the hour-and-forty-five-minute drive to the (somewhat) island of Smogen. Smogen really is an island, but is joined to the mainland by a thirteen-hundred-foot-long bridge, which makes it really easy to drive here. As we got further north from Goteborg, the coast got rockier and rockier. Smogen has lots of bare rock all around the town, and some of it seems to be lunging between houses. I love it.

When we got to our hotel/spa at 11:30, I went in to ask if I could park in the hotel lot, and was told that I could and that our room was already ready. That was happy. We’re in an outbuilding a block away from the main hotel, so we drove there and unloaded the car.

Once situated, we headed back out to go for a hike (one recommended by the guy who checked us in ay our hotel) on the rocky bald areas on the edge of town and overlooking the sea. In doing so, I took the first set of stairs I came to and so inadvertently got on the wrong hiking trail but also stumbled across the hotel’s sea bathing area. It was pretty, surrounded by rock and sheltered by that rock, but it was only about sixty out and so was a little cool. When Mer and I stopped to look in the water a hundred feet on past the swimming area and saw about ten small purple jellyfish, I decided I was good on land. (It turns out the purple jellyfish are harmless, but there is a blue-purple variety that can sting. Who wants to find that color difference the hard way?)

We climbed up onto the rocky headland; it was grand. There was almost no vegetation on the bald, and the sea (along with more rock) was visible in many directions. It was a bit windy, but nothing too bad, and so we set off on the “trail.” Being a bald, the rocky area didn’t have a trail as such. It had a series of white and black sticks drilled into the rock that acted as trail blazes. It was less of a hike and more of a scavenger hunt.

We went all around this hiking area, taking time to sit and soak it all in (but a dry soak). We saw but skipped two blazes when they looked hard to get to and were simply closer to the sea than where we were already standing. We both agreed that seeing the blazes counted. In all, it was about an hour-long hike, and we had a good time.

But because we were staying at a spa (I booked it), we wanted to take advantage of the spa facility; plus, we had massage appointments at 3:00 and 4:00. We got our swimming things and the provided robes from our room (not all of Sweden is a clothes-on sauna experience, but this one thankfully is) and walked over to the main building.

One thing Sweden shares with Iceland is that before you can get in water of any kind in a public space, you have to shower first. So we did that in our respective locker rooms and then went in to the spa.

It was very pleasant. There was a very warm indoor pool, and an outdoor one that I didn’t try. There were three saunas – one hot and dry, one hot and humid, and one with aroma therapy. There was a hot tub and something called a “shower experience.”

We tried the pool briefly, and then the hot tub, but the hot tub has to recover from running for ten minutes and so wouldn’t bubble for us. I was curious about the aroma spa, so I went in there, and Mer followed. I got to the back and saw a button to push for aroma, so I did that just as Mer came in and closed the door. The aroma liquid hit the hot rocks and immediately evaporated, which caused Mer to get overwhelmed by the heat and humidity, so she opened the door, which drew the atomized perfume into the main room and up to the smoke detector.

After about ten minutes, we were let back inside the building, and the hot tub was ready to go, so we tried that, which was relaxing. I only had a few minutes before my massage, so I tried the “shower experience,” which turned out to be walking through six or eight jets of water that sprayed cold water from some and hot water from others, and then you could sit on a bench and have warm water rain down on you, and then the water became downright hot before going back to warm again. I liked it.

I then had my massage, but my masseuse didn’t speak any English, so I got the relaxation massage instead of my normal deep-tissue massage. That was fine, but my back and shoulder knots will needs some attention when I get home to Ohio.

While Mer had her massage, I went back to the hotel room to plan, and then noticed that our church back home was about to start, so I brought that up on YouTube. Mer joined me after her massage (thirty minutes later), so we watched all of the church service together. Then it was time for supper.

We sat outside, but under a covering at the Barn restaurant. Mer, who doesn’t think she’s ever had a lobster roll in Maine, got one at the Barn. She said it was good. My burger and fries worked for me.

It rained some while we were eating, but had stopped by the time we were done, so I decided to go down to the harbor, which was nearby and supposed to be very cute. It was, and the boardwalk all along the shop fronts was really long. It ended in series of red (and a couple of yellow) water-side storage buildings that were backed by huge rock faces, and all in front of the water. It was, to say the least, picturesque.

At the end of the harbor walk, we climbed a set of stairs, to what turned out to be a minigolf course on the edge of a rocky cliff. We may have to try that tomorrow when it’s warmer – the wind was quite cool, and Mer wasn’t dressed for it since we had been only going to supper. We did buy some ice cream to eat while looking at the rocks and sea, but then we headed straight back to the hotel to get warm again.

Today was a mellower day than most of the vacation, but I was glad for the slower pace today. There’s more of the island to explore, and I hope to do that tomorrow. And maybe play some dramatic minigolf where maybe Mer can clamber.