And then it’s off to Sweden – if our GPS didn’t tell us we crossed the border we almost wouldn’t know it. The only visible change to us is that we suddenly can understand at least half of the street signs compared to the guessing game that we were playing in Finland. Also our wallet money is not useful anymore – while having quite a few euros we cannot use them this side of the border as Sweden is not part of the euro zone – luckily we will be staying only a few hours so we do not anticipate any need to buy anything. And then shortly after passing Pajala the only town of note that we were going through in Sweden we arrive at the parking lot for our destination and up we go.
We are looking for a Struve Geodetic Arc survey point which is part of the Struve Geodetic Arc Unesco World Heritage Site. The World Heritage Site protects a few of the points of a survey carried out between 1816 and 1855 by the astronomer Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Struve. The survey represented the first accurate measuring of a long segment of a meridian and helped to establish the exact size and shape of the planet, quite interesting and something that we didn’t know before.
Unfortunately the survey point is about 1/2 km distance from the parking lot and it is an uphill hike through clouds of mosquitoes. This time however we are prepared with different chemicals and surprisingly at least one of them works and they stay away for now. Getting to the top of the hill we find both the memorial and beautiful views of the surrounding area, it is actually quite beautiful if there are no mosquitoes attacking you.
There are some welcom benches up to and we take a breather enjoying the views and the beautiful meadows full of flowers before returning to the car, we have one more site to explore in Sweden.
