The perfect Nordic road trip

The Swedish island of Tjorn London - Arabstoday We are pootling along the smooth, rolling A roads of Sweden's west coast, past lakes, red clapperboard farmsteads, assorted summer houses with woodstacks piled high, granite escarpments, dense pine forests, sweeping meadows, green fields lined with regiments of lupins, and warning signs for moose. Then it dawns. Something is missing. Never mind the moose, where are the cars? It's 11am on a Monday, nearing midsommar, a big Swedish holiday, and we are but 65km from Gothenburg, the second city of 600,000 inhabitants, in a big tourist area. The roads here in Bohuslän province aren't post-apocalypse empty – two or three cars have passed in the opposite direction – but there have been no rivals in our lane for aeons. 8km, 10km, 12km. None. 14km, 16km. None. Then, on 18.8km, we spot a bus. It quickly turns off. I live in London, I'm used to traffic. OK, I mean gridlock. But driving in Sweden is as effortless as rural France on Bastille day; as easy as the endless, eerily empty, south-west US highways. In fact, it's so empty I'm beginning to recall images of post-apocalyptic movie The Road, except the forests aren't on fire and people aren't eating each other. My Swedish girlfriend Emma and I are here for 10 days, driving in a hired Volvo from Gothenburg towards the Norwegian border, hopping around the Bohuslän archipelago, before arcing down and around the coast to Malmö and Falsterbo for midsommar, where sensible Swedes let their blond hair down, cavort around a maypole, eat copious inglad sill (pickled herring), boiled eggs, new potatoes, and caviar from a tube, and get trashed while singing slightly rude tongue-twisters about farting Finns. The night before we were in a Gothenburg hotel opposite Scandinavia's biggest funfair but now, 20 minutes from town, we're cruising along country roads, hopping between islands such as Tjörn and Orust, past rolling meadows and rocky inlets. And, it seems, past classic American cars. Buicks, Plymouths and a Ford Gran Torino parked outside a kiosk. The kiosk owner says Swedish folk like their old American cars. He neglects to mention the classic car convention nearby. We'd love to stay at Slussen Pensionat (+46 30 437525, slussenspensionat.se) on Orust, a fabled bohemian band & breakfast joint, offering dinner, live music and room for about £100, not bad for pricey Sweden, especially given that famous folksters such as Peps Persson and Mikael Wiehe jammed here. However, we are destined for the tiny village of Lahälla – where friends are renovating an old farmhouse, slowly – for a BBQ, songs, wine and insect repellant – the area is known for ticks which burrow into your skin spreading Lyme disease, hence the sensible pre-bedtime chimp-like ritual of checking for their presence. I'm told the Germans love Bohuslän, for the clean air, open space and wildlife – so much so that they're buying up summer houses. I haven't seen any "D for Deutschland" car stickers, but for locals the Germans are easy to spot with their cartoon moose stickers. (Perhaps that's what the sign meant: "Warning, Germans with cartoon moose stickers.") A short hop north, resting at bayside cafes for fika – the traditional Swedish coffee, cake and chat – we board a ferry for the fishing port of Lysekil. It's here I'm told of Sweden's lesser known, sensibly observed rules, such as not letting your engine idle for more than a minute. Thirty kilometres away lies Fjällbacka, a beautiful, increasingly des res village of clapperboard fishermen's huts and cottages, set beneath an imposing granite cliff and perched on a wide tranquil bay dotted with rounded skerries that float into the horizon like thought bubbles. It boasts the hotel and restaurant Bryggan (brygganfjallbacka.se, doubles from around £150) which serves pickled herring on its jetty at sundown (10.45pm, Swedish time), bliss with a bottle of chilled chardonnay. Ingrid Bergman lived here – her statue adorns the promenade – but it's set to be more famous as the setting for local girl Camilla Läckberg's bestselling murder mysteries, soon to be filmed here. On the drive south we listen to Mats Eriksson's modern folky jazz on the CD player, interspersed with bouts of easy listening Swedish Dansbandsmusik on 93.8FM. (Think Herb Alpert on Prozac meets Cliff Richard, the 1970s and 1980s svenska bands sporting sideburns you could wipe your feet on.) The scenery doesn't need a soundtrack, with valleys like mini-Yosemites, dotted with farmsteads, many with traditional wooden milk tables where farmers would leave urns at the gate. Coastal campsites abound here, with full amenities and swim decks in sheltered bays (Trellebystrand – trellebystrand.se – for example in Lysekil). A two-bed cabin with en suite is about £50 per night. A tent costs less than three beers at the bar – about £15. Ah, Sweden and alcohol. What's that joke again? "Sven, you get the mortgage, I'll pop to the bar." OK, it's pricey, at least £5 a pint in the cheapest pubs, plus it's restricted – any takeaways over 3.5% proof must be bought in a monopoly state shop, the Systembolaget, a sort of East India Company selling booze; you have to be 20 and organised – and watch out, they often close early. We've stocked up on duty free, but a trip to the "systemet" is fun; it's like a cross-Channel ferry duty-free, only huge. You should see the panicked queues near closing time. Perhaps the healthy eating, sensible Swedes make up for the lack of booze with sweets – they are everywhere you go; supermarkets devote whole aisles to all manner of pick'n'mix. If buying alcohol seems tricky, the language seems impenetrable. I'm told I sound like an addled moose when speaking svenska. Still, you can have fun on the road pronouncing the signs – try saying Tvååker and Krapperup without crashing. There are many similarities in the languages, too. At lunch, in a restaurang ask for the lunchmeny, or at fika, try blåbärspaj (come on, it's blueberry pie). Driving south past the cities of Falkenberg and Halmstad in Halland county, the homes have changed, too, from clapperboard boxes to intricate tudor-beamed stone houses. Welcome to Skåne, southern Sweden. The hill at posh Båstad (pronounced borstad, please) demarcates the geography perfectly. Café Utsikten (cafeutsikten.com/webb/english.htm) gives you a view over the long bathing hut-, gorse-lined sandy bay below, and the villas and yachts by the marina. It's £15 for coffee and cakes; dear, but the blankets are warm. Blankets are offered free to customers, everywhere. The next day we motor to Ängelholm, where we indulge in a bout of Kubb-throwing (the Swedish answer to skittles, but using sticks thrown at logs) in the garden before a boozy dinner with the in-laws (I think I bluffed it), then a night at the Gallerihyttstigen B&B (+46 4311 0554, gallerihyttstigen.se, rooms from £50pp) and some bracing fun in the outdoor shower. Nearby in Kullaberg nature reserve is one of Sweden's wackier attractions, Nimis, a colony of towers honed from 75 tonnes of driftwood, accessible only by foot through the forest. Soon we are on the island of Ven in the Öresund channel between the municipality of Landskrona and Denmark. Cars are banned for visitors so we park up and pluck a bike from Ven's bike plantation – a field with 1,000 yellow cycles, everything from child bikes to tandems (for rent from £8 a day). Ven is a gem. Never will you see so many pheasant or hare, hopping out of quaint cottage gardens or strutting through wide open fields. There are also lovely B&Bs – the beautiful Bo-Ven (+46 737 426990, bo-ven.se, doubles £58pp) is one – and quirky restaurants such as Tuna Krog (13 Sankt Ibb, +46 418 72019, tunakrog.se). Further south sits Malmö, Sweden's third city, unfairly derided as the poor cousin of Stockholm and Gothenburg. I'm told Malmö isn't seen as Swedish, for its less than spotless streets. I liked it, especially the hip Bastard restaurant (11 Mäster Johansgatan, +46 40 121318, bastardrestaurant.se) – pronounced bastard, it's a joke!, and the old Kallbadhus (en.ribersborgskallbadhus.se) on the pier for a nude sauna (women one side, men the other). Here I ditched my Englishness (and my trunks), and went native, sunbathing on the deck, in the nip, after a dip in the sea. From here, we could drive to Copenhagen over the Öresund bridge (with its £30 toll). But we're off to spend midsommar at Falsterbo, an upmarket colony of summer homes and villas at Sweden's southern tip. For more new potatoes, more dill and more silly songs and snaps-fuelled tongue-twisters and naughty children's ditties about throwing cow dung. The Swedes, it seems, aren't quite so sensible after all. The effortless, 500km scenic odyssey makes me want to attempt the ultimate Swedish road trip, 2,100km from Malmö up to the barren, wild, untamed north and beyond the Arctic circle. Emma is not keen: "There's nothing there. Nothing! For hours!" Exactly – even fewer cars.