Ystad, Sweden: The joys of the smaller road

August 21, 2015

Not a sign you see everywhere: you can pump your bike tyres here

ALWAYS TAKE the tiny road. Everyone knows where the obvious road goes and that's why everybody goes there. All I knew of my favourite road this morning was that only tractors and locals used it. I could have snubbed it because it wasn't surfaced. But it looked not only useful but appealing and the entrance had one of those symbols, frequent but never explained, that Scandinavia uses for places of historical interest.

I'd noticed the occasional mound of earth in fields, each about four metres tall, or more than twice the height of a tall man. But here, suddenly, there was a row of them, taller and more substantial than the others.

Not so stunning, but I wouldn't have seen them at all without taking the smaller road

I'm not thrilled by pre-history but I was interested to see so many burial mounds, preserved but unexplained, in a rising field of sharp golden stubble that was all that remained of last week's corn field. Indeed, a combine harvester was at work in a neighbouring field, ending any hope of growing as high as an elephant's eye. A grey cloud of dust and stalks swept out of a scarlet monster with that familiar and nostalgic smell of summers past.

The driver, several storeys high, was the only human I saw the length of the road. Scuttling, lop-running hares, yes. Plenty of those. And crows and seagulls, but otherwise the crushed wheat and I had the place to ourselves.

It's not all that much, of course. It wasn't Disneyland or the Arc de Triomphe. But if it had been those, I wouldn't have had it to myself. Cycle-touring can sometimes be seeking out obvious sights but more often it's the chance discovery of understated pleasures.

Where trains paused and now cyclists stop

I had unmade roads at the start of the day as well. There was the long coastal dogleg from the campground, and then the old railway line that I'd ridden with the crook-eyed Swede last night. And this time I stopped for the old station, now a café but closed at this hour, interrupted by a colony of 10-year-olds out for a nature walk.

I had 90km to ride and against a disapproving wind. And no hurry to do it. I could get to the port when I liked but the ferry still wouldn't leave any earlier. Right now, I'm in the neon subtlety of Ystad harbour. Accidents and storms aside, I shall be in Poland in the morning.

If you ever watched Kenneth Branagh playing a grief-ridden and self-obsessed Swedish policeman called Wallender, it was here in Ystad that the series was filmed. The tourist office isn't reluctant to point that out.

No explanation: it was just parked by the road to Ystad

The countryside today became more rolling as I climbed the shallow but wearing ridge that separates one coast from another. Little by little it became clear I had no choice but follow the main road, not busy, not unpleasant but no match for my track into pre-history.

I ran into an area of dark-skinned churches of a brickwork complexity to delight British Victorians. And then, as the aberration passed, I was back to the dinky, dazzle-white churches of Scandinavia with their low-hedged graveyards like country-house mazes.

The houses are single-storey. They're neat, individual and sturdy, never flashy or extravagant. If there's national stereotype for Swedes, this is how I imagine it.

Old distance marker... I think it is, anyway

The houses look smug in summer but they're prepared for long winters of snow and rain. This is a land, as the cleverer man from Abba oberved, that gives Swedes ample chance to display the melancholy he believed is in their soul.

Not that Swedes don't enjoy themselves. My road to Ystad ran on sand dunes above beaches crowded with people wondering if it really was warm enough to take off a sweater. The coast showed the same uncertainty. One moment it had golden bays, the next coves of dark rocks where black seabirds gathered and gossiped and waited for fish to swim by.

And that's my tale for the day, really. I waved to the day's ration of laden cyclists making their way from the port I was approaching. And now I sit here waiting for my ferry to the land of the złoty, with its intriguing line through the L..

Today's ride: 89 km (55 miles)
Total: 4,395 km (2,729 miles)

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