Day 5: Fun, Sun, and Lund

After waking up and eating another delicious breakfast in Malmo, we all hopped on our bikes to start the day. The weather was perfect for a morning bike commute. The first stop we made today was at Augustenborg’s Botanical Roof Garden and the Ecocity of Augustenborg. We were met at the gardens by a very nice Swedish man named Jonatan Malmberg for a short presentation and tour. He is the superintendant at the gardens. During his presentation we gathered a lot of interesting information about the gardens and ecocity such as the gardens are 12 years old, all the projects on site are initiated by the locals, and there are 3,000 inhabitants living in the apartments. Jonatan also explained to us how the gardens and ecocity are used for performing research. At the end of his presentation he brought us all up to the front of the room and showed us an example of all the different underlying layers of a roof top garden .We were then led up to the roof to explore the gardens. These were amazing and nothing like we have seen in the United States. Jonatan continued to explain to us how Augustenborg has an open stormwater system and is active work for sustainability. We then walked through the apartment buildings and saw the gorgeous green spaces that were designed for the tenants. When the tour was over, we thanked Jonatan and parted ways.

After the Augustenborg visit we headed back to return our bikes to the rental station. Jessica then gave us a few hours of free time to eat, shop, sleep, or whatever our little hearts desired. We decided to buy some souvenirs and spend some time relaxing at the hotel with the beautiful weather. When we all reconvened, we then walked to the train station to head to a city called Lund for a few hours. The train ride to Lund was very short and only took about ten minutes. We were met there by a lady named Ylva. She took us to her office to give us a presentation about the sustainability in Lund before we walked around the city. She filled our ears with many interesting and mind blowing facts! The City of Lund has a long experience with strategic work on sustainable travel. Ylva explained to us how the city uses specific criteria to analyze how well they are performing with their travel systems. Ylva told us that she does not own a car and has never owned a car. She then sat there in utter shock when we told her that each one of us owned our own car and have ever since we have been sixteen. Seeing the differences in how Europeans get from place to place versus Americans has been unreal. We were then able to walk around the City of Lund for a little while with Ylva as our tour guide. She pointed out and explained a lot about their city and biking system as we walked around. After saying our goodbyes and farewell to Lund, we boarded the train again for a short ride back to Malmo.

When we returned, we all grabbed some dinner and then waited for it to get dark. When it finally got dark around 10PM, we set out to explore the night lighting in the city. We saw everything from lit statues, fountains, bridges, steps, trees, and buildings. After taking some pictures and a quick stop at an ice cream shop, we all headed back to the hotel. With the enjoyable weather and relaxing walk, this was a great way to end our day! Tomorrow will be another adventure as we travel to the city of Stockholm.

-Ashley