Sweet Scandinavian Strawberries

Today we arrived in Malmö, Sweden. Prior, we spent two rainy days in Gothenburg. It was a quite uneventful weekend, considering everything was shut down for Midsummer holiday.

We are glad to see some life again around us. Many stores and restaurants were closed in Gothenburg either for the holiday, or because they are regularly closed on Sundays, or even they were closed for the next month for vacation season. And today we had a hard time once more, as a bunch of restaurants are closed on Mondays as a rule! While in Gothenburg they are all open. We really can't win!

If I ever visit Sweden in late June or July again, it will be to a house in the countryside. At least in Gothenburg, the city life has little but malls and museums for visitors. I'm thinking a few friends, a bag of groceries and a reservation through Air BnB could be the way to go.

So today we continued the meticulously planned journey and arrived in Malmö at our beautiful, new, Marriott Renaissance hotel. Our other hotels were good but this is brand new, and I kind of want everything here to be in my own house.

Soon after we checked in, the sun was shining and we found ourselves some underwhelming and undercooked pizza for lunch in a beautiful old building in Lilla Torg.

Piccolo Mondo: pretty but so-so pizza.





We wandered not too far before we saw a big produce stand in a square. We've passed so many in each city and always skip by, assuming they must only accept cash - which we have not carried much. We got Euros in Helsinki, but the fruits were so much more expensive than home.

Here are some examples from Helsinki:

Veg:


Rhubarb - very popular here:


Cherries: 6 euros/liter!





Blueberries or Raspberries (7 euros/container!)


Everyone was buying and munching on the sweet smelling fruits. Strawberries were 6 euros a container! I passed because it's not like I've never had a fresh strawberry before! Why spend nearly $8 on a few?

By today the fruit temptation was overwhelming. Hotel breakfast buffets had offered little fruit and my normal summer diet consists of about 4-5 servings of fruit per day. Pregnant - 6-8 servings (or more). So I was dying for fresh fruits.



In Malmö the prices were better. 30 SEK ($4.25) got us a liter of delicious sweet strawberries. A few bucks more got us a giant handful of cherries and the minimum credit card charge amount. So sweet and delicious, I'm like an addict getting my fix after withdrawal. The fruit here is really good. Feeling better already.

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Location:Landbygatan,Malmö,Sweden