Göta Canal

Today we did a little excursion north to a small village called Sjötorp. That's where the Göta Canal goes from Lake Vänern through Sweden to the Baltic sea. Göta Canal is often called "Sweden's blue ribbon" and is a popular tourist attraction. You can travel down the canal in your own vessel, or take one of the many cruises offered.
There are 58 locks on this stretch, 3 of them are here in Sjötorp.



We spent quite some time watching these locks open and close and we saw this red boat go through:



Here it's going into the first of the three locks:



Nearly there...



And here it comes!



We were also lucky to see the one of the big passenger ferries come through:





They were busy filling her up with water and emptying the trash:



The captain didn't look terribly stressed, smoking a pipe while he sailed in to the lock!





It got harder and harder to unload the rubbish as the boat sank in the lock!



We also went a few km away to visit Norrkvarn, where they had a little children's mini canal. It was pretty neat.



A play on words, pretty witty! (Normally it's 'puss & kram' = kiss & hug, this is 'sluss & kram', = lock & hug)



Mormor was there too!



There was a little church that the kids liked:



On the inside it looked like this: