As many of you would already know Scandinavia, or more
specifically Denmark, is basically my second home. Having lived here for a year
as an exchange student when I was a teenager and since visited, I have many
people here who I consider family & close friends. So needless to say I was a little excited to
be returning once again.
But before we arrived in Denmark we explored another
Scandinavian country I had always wanted to see, Sweden. This was my choice for
my birthday. It was more than a little out of our way but hey, we’re on a world
trip right, so anything is possible.
We took a train to Sweden. Which pretty much took the whole
day by the time we changed trains twice and finally arrived in Malmo in the south
of Sweden. Our train even travelled on a ferry between Germany & Denmark
which was pretty cool. Tegan & I enjoyed a Swedish cider on board at about
a 6th of the price of what we pay in Australia. Always extra tasty
at that price J
From Malmo we took an overnight train to Stockholm. We
splurged a little here and booked a private room on board with breakfast
included at a hotel in Stockholm on arrival. What I loved about this train is
that even though the train arrives in Stockholm at 6am they don’t wake you
until 6:30 and then you don’t have to leave the train until 7am which means
some extra sleep in time. Love it. Plus a hotel buffet breakfast to start the
day was awesome. Probably one of the biggest buffets we had ever had. It was
delicious.
So after stuffing ourselves full of good breakfast food we
set out to explore Stockholm for a few hours. Unfortunately for us the weather
was freezing cold. The coldest day we have experienced so far on our trip. In
fact I don’t think the temperature rose much over 4 degrees the whole day. So
it was a little nippy. We spent some time wandering around “Gamla Stan” which
is the old town of Stockholm with lovely old winding cobblestone streets and
upmarket boutiques dotted around. We were lucky enough to score a couple of
free Stockholm cards (again a perk of my job) which meant we had free entry to
many attractions and free public transport for 48 hours.
We stayed at a B & B about 10 minutes by metro south of
the city centre. After checking in to our accommodation we decided to explore a
photo gallery which we had been recommended to see. It’s a new gallery, only a
year or so old with three different levels with different artists on show and
then a bar on the very top level where we enjoyed a drink afterwards with great
views over Stockholm. Tegan, the budding photographer, especially enjoyed the
couple of hours we spent wandering around the rooms.
Our second day in Stockholm was my birthday. Unfortunately
for me the weather prediction was for rain starting early afternoon. So we made
a reasonably early start to try and make the most of the dry weather. We took a
ferry over to Djurgaarden which is an island which has a lot of tourist
attractions on it. For those that don’t
know inner Stockholm itself is made up of 14 islands and the whole Stockholm
archipelago is more than 30,000 islands. So taking ferries and walking over
bridges is something you get quite used to.
Anyway when we were on Djurgaarden we visited an outdoor
museum/zoo which had old buildings and Scandinavian animals on show. We also
enjoyed some morning tea in an old café where they had a table full of
delicious homemade cakes and you could just take what you wanted and then pay
according to what you chose. We managed to finish our trip around the outdoor
museum just before the rain hit. After that it was a matter of dashing in
between buildings trying not to get too wet. We went to an Aquarium which had
all kinds of aquatic life from Stingrays to Piranha & we also visited the
Vasa museum which is the most famous museum in Stockholm. It has a shipwreck of
a giant old Swedish Warship on display which was under the water for 300 years
before they managed to bring it to the surface almost intact about 50 years
ago. It was pretty amazing. Due to the shitty weather we knew we weren’t going
to get any good views over Stockholm but decided that seeing as we had free
entry we may as well try the famous Eriksson Globe (a spherical stadium). You
get inside a big glass capsule and then it goes around the outside of the
building on a kind of track. So that you get a view as you are pulled up to the
top of the stadium roof and then back down again. The capsule fits about 16
people but due to the bad weather it was only us and another family. Tegan took
me out for a lovely dinner that evening with a nice bottle of Spanish red wine
to go along with it and then on our way back to the B&B we found a cute
little café with homemade cakes & espresso. A perfect end to a lovely birthday.
On a bit of a whim we decided to stay an extra day in Sweden
and take an overnight ferry cruise out to the islands near Finland. It was
basically a big cruise ship where we got a buffet dinner & drinks included
and we could just chill out for 24 hours and enjoy the fresh (cold) sea air.
Tegan even got up and joined in on the Karaoke with all the Swedes later in the
night. We had a great night and it was beautiful scenery coming back into
Stockholm the following day watching the thousands of islands drift by.
Once we were back at the harbour it was time to catch a
train across Sweden to Gothenburg. We just had a short overnight stay there
before taking a morning ferry to the north of Denmark.
We have been in Denmark for the past three weeks now. I am
not going to give you a day by day itinerary as of course over three weeks we
have been doing plenty but also have had plenty of time to relax. We have been
staying with our friends Jill & Jesper, who some of you will know from when
they were staying with us for a few months a couple of years ago. They live in
the small town of Videbaek, which is the town I lived in as an exchange student
11 years ago. In fact all three of my host families still live here in Videbaek
so it has been nice and easy to be able to see and spend time with everyone.
Our first day we were met by Jill & we visited the
Northern most tip of Denmark famous for being where the waves of two different
seas meet and crash together. After which we spent a lovely first evening with
Jill’s uncle, aunt & cousins.
In our first week in Denmark we celebrated our wedding
anniversary with a lovely dinner at an Italian restaurant in a nearby town. We
also took a day trip to the third biggest city in Denmark, Odense together with
one of my host parents, Karen & Egon to see Hans Christian Andersen’s house
& another great photography exhibition. On our way there we also visited a
very cute little miniature village of an old Danish town which Karen managed to
talk us in to despite them being closed for the winter. It’s amazing how far a “but
they are our guests from Australia and they came all the way here to see this”
will go J. Tegan
played some golf for the first time in more than four months with some of my
host parents & we played Football golf for the first time too. Which is
basically a small golf course played with a soccer ball. Needless to say I was
terrible and lost the match. We also went to Germany to go shopping with a few
friends. Many Danish people travel to Germany a few times a year to stock up on
food & drinks which are much cheaper over the border.
Our second week we were spoilt with dinners! We had a night
at the local hotel for a Rotary Club meeting where I managed to give a speech
in Danish about my life over the last 11 years since I was living here as an
exchange student. We were hosted by two of my host families for lovely dinners,
went to a 30th birthday party and enjoyed some Danish salad pizza.
Yes, they put salad on a pizza and it tastes delicious. We also had a very
relaxing afternoon in a pool/spa centre enjoying the sauna, steam room, plunge
pool, rooftop hot tub, spa & swimming pool.
We now have our final week in Denmark coming to an end. This
week we have visited a couple of nearby towns for some window shopping and hot
drinks, Tegan has played some more golf, we enjoyed a family lunch with Jill’s
grandparents, attended a Halloween party at a Salsa dance club, had a big farewell dinner and coffee &
cakes with all of my host families & eaten plenty of good Danish food. Oh,
and just last night Tegan joined Jesper and his mates as they constructed a
giant ‘Pepper Grinder’ out of a scrap Volvo and old Oil drums. It’s a tradition in these parts for guys who
turn 30 years old to be covered in pepper and given a grinder for their birthday
if they are not married yet. Something to do with being ‘over the hill’ and the
ladies won’t like you anymore or something like that, haha. Anyway, the
boys took it one step further and made a 6 meter tall one and parked it out the
front of the birthday boy’s house!
It has been a great few weeks. Very relaxing and enjoyable.
We will be sad to leave but the backpacking adventure must continue! Tomorrow
it’s on to Copenhagen before we head south again to the far western European
nations of the Netherlands, Belgium & France.
