It was my 30th birthday recently, in December of last year. Despite birthdays being like clockwork, if you’re not watching the clock, they can easily creep up on you. One moment you’re in your late 20’s, and the next you’re fielding questions about what gifts you’d like, or where you’d want to go for “The big 3-0”.
This year, or more importantly this milestone, I knew I wanted to do something to mark it. Whereas previously I’ve always been happy with minimal fuss to get it out of the way and look forward to Christmas. That’s where the idea of a winter holiday came into play. A few ideas came and went;
- A ‘Christmassy’ type city break, but we wanted a stress-free a December as possible, and the dates didn’t quite line up
- A winter sports holiday, but given we were looking in late July we’d already made it hard (and expensive) for ourselves by being late to the game.
- A ‘fight the cold’ holiday, where we found the hottest place we could for the time of year, but dancing with lady luck wasn’t pulling me in enough.
Scandinavia
In the end, we decided to opt for somewhere scenic and cold. Sweden caught our eye, and I’ve always loved the idea of touring a country by car. Our Swedish road trip (through logistics, cost and a sprinkle of wanderlust) turned into a Scandinavian road trip. Flying into Copenhagen wound up twice as cheap as Malmö, despite being 20 miles apart. On top of that, due to how remote some midland parts of Sweden are, it worked out more efficiently to hop across into Norway for one night.
Over 2 weeks, we planned out our triple country road trip. We booked the flights (which Pip paid for in full as a Birthday present), then car hire and insurance right off the bat. Every other night, we’d sit down and book a hotel or an Airbnb, until we’d completed our 8-stop 11-day trip;
- Starting in Copenhagen,
- Up towards Gothenburg,
- Over into Oslo
- Across Sweden via Torsby & Fagersta,
- Into Stockholm,
- A cosy stay in Jonkoping,
- Finishing with 2 nights in Malmo
- Flying home from Copenhagen
This 11-day road trip wasn’t always that long, however. Midway through November, whilst I was having a busy day at my new job (that I accepted in the Sagrada Familia), and Pip was working a 12-hour transport shift, EasyJet landed an email in my inbox stating that they had cancelled our return flight from Copenhagen to Manchester. A refund, flight move, or voucher was available, so I took it upon myself to investigate. As it turns out, the closest flight they could offer a switch to was 2 days earlier, or 2 days later.
After an hour or so of faffing, re-booking flights, requesting refunds, moving hotels, amending car hire bookings sorting out finances, our trip had been elongated to now have two nights in Malmo.
Winter warmers
The next issue to tackle is that of inappropriate clothing. I’ve long been a fan of the saying “There’s no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing”, but that’s easy to say from the comfort of a heated office, with a hot water bottle and pair of joggers on. I was acutely aware that I simply didn’t have enough warm clothes for an 11-day trip to Sweden. We want to be out and about, sightseeing or walking, no matter the weather, and a couple of not-so-waterproof coats from my closet and the odd Next hoodie weren’t going to cut it. A few tactically placed Birthday and Christmas hints of warm jackets, gloves, hats & an indulgent purchase of a lightweight waterproof Rains coat left me feeling a little more comfortable about the upcoming bout with winter. The Rains coat, although brilliantly waterproof, was very thin – it had one purpose of waterproofing. Warmth isn’t its strong suit.
Late last month, just before Christmas, Pip and I took a trip to Wales – On the way down, we stopped off at TK Maxx and did some Panic shopping for some warmer clothes. Pip was on the hunt for base layers, coats & hiking pants – I was searching for a beanie hat, waterproof pants & a big coat. It was somewhat successful, with me coming away with a Michelin-man-esque Adidas jacket, that makes me look at least 30% bigger than I am. Pip managed to find a gorgeous purple and pink Lands End Jacket & some mid-rise rubber Wellington boots. Between us, we left feeling a little more confident about the upcoming winter weather.
January 8th 2024
3.45 am soon rolled around, and we both jumped straight in the shower, did the last checks of our cases, carry-ons, passports etc and made a coffee for the road. We left home just before 0430, with our aim to get to the car park at Manchester Airport at 5 am. Unlike a day earlier where we’d had a bit of a cold snap, there was no frost at all on the ground or the cars. It is a bit of a blessing, as my car (Matilda) likes to not only freeze over on the outside, but also on the inside – most frosty mornings, I need to de-ice both sides of the windscreen, so the warmer weather saved us 10 minutes here.
It was smooth sailing to the airport – we pulled in, and parked up just before the bus arrived! We got our usual WHSmith meal deal, waited a while before boarding, and then endured 2 hours of solitaire before finally landing in Copenhagen. Before flying out, the car hire company had sent out a little ‘optional extras’ email, which charged £90 for crossing the bridge and £90 for snow tyres. I’d looked online and found that once I knew the car number plate I could sort the bridge transit myself for £45, and as for snow tyres; I was leaving that until the last minute in the hopes that the car they would give us would already have them on. In my head that made sense – if the car had them, they wouldn’t see I hadn’t booked them and go and take them off, would they? However, once we hopped off the shuttle bus and dragged our cases into the car hire centre, I spotted a sign stating that whilst it’s not a legal requirement in Denmark, if you’re driving in Sweden you must legally have snow tyres in the winter season. Since we had to try to add a day on anyway, I asked about that and mentioned we’d need winter tyres. A few taps of the keyboard, a couple of rubbish electronic signatures and a handover of the keys to an upgraded Toyota Corolla Cross later, and Pip I were let loose in an almost-new crossover SUV.
Left foot braking
We found the car, in lot 196. It was nestled neatly between 2 other cars, with a wall on the right of it. ‘Nestled neatly’ is perhaps a more whimsical way of saying it must have been vertically craned into this space. We loaded up the boot with our cases, took off our numerous layers, and sat in the car, to attempt to figure out all the buttons and dings. Our little Toyota was an Automatic, which in theory means it should be easier to drive – the first 2 minutes of me trying to get out of this parking space and familiarise myself told a very different story! My main mistake, given that this was an automatic and my left foot was rendered useless, was that I had automatically put my right foot on the accelerator, and left foot on the only other remaining pedal – the brake. Not only was I sat diagonally in the seat, trying to get the sole of my left boot to line up with the brake, like Jeremy Clarkson used to talk about when driving classic Alfa Romeos, but I was also braking with my clutch foot. We kangaroo’d violently as I edged back and forth out of the space and tried to do a few laps of the parking lot. It was only once I reparked, did a walk around, messed with some of the controls and mentally prepared myself for what could be a stressful drive that I should be doing everything with my right foot. Immediately everything clicked into place. Now I just had to get used to driving on the wrong side, which I know from cycling abroad that your brain just switches after the first few roundabouts. It did.
Throw it in the hole
A short 30-minute drive later, we arrived at our first hotel of the trip. I should say Hostel, not hotel. We had our private room with a bathroom, but most of the building was dorm rooms and shared facilities. For the price, and the time we were there, it was spot on though. Just after we’d been talked through the parking, and the T&Cs, made our payment and given our room key, we were told to “Take a bag from the pile by the lift” which had our bedding and a few towels in it, and “throw it in the big hole in wall at checkout”. The principle was fine – similar to what I’ve done in a YHA back in England – but there was something about how bluntly it was phrased that Pip & I couldn’t help but laugh at. Sure enough, just below a giant hole in the wall, we found our pre-bagged bedding and took ourselves up to our room.
We moved our car from the expensive street parking outside to the free parking provided by the hotel – there was a catch in that it was 3km away, but for our situation that didn’t matter. Unencumbered by cases, we walked from the out-of-city parking through Fredericksburg Park and towards the city centre to properly start our first day of the trip, and day 01 of 02 in Copenhagen. The park looked gorgeous in the snow – there must have been a fresh fall overnight, as everywhere that wasn’t a path seemed to be clean and fluffy snow, only disturbed by the giant oversized black and grey crows and the occasional goose.
We slowly ambled towards Nyhavn, which is one of the prettier areas in Copenhagen – certainly the most touristy, although at this time of year, overcrowding of tourists was never going to be an issue (even though we didn’t know it yet). Nyhavn is the postcard area of Copenhagen, next to the canal, with all the beautiful colourful houses and fairy-lit restaurants lining the front. It is gorgeous, although when we were there, we were a little taken aback by a giant 3-story-high Just Eat Billboard that ruined almost every photo opportunity of the area unless you did some selective cropping or zooming.
Carrot Cake & Burgers
The selection of restaurants on this street all felt a bit tourist-trappy, just without the tourists – we went back one street, and kept our eyes open for a coffee shop – we started to feel the effects of a 4 am getup and so this, thankfully short, search was done with a couple of quickeningly-grumpy faces. We found ourselves in ‘Café Ermanno’ and ordered a couple of Cappuccinos – it didn’t take much persuasion from the owner to tempt us to mutually agree to share a cake, so I took a stab in the dark and pointed at one I thought looked nice. It turned out to be the nicest slab of carrot cake Pip & I had ever tasted – allow me to throw around words like moist, spongey, and creamy. We’d properly settled in – backs to the wall on a long bench, sitting side-by-side, coffee in hand, carrot cake in mouth, a couple with a snoozing pug in their arms in front of us to people watch. It took a big effort to muster up the energy to hoist ourselves from our seats, re-dress ourselves with our various cold-weather layers and head back out into the city – once we had, we aimed our feet towards the Meat Packing District – a fairly cool part of town, in (if it wasn’t jumping out at you) an old meat packing facility turned office space & restaurant area. It was slightly eerie in parts but also seemed to be a cool industrial, bustling place if you hit it at the right time. We’d hit it at 4 pm on January 8th, which would go some way to explaining why it was dead, half the restaurants not yet open, and the ones that were, were sitting completely empty. When all the restaurants are empty, the smaller ones suddenly seem more appealing – one of those was ‘Tommy’s Burger Joint’ – a little burger place which gave the vibe of hipster butchers, with just enough interesting décor to tip it into ‘hipster industrial’ kind of vibes, instead of ‘ex-abattoir’, which it teetered dangerously close to. All that being said, the burger was spot on and exactly what we both viscerally wanted after a day of travelling and walking around in the cold.
We took ourselves home after this – Copenhagen was the only time in the whole holiday (Aside from Malmo at the end, after having to rearrange our flights) where we’d get two days in the city. This took a lot of the pressure off seeing everything we wanted to on the first day, which we enjoyed!
January 9th 2024
We slept like logs in our little thin hostel beds – we got an early night, and despite that still slept through until 8 am – over 11 hours of sleep! We roughly planned out our day, which doesn’t get much more complicated than googling stuff, and saving it on Google Maps. There’s no breakfast in this little hostel of ours, so we showered and headed out the door. Getting ready to go was a bit of an experience on this holiday, given that the hotels were all well-heated, but you need to be in full gear before you leave. What ended up happening was we’d wear our base and mid layer around the room, then once we were both ready we’d put on our coat, scarf, gloves and hat before dashing out the door, down the lift, through the lobby and outside before you start to overheat. Funnily enough, the scarf I was wearing was one Pip had knitted herself, just a few weeks ago. Comfy, stylish, and didn’t scratch like other scarfs. What a dream.
We wandered around towards Christiansburg Palace and spotted a couple of workmen trying to leverage out a life-sized fibreglass type statue of a man from the Guinness World Record’s shop, on the Highstreet – it turned out to be the world’s tallest man – or at least the statued resemblance of him – and wasn’t even close to fitting out of the regular doorway. Spare a thought for the oddest job of the day, at 9 am on a Tuesday. As we approached Christiansburg palace, we were greeted by a couple of blokes dressed as piggies, protesting something – presumably something pork or animal welfare related, but that’s not a conversation I wanted to try and spark up. The Garden of the Royal Library was beautiful, all covered in a dusting of snow, being hit by the late morning sun with a couple of lights on inside to provide a bit of extra glow.
Coffee & Cake
The next stop of the day was a coffee, as we were up-until-now caffeine and food-deprived. Our usual trick of looking left and right as we wandered around hadn’t worked, but Pip had remembered a little coffee spot she’d heard about when she was over here doing her University degree in Copenhagen. A place called Paludan Bog & Café – A quirky but stunningly cosy café that doubles as a library, filled with first edition books, medical journals, and other practical and fiction novels dotted around. We got (what we thought) was the best seat in the house – a little 2-seater vintage-style sofa in front of a stained glass window, with a low mahogany table accompanying it, all situated at the back of a 1st-floor oval room surrounded by bookcases. With the benefit of hindsight, I can say we got ‘the usual’; Two cappuccinos, a pastry each and one to share. I got a regular croissant, Pip won with her chocolate-covered and filled croissant and we shared some form of almondy twist. Again, we had to endure the great de-clothing and made use of a spare seat to house all of our jackets, coats, gloves, scarves, bags etc.
Next stop; the botanical gardens – There was a super cute shop right at the entrance which captivated us for a good 10 minutes or so before we wandered around the snow-covered gardens. As tight as we were, we uhmed and ahed about paying the £10 each to enter the giant palm house, but decided against it. It turned out to be a good decision, given there was a free one in Gothenburg. We looped back around to Rosenberg Palace where we saw the Guards doing their little march through the street. Full uniform, 20 blokes, marching in twos with a side drum tapping their beat. Out of nowhere, and completely destroying the somewhat intimidating nature of marching armed guards, what sounded like a little penny whistle starting playing a very unthreatening tune. We later found out that this was a daily occurrence, where the guards at Rosenborg Palace swap with the ones at Amalienborg Palace.
ø, æ, å
After the palace (the outside), we found ourselves a little street hotdog vendor and enjoyed a rather odd bun-to-hotdog ratio, where the sausage completely dwarfed the tiny bun, which could barely contain it or the various toppings. It was good though, and only meant as a top-up whilst we did a bit more wandering around – into a shop called ‘Norr’ – and then onto ‘Bastard Café’, which came recommended by some friends of ours as a chilled place to spend some time. It was a board game café, where one wall was filled with shelves of games. Card games, board games, tabletop games etc. More games than I even knew existed. We ordered 2 coffees and scoured the walls for a game we could 01) understand in Danish, 2) know how to play and 03) tackle with two players.
We landed on Scrabble but with a twist. Included in the pack were various Danish letters; ø, æ, and å, which we took at face value. However, even using these letters (We let æ be either a or e), we still struggled to muster up enough vowels to make any even remotely impressive words. I wonder if the letter distribution is particular to the country the game is created for. Is making English words with a Danish Scrabble set harder than usual, or were we just suffering with two full days of exploring? Regardless, Pip won 189 to 138.
No photos
Pip had heard about a place called Christiana, in Christianshavn, which we aimed towards. It was across the river from most other things we’d seen so far, so we took the long way around, trying to see as much as we could whilst still making our way over. I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to skim a few blocks of ice on a frozen lake, which bumped, bounced and slid across the surface for what seemed like forever.
Freetown Christiana is a distinct place – super colourful, vibrant, free-living and different from the rest of Copenhagen (or anywhere I’ve been before, for that matter) – it felt like a place unto its own rules. Not lawless, but it certainly didn’t feel like there was going to be a Coop and a McDonalds popping up there any time soon. I took a picture of a little ‘no photos’ sign, as I often feel like a moth to flame to those things. It was only a few seconds after, and we turned the corner, that I realised this one meant it. We entered a courtyard-type place, with makeshift market stands selling weed and other paraphernalia, and open fires out of the bottom of barrels. It was an odd place, where you felt safe but it had a distinct eerie feel to it. Like if you didn’t have a good reason to be there, you shouldn’t be there. We spotted a couple of other tourists walking their dogs and ambling around, but for the most part, people seemed to fit in and be equally able to spot that we most definitely didn’t.
Within a few minutes, we’d walked a little further and crossed over into Nyhavn (ironically the most touristy and ‘welcoming’ part of Copenhagen). By this point, we were more than ready for some food. We always find this the hard part of any city break, let alone a two-week holiday where we’d be finding food on-the-fly for 7 out of our 10 nights in a new city each time. For tonight, we made things easier for ourselves and just searched “Pizza”. One of the first results, that seemed well-priced and cosy enough, was Frankie’s Pizza. What a choice it was! We came dangerously close to opting for the ‘all-you-can-eat-and-drink’ for 395Kr (£35 or so) but thought better of it and went for a pizza and a coke each.
We spent a night in the hotel bar after this – not our usual format, but our room wasn’t all that inviting, so a few pints, a couple of glasses of wine, some games of cards and a healthy sprinkling of people-watching brought the night to a close – all that was left to do was plan our logistics for tomorrow, having to collect the car, with our cases, and make the drive up to Gothenburg over the Oresund bridge!
January 10th 2024
Jan 10th marked our first travel day – our first time navigating the logistics involved for the majority of the rest of our trip. Checking out, getting our luggage into the car, driving to the next location, finding parking, trying to check in early (or at least leaving our luggage), and exploring the city – all with the hopes of not feeling rushed or strapped for time. It’s a holiday, after all! Our bid farewell to Denmark was kickstarted by ceremoniously hauling our dirty towels and bedding into the hole in the wall we’d been introduced to a few days earlier. We lugged our 15 & 20kg cases down the lift, through reception and asked about the best way to get to our parking space – we thought it would be the bus, but the lady at reception steered us towards the metro, saying that the buses didn’t take a card, only cash. I doubted that was the case, but it would be embarrassing to ignore her, try to catch the bus and fail if she was right. Onto the metro we went – thank god for escalators.
Buying a ticket and finding the right lines was simple enough – a couple of stewards tried to help us navigate, as we must’ve looked like lost sheep. They turned their heads and confidently shouted “Airport?” after seeing our cases. In our best British accent, we both shouted back “Frederiksberg”, which must have taken them by surprise. Frederiksberg is neither touristy, nor in the business district, nor is it anywhere near any major transport connections. We tubed to Frederiksberg, lugged our cases up the escalators, and back down to change lines to Fansveg. A quick stop in Lidl for some road trip pastries, then a 5-minute walk to the car. Easy peasy.
Rush hour
Driving in Copenhagen was a different experience. Not only was it a new, bigger, automatic car. It was snowy, dark, rush hour (or close to it), and most importantly; cyclists are a whole different breed over there. Not dangerous, not reckless, but well-numbered and with their dedicated infrastructure that comes up the blind spot.
Say you’re driving (on the right-hand side of the road) and turning right – you need to check over your right shoulder before doing so, as the cyclists (who’re on their dedicated cycling lane) are also on a green light to undertake you. It made for a bit of a nervous drive for the first few twisty streets but got easier as the drive went on. As we pulled out of Copenhagen, it simultaneously felt like the end of our trip, but also the very start. It was a weird feeling, that was soon swayed by the stunning views of the Øresund bridge.
The bridge was shrouded in an eerie fog – we were both trying to take in the views, only I was also quite new to driving over here, so my view-admiring was skewed by quite a bit of nervous squeezing between cars. Thankfully, at the midpoint, some roadworks were going on – everyone ground to a complete halt before picking up speed again. I imagine it’s only us tourists that were happy about this, to soak in the views at a sensible speed.
The drive was pleasant – quiet, good weather, gorgeous snow, and the car felt smooth. The first thing that caught my eye was the irregularly shaped road signs – mostly rectangular, but the portion with the arrow was skewed out to emphasise the direction. Different, but yet somehow made complete sense. Another detail we both loved was the ‘sharp turn’ signs – usually black and white in the UK, but in Sweden, they were the colours of the Swedish flag, which lend themselves perfectly to a high-visibility sign.
We indulged in some pastries in the car, picked up from Lidl – 2 sausage rolls, a croissant, an almond thing, and a doughnut between us. We managed to leave more crumbs on our laps than in our mouths, but that’s a problem for the car hire people next week, not us. We arrived in Gothenburg just after lunch and managed to check in straight away (a perk of the quiet time of year is that our rooms always seem ready long before check-in time). After squeezing our car into the world’s tightest parking garage, we unloaded our luggage, had a quick coffee in the hotel room, and off we went.
Palm House
Our first port of call was the Botanical Gardens – It’s an easy start, especially when the gardens are quite central, and are on the way to the centre of the city. We were so glad we did! Unlike the paid entry in Copenhagen, the Palm House was open to the public for free (Maybe it’s a quiet season thing?).
They were beautiful. White painted iron details, old mechanical cogs and levers which seemed more decorative than functional now – a gorgeous curved glass roof, with an overlooking balcony, and each room led neatly onto the next via a coarse gravel path and heavy metal doors. The main thing that hit us was the heat – granted, we were still kitted out in all of our layers, but it was so nice and warm in there. So much so that it took us by surprise sometimes to look out the glass windows to see the snow covering the park. Palms, roses, water features, cactuses and more, are all dotted around. We spotted a chap with a really old top-down camera, which he was using to shoot a unique-looking bright red plant. He spent ages lining up his shot, accounting for light, shadows etc. He wound it up, made some final checks and a loud click echoed around the house. I almost felt like a fraud pulling out my phone to quickly, quietly and effortlessly snap the very same plant, a few moments later.
Du gör mig säker.
Gothenburg was seemingly split into two (obviously more, but in our head two) sections – the main area which was split through the middle by a park, and ‘Haga’. We spent most of our morning in the main area, wandering around the shops, food markets, little side streets and parks. There’s no shortage of cute artsy shops and artisanal coffee shops. We spent the afternoon in the ‘other’ area, Haga. Via the cathedral, we made our way over to what was essentially one main street, filled with coffee and craft shops. It felt like a physical embodiment of the term ‘Fika’. This area, and Gothenburg in general, seemed to be pretty proud of its giant cinnamon buns. At the end of the street, just as we were about to turn around, we decided it was only culturally appropriate to take 30 minutes to sit down, order a cinnamon bun between us, and enjoy a Fika in ‘Le Petit’.
Freshly fuelled, we walked up to Skansen Kronen – a small but impressive castle atop a hill in the middle of the Haga district. From here, there were some lovely views over the roofline of Gothenburg – the red roofs, and dustings of snow and ice looked beautiful from up here.
Coming down here, we dropped into Avenyn, which is a popular street, before heading back into the ‘centrum’. We struggled with finding a place to eat, this night – more so than usual. Most of the restaurants in the area we were wandering around were massively overpriced, even by the slightly inflated Scandinavian measure. Eventually, a few streets south of our hotel, we found a modern-looking burger place, aptly named ‘Burgerson’. We were the first ones in, but also the trendsetters. We sat down in a window seat as the only patrons, and before we’d managed to order our food a family of 4 another couple and a few business people had flooded in and given the place a bit of life. 1 Chilli burger and a ‘Smash and grab’ burger later, washed down with Västerbottenpommes (Loaded fries) and a couple of cokes. Again, all the walking had tired us out, so we set off on our half-mile walk back to the hotel. This was one of the first days we’d taken the camera bag out with us, so we spent the evening uploading and editing some of the pictures from the day.
January 11th 2024
Another morning, another travel day. This time, we had a complimentary breakfast in the hotel, which we intended to make full use of. We’d read a Google review the night before that spoke very highly of the hotel’s ‘5 different types of gluten-free bread’. I kept my eye out for that, as we filled up on cereal, yoghurt, fried breakfast etc. The bacon over here was much better than any other hotel breakfast. They fry it so it’s curly and crispy, unlike the usual slightly wet pale colour you get in breakfast buffets. Our usual tricks got rolled out, as we stuffed napkins filled with pre-made sandwiches and smuggled them out in a tote bag for later on.
Tiger City
Tiger City (Oslo), here we come. The drive was stunning – Pip and I spent the majority of the drive saying “Look at that!” as we enthusiastically pointed at the snow-covered trees, pink and purple skies, sun kissing the tops of the trees. The sun left an orange glow on the top 1/3rd of the tree, which never seemed to make it any further down – no matter how late in the day, or how far we drove, only the top of the trees was a burnt orange.
Something that caught my eye was the Norwegian number plates – mostly unspectacular, but for ‘business vehicles’, like company cars and vans, they had a vibrant turquoise colour that served as a constant reminder that we were in Norway – the border was much further south than we thought.
We ate our pilfered bread rolls as a make-shift lunch, in the car – again, leaving an obscene amount of crumbs. Pip took the lead on using the DSLR, as the scenery was too nice to pass up. 3 hours passed quickly, given the scenery – once we’d arrived, we had to tackle the issue of parking. We’d checked in advance and could park on-site. After doing a lap of the building, driving past multiple signs which seemed to state ‘no parking’, we decided to stop and use our phones to Google Translate the parking signs. it turns out they said “?Parking at your own risk. Chestnuts and twigs can hit cars.”. We risked it.
-28
The lady at reception was very welcoming, and made a real point of stating that we “picked a good week” – at this point, it was a comfortable -3 with no wind, rain or falling snow. She told us that this time last week it was -28. I’ve never come close to experiencing that temp, but I imagine it makes spending 6 hours walking around a city a little bit more difficult. We went most of the day without gloves or a hat.
Oslo was an interesting place – all the cities were starting to blend into each other at this point – not helped by the fact that we took a B-line for the botanical gardens every time we’d parked up and checked in. The standout part of Oslo was the docks, which saw people doing cold plunges before getting into make-shift floating saunas. All of this was overlooked by the Opera house, which had the beautiful functionality of being able to walk up the roof of it and look out over the city from the snow-covered top.
We looped around the centre of the town, and aimed towards two famous streets on the outskirts: Telthusbakken & Damstredet. Steep streets with colourful authentic houses dotted along them. It all felt a little bit like San Francisco, to me!
We stopped off at a Polish corner shop to get some water, but were caught short by the double language barrier – A lot of the branding was in Polish, with the price and information in Norwegian. It wasn’t the end of the world, but it did result in us ending up with Sparkling water, instead of regular.
Bread bowl & wine
Inspired by my memories of San Francisco, I suggested we try an SF-inspired restaurant for dinner: “San Francisco Bread Bowl” – a play on the famous chowder bread bowl, they serve there on the docks. I opted for Mac n’ cheese in a bread bowl, and Pip went for a classic Norwegian stew – she won this round. Hers was nice, and both of them left us feeling fit to bust.
We hopped into a local shop on the way home, for some breakfast supplies and in the hope of finding a bottle of wine to have in the hotel room. We found out the hard way that getting a bottle of wine isn’t all that easy in Scandinavia. After spending 20 minutes wandering around the supermarket, we couldn’t find anything beyond cider or weak beer. We asked one of the assistants, who stated that in Norway, supermarkets cannot sell alcohol over 4% (or something like that?), and we had to find a liquor store. We quickly googled a shop that could sell us a bottle of wine, only to find out it shut in 10 minutes, turning our usual leisurely walk back to the hotel into a brisk bread-bowl-fueled race for wine.
We made it, after navigating an entire floor filled with red, white & pink wines, of all shapes and sizes, including some very cheap bottles made of plastic. Despite our room having a nice big TV, it was in such an awkward spot, given the shape and layout of the room, that it worked out easier to sip our wine whilst watching Netflix from the laptop on our lap – living up to its name.
January 12th 2024
Every other day this trip we’d been up early, so we could pack, drive 3 hours or so, and explore a new city before losing daylight at around 1630 – today was the first of a few exceptions to that. We woke up a little later, knowing we had absolutely no plans other than making the 3-hour drive to Lekvattned. The pastries we’d purchased the night before, just before dashing to the liquor store, got divvied out and eaten, to top us up. Despite getting up later, the short days meant that we were still battling the low light of sunrise on our way out of Oslo – the absolutely beautiful sky peppered with pinks, purples and streaky white clouds was somewhat dampened by the fact that I could barely see a thing out of the windscreen. Rush hour traffic, pedestrians galore and the occasional bike sliding around on the fresh snow from the night before all made the first 5k a bit of a minefield, but once out in the open, it was all good.
We’d planned to go on a little walk, before getting to our AirBnB – we’d found an area with a well-recommended trail, but after hitting a barrier across the road on one attempt to reach it, and on our second attempt being greeted by a completely chock-a-block residential area with lots of no parking signs, we laid aside our hopes of a pre-check-in walk. We made better use of time by cracking on with the 3-hour journey and asking our Airbnb host to recommend a local walk in the area we were headed to.
Snow, snow, snow
Somewhere along our journey, our host replied and advised that because of the sheer amount of snow, the usual walk she would recommend would be difficult – in fact, anything off-piste would be almost impossible. Something we didn’t fully appreciate until we arrived.
Today was another border-crossing day, this time the only visible signs were the changing colour of the road signs and the slightly more orange colour of the rock salt on the roads. 80% of the day was spent on almost fully snowed over roads, which was quite a fun change from the norm for me. The occasional slip of the back wheels kept me alert, but other than that it was a smooth, comfortable, pretty journey.
Before arriving, we stopped off at a nearby town for coffee and cake (our first of the day!). We found a cute little café and some stool seats that overlooked the road through a giant window. Somehow, we’d managed to park ourselves next to two English blokes, chatting merrily in the corner. The place reminded me of a little Swedish Chorley, complete with a mid-town one-way system, as we watched the locals pull in and go about their day.
We arrived just after 12, having been advised we could check in a little earlier. The cabin was beautiful, inside and out. It felt modern but rustic, with an open fire, a cosy dining area and a separate section with sofas and a nice-sized TV. The host has left some little chocolates for us, which is how I developed a newfound love of ‘Dumie’ sweets. Our appreciation was kept to a minimum, as we wasted no time, conscious of the falling light – Checked in, dropped off our cases, loaded up the fridge with some of the food & drink we’d purchased on the way over, freshened up from the drive & booted up for a snowy walk.
Following the host’s recommendation, we walked down the road towards the E16 before turning back. Any ‘off-the-beaten-path’ routes were 2-3 feet deep in snow and not feasible. The road was completely covered in clean, white, crunchy snow. It felt so rural and serene – it was exactly what we had in our heads when we booked the holiday with rural Sweden in mind. Tall green tees, with dustings of snow all over the branches, and crisp white as far as the eye could see. The lake was frozen and snowed over too. Any time we stepped off the road, we sunk knee-deep into the snow. The sun was setting on the way back, leaving a stunning pink and purple hue in the sky, complemented by the snow-covered hills and trees in the foreground. It was so beautiful that we ran the camera battery down, trying to capture every single view!
Our first night in
We showered, got into our comfies and settled by the fire with a full coffee pot to keep us company. It’s the first time this holiday that we felt like we could just unpack our cases and stay for the week. That wasn’t the case, though, and as the night crept on we set to work making a super simple dinner – chorizo, tomato sauce and a hearty helping of pasta. It’s our go-to meal when we’re cooking on holiday in little kitchenettes.
Feet up, forks in hand, TV on and playing some skiing videos on YouTube, we settled in for the night. It was at this point I found out that Tilly (the family cat) had passed away after deteriorating over December. It’s never the best news to hear, but it was met with an underlying happiness that whilst it was sad news, the real joy is that she enjoyed 18 happy and healthy long years – I was glad to know she’d gone away peacefully after a brilliant life.
As the night went on I started to feel achy – I told myself I was just tired and worn out after all the walking and driving. With the benefit of hindsight I can say I was right at the start of an almost 2-week long illness, of which I’m still slightly suffering from in the form of a cough as I edit this on the 7th of Feb, nearly a month later.
The only thing left to do was confirm plans for the sled dogs, the following day. Exciting!
January 13th 2024
At the time, I felt like I was on the up this morning. The paracetamol and ibuprofen I’d taken when I woke up in the middle of the night were still in full swing – so much so that I set off on a snowy dark 10k around the lake that our gorgeous house overlooked at 7am. It was the first run of the trip, my first run of the week, and even though I didn’t know it yet – my only run of the holiday. I’d mapped out a between 5 & 10k route for every single day of the trip. Not that I wanted to run every day, but on any given day or location I had a route. How busy our holiday was, the darkness, the cold and now the illness had all stopped me from running, so far. Even though I didn’t do myself any good, it was a truly lovely run. The snow was gorgeous to run on – you could feel the grip as your shoe rolled through and crunched in the snow – I looped down our quiet lane, then onto the main E16 road – a mixture of time of day and rural Sweden meant I only had to move aside for 1 car! The temp hovered around -4, which was perfect, although the falling snow caused a bit of hassle stinging my eyes, it made up for it by looking beautiful as it glistened in my head torch.
After the run, we had cereal, and coffee, and started packing up. Following Airbnb guidelines, we gave the house one last sweep, as we were “in charge of the cleaning” – a sneaky trick AirBnbs have started using to offer a few different prices. We were there one night and had barely even unpacked, so opting to clean ourselves and save a few dozen pounds made sense to us.
Mooneye Sled Dogs
Our next destination was Mooneye Sled Dogs in Lysvik. Given the heavy snowfall, we left a bit earlier to account for some timid driving, arriving at quarter past 10. Erik and Therese greeted us – Erik was the owner, and Therese was his assistant, whom we didn’t learn much more about or speak to. Erik showed us around each dog in their kennels, each with its own unique personality – one little pooch was eternally curious but adorably shy. He’d run up, have a sniff, but back away as soon as you raised your hand to stroke him. All of them were excitable but quiet – the occasional howl but no barking – at least not yet. They all desperately wanted attention, as their little snouts poked through the wide squares of their pen. Erik shared some pretty interesting details about their diet – casually mentioning that they’re on a stable diet of standard dog food but will get occasional treats like ground-up dead horses or moose from the local hunt.
The dogs were mostly named after characters from the Jungle Book, which was cute – a couple had some non-jungle book names, like Quattro, Thunder, Ezra, and Demon (Son of Cooper). Most of the dogs had a unique quirk of multicoloured eyes, which is what earned them the name of “Mooneye.” After meeting the dogs, we were taken into a little hut/yurt, where Erik made us ‘proper coffee’ on the fire, using beautiful wooden mugs. The coffee was roasted in a pan with water, meaning the bottom 10% of the coffee was pure grounds. We quickly got used to getting a few grainy coffee bits with every sip. He then treated us to some Ginger Cake.
“Cake?” he asked, before pulling out a worn-out-looking Tupperware box from under his seat. After scouring the room and counting all the hungry nods from myself, Pip & Therese, he ceremoniously brandished a 4-inch knife from a holster on his leg. Carefully, he unclipped the lid of the Tupperware, removed the cake from the box and put it on a chopping board – without a second thought, he grabbed the ginger cake with his spare hand and sawed into it with his seemingly blunt knife. If you were in any way squeamish about a bit of dirt getting on your cake, look away.
Erik talked about the business, the dogs, his background, the future of the business and more, all before talking us through what was about to happen next. Therese would bring the dogs from the cage to us, where we would leash them, walk them out towards Erik and the sled and get them ready for being harnessed. One by one (or two by two, as Pip & I worked together on this) we set the dogs up. After this, we harnessed them up, as they got more and more excitable, and clipped them onto the sled. By this point the dogs knew exactly what was in store and could hardly contain their excitement – neither could Pip & I, but were a touch more reserved than all the jumping and howling of the dogs.
After hooking up the dogs to the waiting leash and putting on their harnesses, we settled into a little sled with a Reindeer fur liner, legs out, with Pip in front of me and Erik standing on the back to shout, steer and brake using little paddles. With a few shouts, we were off. The start was fast & boisterous, but they soon slowed down as the path twisted and the undulating terrain presented a challenge. The ride was just under 2 miles but felt long enough for us! It was a great experience, seeing the dogs haul their way around Erik’s little makeshift route. At one point, the sled got slower and slower, until all the dogs stopped at the same time, seemingly having communicated their mutual exhaustion. No more than 10 seconds later, they’d recharged and were jumping and howling, desperate to get going again. Quite the sight!
Fagersta
After paying up, saying our thanks, and navigating the fresh snow-covered terrain back towards the main road, we set off towards our next and penultimate AirBnb in Fagersta. Our host, Vivianne, had messaged us with some crude directions which we poorly followed. Eventually, we received a call from Vivianne, where she directed us a little more clearly down some windy roads to her little complex of houses.
It was truly gorgeous – traditional street lamps lined the roads for about 200 feet as you drop down towards Vivianne and Benjt’s house – a little complex of buildings almost surrounded by a misty lake – a garage, their house, a little greenhouse, and finally an outhouse which would serve as our Airbnb. To call it an outhouse gives an unfairly rough and ready impression, when in fact it was gorgeously decorated, inside and out.
Vivianne was passionate in telling us that one of her children’s ex-partners was a hairdresser from Manchester – we tried to sound as impressed as we could muster! Benjt threw me off a little by greeting us with a strong Californian accent. I asked “Where are you from?” to which he replied “Sweden, of course?” and moved the conversation on without even a second thought. It was only later it occurred to me that he most likely learnt English from an American source.
By this point, I was a lot worse and I knew it. I could no longer kid myself into thinking I was a little tired and run down. Thankfully, we had no plans for the evening – just to enjoy the gorgeous views, cook tea, and watch TV/edit pictures/talk about our brilliant dog sledging experience.
The views from the house were spectacular – just 10 feet down some steps led you to a lake, with a snow-covered jetty and a hot tub (which we hadn’t paid to heat). The lake, which seemingly surrounded the property, was thick with a misty fog, only the tops of the trees on the other side poking out above it. Despite losing light, we took as many pictures as our cold hands let us, before getting back to stoke the fire, enjoy a glass of wine, and settle in for the night.
January 14th 2024
Sunday morning in Sweden was gorgeous. A Sunday morning to top all Sunday mornings. I felt the worst I’d felt so far, but that was quickly forgotten as we watched the sun slowly rise over the now even more misty lake. Just like last night, a thick fog/mist had settled all around the lake and our AirBnb, only now it was being hit by a beautifully serene hazy purple light from the morning sun. Almost as if we were copying last night’s antics, we spent 20 minutes snapping pictures, before doing a little walk up the lane amongst the old street lamps and fresh snow.
We shuffled our way back, I took some more pills, did a bit of tidying, packed up and downed a pot of coffee and we were ready to get on our way to Stockholm. We were both feeling bittersweet about the Swedish capital. We’d had two days of rest and were ready to explore a new city, but on the other hand, I was bringing the mood down a little with my lack of energy and this was our 4th Scandinavia City in almost as many days. We agreed to just take it easy, amble around, and double up on the coffee stops!
After stopping off for fuel, and being met with a -18 degree cold snap which burned my throat, we arrived just before lunchtime – as seemed to be our M.O. with this city exploring/driving days!
As was the plan, we took it easy in Stockholm – or at least, we tried to. The short but cumbersome trip from the car park to the hotel proved to be the hardest so far. Instead of using salt, or scraping the snow, the Stockholm council opted to use gravel on their pavements. To the average city-goer, this was perhaps a better alternative. You could feel the sturdy crunch as you walked along, but for the 2cm diameter suitcase wheels, it was a whole different story. 2 or 3 feet was the furthest we ever got before the soon familiar sound of gravel scraping along the floor on a stuck roller wheel became the soundtrack to our short trip around the block. Thankfully, despite it not quite yet een being midday, we were able to check into our room as soon as we arrived – again, a plus of it being a quiet time of year.
Ice rink & people watching
After dropping our cases off in our relatively small room, we set about exploring Stockholm. There was noticeably less snow than everywhere else we’d been, and what snow there was darker – the inconvenient messy kind we were used to in England, as opposed to the picturesque and pristine kind we’d come accustomed to here. In the middle of the city was a man-made ice rink, complete with full-size Zamboni that paraded around every 20 minutes as the kids and parents alike watched.
We holed up in a long, thin, glass-sided café right in the middle of the city’s central park, aptly named Grand Central. Side-by-side, enjoying our overpriced and underfilled cappuccinos, we watched the world go by, including a woman drawing ice skaters in her little sketchbook, and a nervous-looking couple two seats down on what we could only assume was a first date.
On our way towards the old town, we nipped into a shot called Iris Handtwerk – we’d been passively looking for a Christmas bauble all trip, but aside from the garish tourist shops filled with ashtrays and fridge magnets, we hadn’t had any luck. Then, when we weren’t looking, we spotted a cute little trinket, along with a rather clever candle holder that fits in a bottle – Our spending spree didn’t stop there, as we entered another shop where they sold little wooden horses (Apparently an old Swedish tradition where villagers would make them for their children). Pip picked up a little 5cm horse, which now sits neatly on our mantlepiece.
Old town
We pressed on, over another bridge (of which there are many in Stockholm) and into the old town. It was quiet and cold – one of the few places that perhaps didn’t look better this time of year, unlike the rest of the places we’d been. There were plenty of locals and tourists alike walking on the frozen river – I didn’t enjoy it all too much, but felt I had to at least take a few steps out on the frozen water, just to say I’d done it. This particular spot was right next to a permanently docked floating hotel in an old ship – it was quite surreal standing on the ice, looking out at the ship which was also stuck there, on the same level. A couple of brave blokes were skiing around on it, getting (what we thought was…) dangerously close to the non-icy areas of the water.
For tea or a late lunch, we headed across the river in the southern area of Gothenburg and searched for a cosy spot to eat. We settled on ‘Meno Male’, which was a cute proper Italian pizza place, complete with a giant oven. We were greeted, given a menu, and told to order at the bar – coffee and water were available at the back of the restaurant. This seemed too good to be true, but upon investigation, I was greeted by a big pot of black coffee and a couple of milk jugs. This was metaphorical music to my unmetaphorically ill ears. I opted for the house special, Meno Male, and Pip went for one of her favourites; Nduja. Half and half, although trickier this time due to these pizzas being a little floppier than we’re accustomed to.
We headed back to the hotel, making it easy to give our now fully loaded bellies and my fully loaded head a bit of an easier time. We followed the usual routine once back – shower, chill, chat about tomorrow, edit some pictures, and a dash of social media before heading to bed. During this time, we heard on the news that the new King of Denmark had been sworn in earlier that day, to mass crowds. We were slightly sad that we only just coincidentally missed a big historic event, but also somewhat glad it didn’t interfere with 01) our only a few days in Copenhagen and 02) any of our flight home logistics.
January 15th 2024
The breakfast in our Stockholm hotel was the best yet – I just wasn’t well enough to enjoy it. I’d done an okay job of not letting my illness have much of an impact on the holiday, so far, but I couldn’t hide it this morning, as I grabbed half a bowl of cereal and could barely muster anything else on top of that – even a small cup of coffee brought me out in hot sweats.
I was soon glad to be in a nice comfy climate-controlled car with bug shoulder-hugging seats. This morning, we were heading south for the first time of the trip, down towards Bankeryd – our 3rd and final AirBnb. For the first 3rd of the journey, we kept seeing sets of 3 snow ploughs on the opposite side of the road, slightly behind and offset from each other, steaming along and clearing snow from a 3-lane highway in one pass. I thought this was super cool. Pip didn’t quite share my enthusiasm but thought it was interesting to see. Our wavering but mutual interest in this soon came crashing down once we found ourselves stuck behind two of them. We tootled along inside whisps of snow at 40km/h for the next hour or so (on a 120km/h road). We weren’t in a rush, and it saved on fuel – to look on the bright side.
Viewed through glass
At just after half 1, we arrived in the town closest to our Airbnb, meaning an obligatory trip to Lidl to stock up on some supplies for Tea and breakfast the next morning.
This apartment was our ‘treat’ – it was more expensive than the other Airbnb’s (and hotels, for that matter), as it boasted gorgeous views out of a huge glass window on the front of the property overlooking an enormous, stormy, lake. Compared to what we were used to, the rest of the place didn’t quite live up to what we had in our heads – seemingly like a 10-year-old IKEA demo room, complete with scuffs and signs of wear. But, we were there for a relaxing, and the view – we enjoyed both, thoroughly.
We had a very little (<2 miles) walk once we arrived, before getting back for a proper coffee in a full-blown coffee machine, and relaxing on the sofa to watch the sunset.
Cooking our prawn linguine tea wasn’t as simple as it first seemed – there was only one hob and a very small kitchen. We had to be a little clever with it – cooking all of our base ingredients first, then taking this off the heat, on with the linguine, before re-combining at the end. All the while, the steam from the cooking flooded up and drenched the microwave, directly above the only counter space in the kitchen with no extractor. That microwave has a tough life.
After dinner, we settled into the upstairs bed, which had a perfect view of the lake. By this point, it was dark, but we looked forward to the morning when the sun would light up our view again.
January 16th 2024
Given the change in flights, we were in absolutely no rush to set off, this morning – unlike other city days, we weren’t rushing to travel and see the city before we lost the light – quite the opposite. We were looking to draw out the day and take our time, knowing we had the entirety of tomorrow to explore Malmo. Our alarms still went off early, as we wanted to make the most of our giant glass-panelled home and enjoy the sunrise over the lake, which despite not being as grandiose as other mornings, still didn’t disappoint.
Despite packing a large amount of ‘just in case’ medication, I’d run out this morning – even though it felt like I should have been getting a lot better by now, I didn’t fully realise just how much the drugs were masking how I felt – we grabbed a coffee, packed up, gave the house a once-over and set off in the car towards Malmo, via a chemist. It wasn’t until an hour or so after I’d popped a rudely overpriced paracetamol that I started to feel vaguely normal again.
Determined not to let it ruin the day, I pressed on – we arrived just after 2 pm, which is a good 2/3 hours later than our other city arrival days. We street-parked, checked in, dropped our stuff off, and then ran the car around to the hotel’s parking garage, which was one street back. From there, we aimlessly wandered around Malmo – we’d a few things tagged on the map we wanted to see, but that was tomorrow’s goal – we’d decided this first was going to be just following our nose, resting (mostly) and enjoying the fact that today wasn’t a ‘see it or miss it’ kinda day.
Semla
After wandering around the main shopping area, and a little bit of Gamla Vaster & Stortorget, we dropped into a coffee shop that came as a recommendation from a YouTuber Pip had watched. It was a great choice – Kafferrosteriat. Quite a rustic but somewhat modern coffee shop with low ceilings and little passageway tunnels between rooms. We found a seat, in front of a perfect people-watching window and aside a classic old copper coffee roaster. I took it upon myself to order – Cappuccino for Pip, filter for me. I took the liberty of ordering a treat for us to share – unlike our usual croissant or almond twist, I went for something neither of us had tried but I’d seen around a lot – a Semla. It was a small wheat flour bun, flavoured with cardamom and filled with a paste-like almond filling and whipped cream on top, holding a portion of the bun in place like a little hat.
It was nice, and we both enjoyed it, but the seeds in the bread threw us off. The seeds made it feel like sandwich bread and gave a savoury kick – a little too contrasting to the sweet delight of the rest of it.
Meatballs
We spent the remainder of our afternoon hunting down cool shops, keeping in mind that we wanted to sample some classic Swedish meatballs for tea. It seemed like every single review, guide or recommendation for meatballs in Malmo pointed to a restaurant called Bullen. It made our choice an easy one – arriving a little early for food, we opted to have a glass of wine, whilst people watching as people presumably finished work or school for the evening and headed home. Mostly by bike.
The restaurant was more like a pub – it felt warm but slightly dark – stools by the bar, and ample people spread around to give it some ambience. After an hour or so of catching up on the trip, enjoying our wine, and watching the locals, we asked for a table and sat down – together we glanced across the menu despite both knowing the only reason for coming here was the meatballs.
They came a short while later along with two more wines to wash them down. Meatballs, special whisky sauce, cranberries and a large helping of mash – despite starting to feel like I needed another paracetamol, I enjoyed dinner – we both did.
Feeling full, and a tiny bit tipsy, we headed back to our hotel. This hotel room was the biggest yet, which came in handy for tonight as we spent the whole evening in there, as well as knowing it would be useful for a full repack tomorrow evening.
After showering and getting into our comfies, the rest of the night followed the usual format – a chill, some planning for tomorrow, uploading and editing pictures, and a bit of TV & cards. Only one day left of our trip!
January 17th 2024
Despite feeling pretty terrible still, I managed to stomach a bit more at breakfast today, as opposed to yesterday.
Malmo was blanketed in snow this morning, and it didn’t seem to be showing any signs of stopping. Undeterred, we looked to put our freshly purchased Rains coats to use for the first time this trip. Bad that we needed them, but great that we got to use them! Sitting on top of a coat, jumper and T-shirt, our Rains jackets were a little ‘stretched’ to say the least. We looked like little sausages, bracing ourselves for the wintry onslaught, marking the commencement of our first complete day in the city. The irony wasn’t lost on us that our first full day in a city was met with less-than-ideal exploratory weather conditions!
As we walked down through the lobby, we overheard a gentleman asking reception whether it was too early to check into his room – it was 09:05, and check-in was 3pm. Reception simply stated, “Possibly too early, yes. Let me check”.
Undeterred by the blizzard, we set out on our exploration, weaving through the snow-covered streets to discover the charms of King’s Park. We couldn’t see much – partly for the snow pelting us in our watering eyes, and partly because the snow and fog made for pretty poor visibility. The bits we did see of the King’s Park were pretty, though. Seeking a bit of refuge from the cold, we found ourselves in Farm2Table (A vegan café), where two cups of coffee and a padded bench warmed our cold hands and face, as we chilled for an hour or so of people watching and hiding from the weather.
Continuing our adventure, we meandered our way to Apoteket Lejonet, which is a modern chemist wrapped in a gorgeous historic building. Stained glass wrapped in gorgeous wood from hundreds of years ago was flanked by dozens of ibuprofen packets – I wasn’t sure which was more appealing at this moment in time, given my head was pounding. We explored the old town some more before strolling towards Folkets Park. Along the way, a quaint little games shop caught our eye, as we were after a new pack of playing cards to replace our tattered P&O Cruises cards.
As the sun started to disappear and the temperature dropped, our not-so-traditional culinary escapades led us to ‘Marvin’s’, a cosy establishment where London meets Aussie influences creating a welcoming atmosphere. We started with a deep-fried mac and cheese ‘nugget’, which was interesting, followed by hearty servings of Chicken Leek & Bacon Pies. It hit the spot.
After ambling home via the car to clean it out and grab the last bits and bobs of stuff that we needed to pack, we showered and had an hour or so of relaxing before putting our bodies back into gear to unpack and repack our suitcases so that they would 01) close properly and 02) be evenly distributed, weight wise. I was cutting it thin on the way out, at exactly 20kg, so I swapped a few large light items for small heavy items with Pip.
January 18th 2024
The final day dawned bright and early! With the alarm clock blaring at half-six, we dragged ourselves out of bed, mustered the energy for a quick shower, and made our way down to breakfast. I was still feeling rough. We were both ready to go home, but not in a ‘fed up’ way, but more satisfied that we’d seen so much of Scandinavia over the past few weeks – we’d explored all the cities sufficiently enough that we didn’t have feelings that we’d missed out, and our little AirBnb’s in the middle were, despite feeling short-lived at the moment, a nice relaxing contrast.
After hastily packing our cases and bidding a fond farewell to our hotel room, we hit the road, driving over the bridge into Denmark with the sun rising behind us – it made for a pretty beautiful exit from Sweden and Entry into Denmark on the first leg of our journey home. A quick pit stop for fuel, followed by dropping off the rental car (which had served us well on our trip), and we were soon hopping onto the shuttle bound for the airport.
The drop-off process was a breeze, with the odometer proudly displaying a total of 1945 km driven throughout our journey – quite the adventure!
Passing through security, I couldn’t help but notice the fondness the officer had for my trusty Minolta camera which was a recent gift from my Uncle Andy. His nostalgic remark about it “reminding him of his childhood” struck a chord. It wasn’t a part of my childhood, but it was lovely to hear him connect with it.
Back on home turf, we made a beeline for Tesco to restock our supplies, followed by a stroll around the park. The sight of newly planted trees at the top of the park added a touch of freshness to familiar surroundings.
With the day winding down, we tackled the daunting task of unpacking before settling in for a comforting cup of tea. The evening’s entertainment came in the form of “Traitors”, which had somewhat taken over our lives before leaving! At least we had a lot to catch up on.
