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Day by day
THE SAGA TOUR
hike & bike

Friday
Arrival at Kalvefall. You will have time to get to know the surroundings, your hosts and other guests. You will also go through the equipment.

Hikingday 1
After breakfast we walk out of the farm with a light day pack on our back. We will hike on foot through the majestic fairy-tale forests up to the plateau Kungabordet with its incredible views over the wilderness. Up here we have lunch. From here we will follow the winding Östgötaleden, a trail that passes through nature reserves, by old wolftrap holes, past farmstead ruins and other signs of man and beast interaction in the forests, past streams, lakes and open fields. Back home, dinner will be served and the pub will stay open for lingering guests.

Bikingday 1
Along small forest tracks and roads we leisurely bicycle ride takes you up and down the hills, out into open fields and to fully grown forests of pine, spruce, birch and more. We take our time to enjoy the ride. We reach the Smedstorp Double Mansion. It is a cultural heritage site of national interest and is now run by the museum of Östergötland. Here we stop and set out to walk through a piece of living history. It will take you back 300 years and show you how people in Sweden lived in those days. After some rest and beverages we roll on to Tidesrum Church. It is one of the oldest Swedish wooden churches and dates back to the 13 century. Sometime during the day we will have lunch when its tastes as best. Then we will roll along small forestroads, tracks that just follow the nature, not created by bulldozers, and passing through an old ironmill on our way home.

Hikingday 2
Now we will be hiking west, following old hikingtracks in the big forests. If we are quiet we have possibility to see moose/elk and rovdeer. Anyway we will step over the tracks from them and even wild boars and maybe from lynx. In the sky we probably will hear or see golden eagles and hawks. We will have lunch at a restaurant in a countryside museeum before turning direktion and hiking back to a good dinner in the pub.


Bikingday 2
Today we turn the bikes to the north and bicykle around a big island at lake Sommen. We will have wonderful views most of the time, passing nature reservations, mountains, bays and old farms. Lunch at the ferryplace and then we will visit an old wathermill which is carfully restored. We'll be following old roads at the highland passing small villages and farms.

 

Extra canoeing day
After breakfast we enter the canoes and follow Stångån downstream through the stunning nature with gleaming lakes, slowly floating through moose country, with the paddles as the only sound humans make. We eat lunch at some beautiful spot before continuing. We do not need to hurry and will be picked up and taken back to the farm at Kalvefall when we feel like it. Back at Kalvefall it is be nice to take a hot shower, a good meal and an evening in the farmhouse pub. This night you sleep in proper beds.