We scoped out a few places on AirBnB and I put an offer in for one, after much technical difficulty. I guess since I was foreign, AirBnB wanted to verify my identity, which entailed uploading a picture of my ID. I'm not sure how many photos I uploaded, or tried to, only to have it repeatedly fail. We finally got it to work on Therry's computer though. After submitting the request successfully, I was ready to get out of the apartment.
I only had two specific things on my agenda for visiting Stockholm, and that was seeing the Vasa and playing on a good Swedish disc golf course. Doing a bit of research, it looked like Järva Discgolf Park was not only accessible by public transit, it was also one of the highest rated courses in the country. And as a bonus, it was 27 holes. It was a no brainer.
So, we got geared up and headed out to find the course. We had basic directions, and Therry's phone to guide us. We made our way to the central station, where we'd pick up the train that would take us to Järva. The platform to get there was just a few stories up from Hell, apparently. We followed escalator after escalator, taking us deeper into Stockholm's depths, until we couldn't go any lower. I'd seen pictures of artistically inspired subway stations in Stockholm, and had wanted to see some. Well, I imagine most of those are the deep subterranean ones. This one wasn't as snazzy as some I'd seen, but it was worthy of a photo:
Again being Swedish, although it was artistic, it had a very practical sense. If the walls were unpainted, the stations would have a distinct post-apocalyptic catacomb feel. As it was the, air was stale and area felt a bit oppressive, but still it was interesting.
We didn't have to wait long for the train, and were soon on our way to Järva. After a bit, we came to the end of the line and got off. The area we emerged to, in typical disc golf fashion, was the rougher side of town. It didn't feel scary or anything, it was just apparent that this was the more affordable, possibly subsidized, area of Stockholm. According to the directions we had, it was about a 10 minute walk from the station to the course.
We used Google maps to navigate us to the course, specifying the walking route. That turned out to be a mistake. We followed a walking path for about half a mile, but it abruptly came to an end at a roundabout. Google had us mapped to follow the roundabout, plus another one or two, towards the course. The problem was that there was no sidewalk, or pedestrian path at all, that we could see, just a very busy highway. Consulting my phone and Therry's, we started to doubt that we had the right directions, but typing in the GPS coordinates, we saw that we were indeed close to the entrance.
We knew that there had to be a better way to get to the course, but we were so close, we decided to just go for it. We walked across medians and over an overpass, ran across roundabouts and followed a drainage ditch. It was more than apparent that we weren't supposed to walking there, a chain between our legs would have completed the escaped convict look. But, true to Google's instructions, we saw a sign for disc golf. Of course, when we got to the entrance, we saw not one, but two pedestrian bridges that led straight to the park.
We walked to the parking lot, but it seemed mostly empty. Järva is a pay-to-play course, costing something like $8 per person. It's a little steep for a disc golf course, but I can support that, especially for an exemplary course. But, we were too early for the pro shop to open, apparently. We probably waited a good 10-20 seconds for the shop to open so we could pay, but nobody showed up. So we headed to the first hole.
I'll let the pictures do the talking here, but I'll just say that Järva is indeed a sweet course. If I'm honest, I've played some American courses which are better in terms of hole design, layout, challenge, scenery, etc., but Järva certainly takes the cake for presentation. I've never played a course so well maintained and manicured. It was challenging, but I think with some practice it would be relatively easy...relatively. In any case, it was a great course, and included good variety. Therry didn't throw every hole, or sometimes played from my drive, but she got to experience a lot of it too. I shot pretty well until the end. The holes got long and I got worn down by sun and hunger. I stopped thinking about score at all.
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| Not sure how I feel about artificial obstacles, but this one helped the hole, I think. |
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| This is much of what the "woods" consisted of. A good rough, easy to find your disc, but you're definitely penalized. |
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| One of the signature holes, though of course the camera doesn't do it justice. Seen better in this popular video. |
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| A long stairway to the top of a hill. A top of the world shot? |
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| No, not exactly, but it's sure nice to look at. |
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| Screw that mound. It's a good hole, but seriously, screw that mound. |
We finished up our round and made our way back to the train station. Since we'd started, some disc golfers had shown up. Disc golf culture seems to have a universal constant. Most of the guys we saw weren't actually playing. They were hanging out around picnic tables, drinking beer and talking.
We took one of the pedestrian bridges back over the highway, and had a much better time with it.
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| Sometimes there's good reason to take the path more traveled. |
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| A sculpture in the apartment complex next to the station. |
We rode the train back into Stockholm and Therry mentioned that there was a disc golf shop in Sweden, that had open hours on that particular day. I was somewhat curious, but didn't feel the need to make a big excursion for it. Then at one of the stops, Therry pointed out that if we got off there, it wouldn't be a long walk. Well hell, if we were right there, why not? So we got off and again made the mistake of following Google Maps. We got to the corner where the shop was supposed to be, but saw nothing. We decided to walk down the block just to see if there was anything there.
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| Some cool street art |
Sure enough, the very last door on the block had some disc golf stickers on it and a tiny sign for discsport.eu. Opening the door, we found another door directly behind it, but two feet lower:
We were there during apparent open hours for the warehouse, but the door was locked. I looked through the window, and though the lights were on, it didn't appear they were ready for visitors. Boxes were open and laying around everywhere. It looked like, well, a shipping room for an online distributor. We figured it was good enough that we tried, and turned around and went back to the train station.
We took a train back to the apartment, managing to avoid the chaos of central station, and by the time we got to our stop, we were getting drowsy. We had tentative plans to try to ride one of the pedestrian ferries in the evening, maybe catch the sunset. We took a nap and set an alarm to wake up in time. But by the time the alarm went off, we decided we'd seen enough of Stockholm and didn't need to push ourselves to ride the ferry.
It turned out just as well. We spent the rest of the evening trying to secure a place in Gothenburg. I hadn't heard back from the original place I pinged on AirBnB, so we sent out a bunch more feelers to other places in our price range. AirBnB is a great service, but it really isn't meant for scheduling next-day type reservations. Fortunately we did manage to secure one place, and we called that good enough. We then spent a great deal of time trying to find a rental car at a decent price--also more difficult than would be imagined. It was hard for us to find convenient rental agencies that actually had economy cars, at an affordable rate. With perseverence though, by the end of the night we had lodging and transportation reserved for the next day.
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