After breakfast at Andersen’s and the acquisition of a tasty packed lunch for the long journey to Stockholm,
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| Andersen's packed lunch |
we made our way to the station across the road, not quite sure how this leg was going to pan out. When we booked this train in January, we were advised that there was a suspension of the Schengen agreement on free movement across the border between Denmark and Sweden, and rather than take the train direct from Copenhagen and Stockholm, we should catch a train to Malmo, just across the Bridge in Sweden for border checks and pick up the Stockholm train at Malmo. However, we were a bit surprised to find that the train we were due to pick up at Malmo (all the European trains are numbered so it’s easy to track them, particularly where you are moving over borders) was leaving from Copenhagen. We enquired and were told we needed to catch a train to Copenhagen Airport, change for Malmo and pick up our booked train there. This seemed a bit crazy, but we were checked by the Danish police at Copenhagen Airport station and then the Swedish police came onto the train at Malmo. Our anticipated experience of crossing the Oresund Crossing was less than overwhelming, partly because it was raining and visibility was poor, and also because the train line runs on a level below the road, so you can’t see very much, as you can see from the photo:
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| View from the Bridge, with Malmo on the horizon |
Our train from Malmo to Stockholm was an inter-city express, very comfortable and with a decent buffet if we got hungry or thirsty during our 5 hour journey. The scenery was lovely, hills, pine forests and crystal clear lakes, up there with the journeys through the Alps and through Tuscany. When you see the amount of trees growing up here it’s not surprising that the Swedes like their wood! Ikea needn’t worry about running out of materials for all that furniture it churns out!
I went down to the buffet for chocolate and coffee and found the steward very friendly and helpful, and like most Scandinavians we’ve met so far, totally proficient in English. She advised me on which chocolate bars she sells most of, and told me to keep our disposable cups and come back for free coffee refills if we wanted another drink later - very welcoming.
We arrived in Stockholm about 4.30 to a sunny and beautiful Stockholm. It’s bright blue Baltic setting, cinnamon-coloured buildings and spires showed it off to advantage and it felt warm in the sun. We made the 15 minute walk to our floating hotel - a yacht moored at the edge of Lake Malaren, called the Malardrottningen, which is quite a mouthful, I know, which has 61 cabin bedrooms, a restaurant and bar. It was apparently given to the Woolworth’s heiress, Barbara Hutton for her 18th birthday by her father. However, she decided she didn’t want/need it after a few years and sold it to the British Navy. It was eventually rescued from scrap by a Swedish consortium and reinvented as a floating hotel.
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| Our cosy cabin - I had the top bunk |
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| The yacht |
On boarding, we were told by one of the staff, quite sharply, not to go into the Men’s Toilet just off the reception area (I really hadn’t thought it would be my first port of call!) because someone was in there and I assume the lock wasn’t working. While we were checking in, the member of staff shouted to the occupant of aforesaid toilet, to ask if he was ok. We heard the distant voice of an American man, clearly in a stage of vomitousness, saying that in fact, he wasn’t. The rather hard woman protecting his privacy shouted to him that he should go outside and get some air to make him feel better. Once we’d done all the official stuff at the reception desk, we didn’t hang around to find out his fate, but I did unpack my supply of Stugeron which I’d brought with me specially to cope with the eventuality that I might be seasick on the boat; this early and, actually, only encounter with seasickness, did slightly worry me, but in fact, it was fine and just having the Stugeron on the bathroom shelf was sufficient - placebo effect, I expect.
We got out into the streets of Stockholm’s old town, less than a 10 minute walk away, as quickly as possible to enjoy what was left of the sun, when we knew it would feel a lot colder. The old town is beautiful, full of elegant and comely old buildings
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| Lovely evening in Stockholm |
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| Evening in old town |
and very high-class small shops, mainly selling artisan arts and crafts, antiques with a few souvenir shops. I particularly enjoyed viewing the beautiful glassware, the yarns and hand knits in pure wools dyed with natural colours and the paintings. The royal palace was at the top and we watched the royal guards in their blue and white uniforms standing in the sentry boxes and occasionally marching a few steps - probably to keep themselves warm, I imagine. The old town also has plenty of restaurants as befits a tourist trap, from the ubiquitous pizza and pasta places, to the Buffalo Grill to lovely local eateries. Once we got over the shock of how much it was going to cost us to eat, and we’d come to grips with the fact that the Swedish kronor is around 12 to the pound while the Danish kroner is 10 to the pound, we started to look closely at menus and prices. Many which looked very inviting had menus outside but didn’t quote any prices so we steered clear of them to avoid the embarrassment of sitting down and finding the price of the food would choke us. We did, more by accident and intuition than by sound management, find a very small restaurant with an interesting local menu and prices that were just about within budget, and my tiny hands were frozen by this time, as it had got dark and pretty damn cold. When we got in it looked full and we weren’t hopeful, but the lovely woman, who we found co-owned it with her husband, who was the chef, indicated there was one table for two at the back, right in front of a radiator and with squashy cushions - bliss! The food was local and really tasty; I had fried herrings, which were delicious with a crispy skin and accompanied by mash, lingonberries (quite bitter and similar to cranberries, they serve them in the Ikea restaurants and sell them in jars in the shop), a dill and sour cream dressing and vinegar-infused raw onion rings. My husband had Swedish meatballs with lingonberries and dill potatoes, then apple crumble with custard. I passed on the pudding as they were advertising liqueur coffees and I thought a shot of brandy and cream with my coffee would reach the parts apple crumble wouldn’t reach and keep me warm for the walk back to our floating cabin, which it did.
The breakfast on board the boat was good and of course, an opportunity to stock up and minimise our spending on food in the expensive Stockholm. Again, we were lucky weatherwise, as rain was forecast for later but the first part of the day was fine with some sun. Our first port of call was the beautiful City Hall, which is as much like our local council offices as fillet of beef is like a big Mac. It is a relatively modern building, with the work starting in 1911, but it was very carefully designed and brings together the Italian renaissance style (so reminiscent of the buildings in Florence) with Swedish baroque and national realism (you might guess we had a guided tour or I wouldn’t have known any of this!).
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| City Hall; the courtyard |
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| City Hall; the Blue Hall |
The result is a stunning building with some fabulous rooms, including the Blue Hall which isn’t blue, and is a beautiful room in marble and is where the Nobel prizes (apart from the Peace price which is awarded in Oslo) are conferred and the banquet is held; the Council
Chamber,
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| The ceiling of the Council Chamber |
which has the most amazing wooden ceiling, which reflects the beams of the Viking long boats; and the climax is the Gold Hall, which is made of tiny tiles of real gold sandwiched between layers of glass in a mosaic and reflects the national mythology of Sweden and specifically of Stockholm.
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| City Hall: the Gold Hall |
This is where the Nobel Prize ceremony dancing takes place after the banquet. There is a tower which is open to the public but only from May till September so we missed that opportunity. It seems as though the Spring/Summer season up here is very short, but the people aren’t gloomy at all, very upbeat and outgoing, in fact, and so many of them are stunningly beautiful!
We went for a meandering walk, following our noses and looking for interesting things, and after a coffee in a tiny Espresso Bar, where we chatted to the friendly Italian proprietor about our trip (he was Roman, so wanted to hear about that) we found the amazing food market, quite by accident. It is a covered market that only sells food of every kind, and has some of the best restaurants in Stockholm. We spent half an hour just walking through and looking at some of the dishes that weren’t familiar to us, particularly those based on fish - I intend to try recreating some of these when I get home. The overwhelming smell was of dill, which is everywhere.
As we left the market, the skies had darkened and the rain came, quite a heavy shower, and we stumbled upon as sign for the Medieval Museum, which is free! And inside, and warm, and actually a well designed and informative space. It was certainly aimed at helping students and school children to appreciate what life was like for the people of their city in the middle ages and there was quite a lot on how people were punished (not always with kindness!) and a group of school children were being give a gruesome insight into some of that. It was still raining when we came out and considered going into the Nobel Museum, but that wasn’t free so we decided to spend the 200 kronor (about £16.50) saved by not going in on coffee and cakes and found a very busy cafe which did everything in extra-large portions only, apart from the small cake my husband chose. I opted for apple strudel and when I got the place it was one and a half slices, warmed up with custard and grated chocolate! The latte I ordered came in a soup bowl so all of that was worth the sacrifice of the Nobel Museum (maybe another time).
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| A large snack |
We had dinner (a few hours later, thankfully) on the boat and had a table by the window overlooking the gorgeous lake as the sun set.
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| Early sunset on lake when we sat down for dinner |
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| At the end of dinner |
It looked all set for a “red sky at night, shepherd’s delight,” situation but obviously the shepherds here are fond of pouring rain, so we sadly said Goodbye to lovely Stockholm not looking its best. This is definitely somewhere I would come again as we only scratched the surface, but you need to come with plenty of money as nothing comes cheap, apart from household items, which go for a good price, even by UK standards.
We had a pleasant 3 hour journey north up to a little coastal town called Sundsvall, which is a main rail junction and where we will begin our last train journey across the width of Scandinavia to Norway, and specifically to the ancient capital, Trondheim, on the north sea coast. I made good use of the time to sort out my photos, all of which have now been downloaded onto my laptop, and added onto the posts on Salzburg illustrating our trip to Hallstatt and also onto Bamberg post.
There’s not much to say about Sundsvall really; we arrived about 2pm, booked into the nice, quite luxurious, Quality Hotel and walked into town. Two hours, a coffee and mini muffin each later, we’d done it all.
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| Sundsvall: the main square |
It looks like a town which comes into life in winter, as it does skiing, and in summer, when it’s warm enough for the beach, but at the moment it is dead. We found only the one coffee shop open, and it was too cold to loiter so after that we went back to the warmth of the Quality. Dinner there was really excellent, and we weren’t rushed at all over our Char with lemon and parmesan risotto and chocolate fondant with raspberries (for me) and fillet of beef and a plate of mixed desserts for my husband, and made an evening of it. The restaurant and bar were full and there was plenty of atmosphere.
So we are now ready to leave Sweden for Norway and our last stop. Feeling quite unexpectedly sad but at the same time looking forward to home and the people who matter.
Stockholm: vibrant and spontaneous
In Stockholm, we stayed at the Malardrottningen Hotel and Restaurant
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