This Saturday was born grey, wet and windy. Therefore, breakfast was followed by a rather lazy morning relax and a slow packing. By elevenish the forecast promised sunny and dry weather at noontime, so we departed the fairly derelict old villa Humbla and turned our front wheels towards southwest along the Baltic Sea.
We biked through Valje Nature Reserve and gave the cargo train its well deserved right-of-way.
Soon after, we passed the county border and headed from Blekinge into Skåne, the southernmost county in Sweden.
Farther along the trail we biked by this huge plant where untold mega-tons of timber from Sweden's forests are transformed into 340,000 tons chemical pulp and 485,000 tons wood-free uncoated paper annually.
The 900-years-old church in Gualöv was on our bucket list to visit to check out its medieval murals, but unfortunately that church was locked up and bolted.
Instead, we stopped for a tea-and-biscuit break out the village of Fjälkinge ...
... back-to-back with a harvest-ripe wheat field ...
... and front-to-front with fields of tobacco plants! A local man told us that there was a continued tradition in this very region to grow tobacco for the local production of a brand of "Göteborg" snuff.
Eight kilometers farther to the west we entered the old Danish citadel "Kristianstad" concieved by King Christian IV and built entirely in the early 1600s during his reign. Almost 200 years ago the function as fortress was given up and now Kristianstad is a sprawling city in the middle of a prospering Skåne.
King Christian's big and beautiful "Holy Trinity" church remains the most significant building in Kristianstad.
One is easily impressed by the grandeur of the architecture. The church is a real masterpiece and it seats 1400 people.
The magnificent organ is still used and tonight at 6 p.m. we will be attending a concert in the church to enjoy organ pieces by Liszt, Bossi, Britten and Pärt.
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After the cultural event we will find a restaurant and then, well-stuffed, waddle home to our "Christian 4. B&B" in downtown.
