Gota lock on Sweden
CRUISES | Traveling on the canal is a slow process but a rewarding one, once you overcome the weather
GOTA CANAL, Sweden -- Half a dozen of us huddled in the ship's bridge while the captain piloted our 55-passenger boat through the Gota Canal -- and relentless rain and wind.
The calendar said August, but you wouldn't know it by the chilly temperatures and gray skies.
(Lori Rackl/Sun-Times)
CRUISES: Hurtigruten's Gota Canal two-day cruises sail between Motala and Soderkoping and cost $595 a person, based on double occupancy, for a cabin on the main deck (least expensive). Price includes meals and a return trip by bus. Available July and August.
Four- and six-day cruises between Stockholm and Gothenburg run May to September. Prices start at $1,340 for the four-day option; $2,180 for six days.
Go to hurtigruten.us/GotaCanalSched ules2009.asp or call (866) 552-0371.
"This is what we Swedes call green winter," said the unflappable captain.
This American calls it crappy weather. But this was Sweden, not San Diego. I swallowed my self-pity when, through the raindrops attacking the bridge's windshield, I saw a handful of locals in bright rain ponchos waiting on the banks ahead. They turned up to watch us squeeze through the canal's narrow locks, stairstepping our way down into the lake below, with barely a foot of clearance on either side.
The slow process of traveling through dozens of manmade locks is part of the charm of a cruise on the Gota Canal. "The Blue Ribbon," as many Swedes call the canal, is a large link in a chain of waterways tying together the port cities of Gothenburg and Stockholm. The 118-mile waterway is a Herculean feat of civil engineering that residents voted the "greatest wonder of Sweden" in 2007, the year the canal celebrated its 175th anniversary.
Building the canal wasn't easy: Some 58,000 soldiers dug it largely by hand. The canal opened in 1832, three years after the death of the project's founder, Baltzar von Platen. To this day, it's customary to give a shout out to von Platen in the form of a toot on the horn as you sail past his grave on the banks of the canal.
What started as an infrastructure project so Swedish ships could avoid paying a duty to Denmark has evolved into a major tourist attraction from May through September. Hurtigruten (formerly known as Norwegian Coastal Voyage) offers a series of two- to six-day cruises, run by the Gota Canal Steamship Co. The longer options slice all the way through Sweden from Gothenburg to Stockholm. The shortest, which is what I did, traverses a picturesque segment between Motala and the 13th century town of Soderkoping. Two days isn't a lot of time to get into the lazy rhythm of canal cruising, but it's enough to provide a taste for time-strapped tourists.
Passengers sail aboard restored vintage vessels, the oldest of which dates to 1874. Our ship, M/S Diana, is the youngest of the bunch, built in 1931.
The ships have an Old World feel, long on mahogany paneling, brass fittings and paisley fabric. The 28 cabins were functional and clean (would you expect anything less in Scandinavia?), but they're not for the claustrophobic, especially those below deck in "C" class. We're talking train berths, with bunk beds that fold against the wall and a tiny washbasin. You share toilets and showers.
Meals are served in the cozy dining room, where pretty blond waitresses in perfectly pressed white uniforms sang songs and served herring, corned beef, cheese and shots of that strong Scandinavian liquor aquavit, which seemed like a real bargain until we found out (too late) that the price was per centiliter, not per shot.
My husband and I were seated with the only other native English speakers on board: a couple from Australia. But we had no trouble conversing with the crew or the rest of the guests, who spoke English better than some Americans.
"I have a relative in Chicago!" was the excited response I got from almost every passenger I talked to on board.
Many of the Swedes who flocked to the United States in the 19th and early 20th centuries settled in the Midwest. As I watched the scenery unroll along the Gota Canal, I began to understand why. Long stretches felt like rural Wisconsin, with its traffic-light palate of red barns, yellow fields and green hills.
The canal is so narrow in parts, it almost looks as if the boat is cruising through a farm field. It's shallow, too. Twice we sailed over a highway, which must have looked surreal to the cars below.
The snail's pace of a canal cruise means there's ample opportunity to hop on and off the boat. We stopped to take a tour of a tired-looking Swedish manor house built in the 1670s. And we joined the landlubbers in the town of Berg to watch as our boat was methodically lowered along 11 locks leading to Lake Roxen, where passengers are welcome to go for a swim, weather permitting.
In our case, the weather wasn't permitting much of anything. But the Swedes taught us not to let green winter win. While our swimsuits stayed tucked away in our luggage, we pulled out our rain gear, jumped on a couple of the boat's mountain bikes and went for a soggy but scenic ride along the Gota Canal.