It’s half-past three on a Saturday afternoon. We’re en route to Åhus, the medieval town on the Sydostleden biking trail. It’s a short 10km cycle before we get there. Easy peasy, especially with an e-bike. Until the battery runs out, that is.

“Can I help you?” I’m walking with my bicycle to a fisherman’s cabin. Maybe the man can charge the battery? In the meantime, I rest on the beach. That’s the beauty of the Sydostleden: the sea is always within reach.

His name is Mats, and he is a fisherman. His boat ‘Anna’ is ready for departure and is already on the waterline, behind the tractor. A moment later, his brother arrives. He is wearing green rubber waders and a life jacket. For a moment I think I see double, but Max and Mats are twin brothers. They have fished together for sixty years, twenty years of which they spent fishing at sea.

How can you tell them apart? You can’t. Or wait. Mats is one minute older, and you can tell. He takes the lead in everything. Looking at me mischievously, he says: “Do you want to fish with us?” “Yes, please! What are we fishing for today?” They’re both surprised: “Eel, of course!”

Apples
This morning we started on our e-bikes in Kivik, possibly Skåne’s quaintest little village. Each and every half-timbered house is wonderfully painted. All the hollyhocks in the front gardens are gently swaying in Claude Monet’s favourite colours. Italian traveller Edmondo de Amicis would call it “a town from the window of a Nuremberg toy store”. With a full battery, we head out of the fishing village, past rolling fields of grain, old farms, cream-white churches and countless apple orchards with over 70 different apple varieties.

We are on our way to our lunch stop, so we make a big loop inland. Kaffestugan Alunbruket in Andrarum turns out to be one of the oldest coffeehouses in Skåne. Just like Kivik, it looks like a vintage village from an old toy store. The café opened in the 1930s and is now run by the great-grandchild of the original owner, Johan Carlsson. He tells us about this extraordinary village, in particular about the hundreds of workers who once lived here and worked at the factory where they produced alum, a mordant used for leather tanning. Back in the day, this village had its own schools, houses and even its own currency. This way, the people invested their hard-earned money back into their town. The contrast between then and now could not be more different. Once there was a yellow cloud of sulphur hanging over the town. Nowadays there is not a trace of such and, we are cycling into a perfect little hobbit village.

The Åhus ‘church’
“How far to go?” We had been in the saddle for a while when we discovered the battery was not fully charged at Mat & Max’s fisherman’s cottage. We carry on along a gravel road in a forest where each hill is followed immediately by the next. Maybe Skåne is less flat than I had initially thought. No time for mutiny however, we have to keep going.

In the distance, we see the Åhus church, which is not a real church, but rather the Absolut Vodka factory situated along the Helge å. We cross a bicycle bridge and reach our hotel with a view. We overlook the houses of the rich and famous. Every house has its own private jetty, of course, a ship included. Åhus is Sweden’s best-preserved medieval town, once known for its three sins: eel, snuff & spirits, all of which are made and sold right here in the small town. Marketing people have done their best to make us think that nowadays Åhus is famous for three different things: handball, swimming and ice cream. We have a different aim, however. We are in the town where Absolut Vodka has been made since 1906. The factory is a landmark beyond classification. As I pass the factory, I hear myself humming ‘Helan går…”