Tere!
In 2023, like the year 2022, I went to Gothenburg again, and I had a day trip to Lund – a small town in Sweden – where I could go by train from Gothenburg.
Table of Contents
1. About Lund, a Small Town in Sweden
1.1 Historical Background of Lund
1.2 Location and Climate in Lund
2. How to Get to Lund
2.1 The Best Season in Lund
2.2 From Gothenburg to Lund
3. Explore in Lund
3.1 Lund University
3.2 Lund Botanical Garden
4. Food in Lund
4.1 Café Botan
4.2 Ramklints Konditori
5. Important Notes Before Going to Lund
5.1 Payment Methods in Lund
5.2 Securities in Lund
★Summary of the Lund Trip
1. About Lund, a Small Town in Sweden
Stockholm in Sweden is very well-known but few people go west in Sweden. Some people may feel better to live in smaller cities in the west of Sweden, but when it comes to travelling, the number of visitors should be much less than in Stockholm. In fact, Gothenburg has few options for accommodation either.
If Gothenburg is like that, how is Lund – a more unfamiliar town for most people – like?
1.1 Historical Background of Lund
The history of Lund begins with Viking time. Archaeologically, there have already been residents since the 10th century.
In 1103, the Lund Cathedral which is the centre of Christianity in Scandinavia started to be built. The Lund Cathedral is the icon of Lund nowadays.
In the Middle Ages, Lund became an important place as a centre of religion and education. Then, Lund University was established in 1688, and it gained a position as the hub of wisdom and culture.
Also, since Lund is near Denmark, during Swedish governance, it has been influenced by Danish culture. However, due to the Treaty of Roskilde, the Skåne county including Lund has ceded to Sweden.
In the 19 to 20th century, Lund developed in a modern way. Lund became a bigger town, new industries were introduced, and Lund advanced in terms of physics and astronomy.
This is how Lund has experienced their history.
1.2 Location and Climate in Lund
Lund is located in the south of Sweden more precisely and close to Malmö.
I went to Lund in May in 2023. Looking at this graph, it appears to be cool weather until the middle of June…but at that time the weather was really sunny, and I felt the strength of the sun.
When I went to Malmö in March, 2022, it was not too cold either, so I felt that Sweden might be a bit warmer than Estonia.
Although I have no idea about winter in Sweden.
2. How to Get to Lund
2.1 The Best Season in Lund
I do not personally recommend summer in Northern Europe a lot (unless you do love heat). Though the summer is pretty short, there are some days when it is extremely hot! I prefer travelling in Northern Europe during March till May as it’s more comfortable, and yet events frequently take place between June and August, so ultimately it’s up to you. I said “it’s extremely hot”, but the temperature is a bit more than 30 degrees, so it’s not as hot as Japan or other hot countries.
2.2 From Gothenburg to Lund
You can go to Lund from Gothenburg by train. It seems there are buses too, but the trains are easier, and SJ (railways in Sweden) is decently comfortable. You can charge your phone too.
I think it took around 1.5 hours from Gothenburg to Lund by train. You can buy tickets both on SJ’s website and Omio. (In case you can’t find any tickets owing to construction or whatever, check those websites from time to time such as one month or two weeks prior to the trip. Sometimes at such timing they may announce the train schedules.)
3. Explore in Lund
Honestly, Lund doesn’t have big sightseeing places as Lund is a small countryside university town. If you want to go to Lund, half a day should be enough (subjectively speaking). In Lund, I went to only Lund University, Lund Botanical Garden and a cinema. (I went to the cinema to see the newly released “The Little Mermaid” because I was too bored in Lund.) 😂
3.1 Lund University
Lund University is surrounded by nature. There was a fountain, lots of trees, and I thought that would be the best environment to study. (Kyoto University of Foreign Studies and Tallinn University are in the city, facing the streets and roads, so they didn’t have much nature. In Dublin City University where I studied as an exchange student, we had lots of green though.)
The purpose of visiting Lund University was to buy Lund University’s T-shirt! When my friend who went to the same high school and the same university in Japan as mine visited Tallinn in 2018, she bought a T-shirt of Tallinn University, and works at a restaurant called “Tsukumo” in Shirahama, Japan, wearing that T-shirt. Since then, me, myself and I decided to give her a T-shirt from a university in Europe as a souvenir.
When visiting Japan in 2019, I could spend some time in Warsaw for one day during a transit, so I gave her a T-shirt from Warsaw University. However, as I visited Japan in 2022, I had no opportunity to buy a university T-shirt beforehand. Therefore, using the opportunity to drop by a store in Lund university, I shipped Lund University’s T-shirt to Japan from Estonia.
She seemed to love it a lot. What is happier, she immediately started wearing that T-shirt at Tsukumo. Everyone was interested in which place that T-shirt came from. She also told me that just one day it took her to get a smell of coffee in the T-shirt. I would be more than happy if she wears it until it completely gets damaged. 😂
3.2 Lund Botanical Garden
Let’s talk about Lund Botanical Garden. Compared to Gothenburg Botanical Garden, the size of Lund Botanical Garden is much smaller, but you can spend some good time for a walk. It was more fun to walk in Lund Botanical Garden than in Kadriorg park in Tallinn as it was quieter.
Also, this is pretty common in summer in Europe; we, the Japanese, tend to think “sunbathing is an activity on a beach” whilst in Europe as long as there is the sun, they sunbathe on the grass, wearing bikinis. In other words, in Europe whether it is on the beach or in a park, they do sunbathing if there’s the sun. Hence, in Lund Botanical Garden, some people were sunbathing. (Men also did with swimming pants.)
I tried to cut out the sunlight with sunglasses as hard as possible, and was walking, looking for shades.
This is the experience at the end of May.
4. Food in Lund
Since this was my first visit in Lund and this chapter is not even a recommendation, and yet I went to two cafes in Lund, I’m going to report how they were.
4.1 Café Botan
“Botan” means “paeonia × suffruticosa” (a group of flower trees) in Japanese, so I wondered if it was named like that because the cafe is located in the centre of Lund Botanical Garden, and yet I don’t know the truth at all.
In front of the cafe, there is a building like a visitor centre and a lake. The cafe’s tables are set around the lake, and you can enjoy their refreshing lunch in summer there. (The cafe has some inside tables too.)
The cafe basically has only sandwiches, salads and some types of cakes, but since the salad is pretty big, you can get full. Their salad has a few types, and I chose a salmon salad.
The salad contained asparagus which is hard or expensive to get in Estonia, so I was really excited inside of myself. The salad had a sauce like homemade mayonnaise, and it matched quite well the potatoes in the salad.
As no one comes to your table to take your empty plates away, you need to return the used plates and cutleries by yourself. Otherwise, crows and other birds come to the table and eat and scatter the leftover food on the table, messing it up too.
4.2 Ramklints Konditori
After walking a lot under the strong sun, I went to a cafe called Ramklints Konditori. I was also looking for some place to charge my phone. If I had gone to a chain cafe, almost for sure they would have had some charging tables and seats, but I found this cafe on the way to a chian cafe. I roughly looked around in the cafe, and found just one table near the socket.
I just ordered a cup of coffee, and browsed on social media. (Since my stomach was not empty after lunch yet, I didn’t want anything sweet.)
However, after a while, I had a special version of a Swedish cake called “Princess cake”. (They had both pieces of a whole regular Princess cake and a small solo version of Princess cake with a strawberry for some reason.) Besides that, they had some other cakes, baked sweets and sandwiches.
In this cafe, you need a code to go to a loo. You can ask the clerk for the code. However, in my case, a kind Swedish elderly lady helped me.
After that, I was doing something on my phone for a while, and suddenly I got my head up and was surprised;
More than 90% of the customers there were elderly people.
😂
I guessed Lund is a town for students and elderly people.
5. Important Notes Before Going to Lund
Northern Europe is known as a relatively safe area in Europe, and yet you should still remember to be cautious.
5.1 Payment Methods in Lund
Firstly, in Lund, you can pay by card basically. If you want to consume your Swedish cash, you can ask. Or sometimes they have a note of “Only cash” at a checkout, so pay attention to such small information.
Lund has buses but since I didn’t take it, I have no idea what kind of payment system they have.
5.2 Securities in Lund
As I have no experience of the night in Lund, so I don’t know too many things, but in summer the night is so bright, which makes us a bit secure even at night. (However, the majority still sleeps, hence there wouldn’t be a lot less people in the town.)
During the daytime, you see a number of students or young people or elderly residents in lund. Since I explored in Lund on a weekday, there were not so many people anyway, and yet I didn’t feel it was dangerous. (It was also because the small town has much less population.)
I didn’t see a lot of immigrants in Lund either, but if you are used to natural safety and security like Japan or Estonia, you could become a criminal’s target. Lund is not a dangerous town but still keep in mind there might be pickpockets as it’s still in Europe. (Additionally, Malmö which is close to Lund is said to be more dangerous.)
★Summary of the Lund Trip
So this is all about my Lund trip. I arrived in Lund at around 10.30 am, and took a train at 7 pm to Gothenburg, however, you may not need such a lot of time. 😂 Lund has some museums and other stuff, and yet the heat took my energy to walk much enough, so I couldn’t keep walking.
I went to Lund as a day trip on my birthday, which was much better than spending my own birthday in Estonia. (I don’t want any birthday party for myself anymore. It exhausts me. I want to celebrate myself quietly or thought a birthday trip might be the best.)
Aitäh! 🙂
zooks.ee 
