Content Produced in Partnership with Gothenburg, West Sweden, Volvo OSD & Visit Sweden
This summer we partnered with Instagrammer and travel blogger Christie Sultemeier to visit West Sweden in celebration of Midsummer and to learn more about Volvo’s Overseas Delivery Program. The program allows American Volvo buyers the chance to visit Gothenburg, the birthplace of Volvo, including two round-trip flights on Scandinavian Air (SAS), one night stay in Gothenburg, and more. Christie also invited her mom to meet her in Gothenburg. From there, they took off on an epic road trip through West Sweden together. Here is their experience in Christie's own words (and photos):
The first stop of our West Sweden road trip was the island of Tjorn, one of Sweden’s biggest islands.
The Nordic Watercolor Museum on the island of Tjorn is the only watercolor museum in Europe. Sofia from the museum’s marketing team gave us a wonderful tour, including showing us one of the studios across the water which you can rent and stay at while visiting. After the tour we ate at the attached restaurant, Restaurant Vatten, which offered the most spectacular waterside views.
We were lucky enough to test out a Volvo XC-60, their most popular car, for our road trip. My mom drove most of the trip and raved about the car the entire time. The scenery from our Volvo as we drove from place to place was nothing short of amazing. I could not stop snapping photos!
We spent our night on Tjorn at Salt and Sill, Sweden’s first floating hotel. The view from dinner was jaw-dropping as was the amazing fresh fish we ate.
Day two of our road trip was Midsummer, the most important of all Swedish holidays. We headed to Slussen’s Pensionat on the island of Orust for a traditional celebration with Vibs, the hotel's owner, and her family. We picked flowers to make flower crowns (midsommarkrans) with before dancing around the Midsummer pole and joining in on the traditional potluck style lunch.
We had dinner at the hotel that night. The muscles were delicious and so fresh that we could see from our seats exactly where they came from.
Slussen’s Pensionat has live music every night during peak months, so after dinner at the hotel we stuck around for some dancing. The band that night, Big is Less, featured Vibs’ husband Robert and was fantastic. Even my mom stayed out past 1am for it.
Sunny views from our breakfast table after getting up at 5am to kayak and look for seals. Our room upstairs had the same view and opened into a balcony overlooking the ocean.
The last stop of our road trip was the island of Marstrand, a small island known for its sailing. Our hotel, Marstrand Havshotell, packed us an amazing picnic, which we took to Carlsten Fortress to enjoy in the warm sunshine. This is the view looking down on Marstrand from the top of the fortress.