I went to Stanfords (map heaven in London) and bought the best I could find - the 1:250,000 map of Västra Svealand. It covers the right area, but was completely inadequate because Sweden turns out to be a country of tiny, weeny hamlets, and many, many country roads, none of which appears on this map - so when you're there on the ground it's incredibly difficult to work out exactly where you are. We frequently had to depend on the position of the sun and gut instinct when faced with yet another cross-roads with signs to mysterious places - and luckily for the most part we were right, more or less.
What saved us were the free maps that the tourist information centres give out. They tended to be much more detailed, and on a more useful scale - and the staff in the centres would happily draw out a beautiful, or quiet route on the map for us. The trip would have been far less fun without these maps.
Another time, maybe we'd have downloaded some decent maps into our phones - but then we'd have had to have kept them dry, and charged them, neither of which would have been easy on this trip given the sheer wetness. Or I could have learned Swedish, as it looks as if there is good information on Swedish cycling sites about maps. But we didn't, and it worked out ok. Part of the fun of a trip is never quite knowing what's round the corner ...
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