Scandinavia By Train: January 2013 (Part Three)

Continued from: Part One / Part Two...

Saturday 26th January (afternoon/evening): Copenhagen - Malmö - Falsterbo - Lund - Jönköping

Last time I mentioned a TV series called "The Bridge", which is all about the Swedish and Danish police forces working together to solve a murder, and funnily enough the title isn't just a clever metaphor for the struggles of two countries divided by frustratingly similar (but not quite similar enough) languages - no, in fact there's an actual bridge between Denmark and Sweden. The Öresund or Øresund Bridge (depending on which funny letters you feel like using today) is 8km long, and basically joins Copenhagen and Malmö, via some small islands and a tunnel or two to fill in the gaps.

I've stolen this from Wikipedia because, well, it doesn't look quite as cool
when you're actually on it.

Our decision to fly to Copenhagen and take the train over into Sweden this time around has a teeny tiny bit to do with my wish to experience this iconic bridge first hand, although I did see it from the Swedish shoreline once before. As it turns out, it's rather less striking from underneath, but it's still quite a ride - as you leave Copenhagen Airport on the train and the view turns from city to ocean, the main road tags alongside like an annoying travelling companion, also heading for Malmö.

We find our train racing several cars and a giant lorry, which is all good fun until the gap between road and rail narrows so much that we're convinced a catastrophic collision is inevitable. Luckily, just in the nick of time the truck is plucked away by some invisible force, as the road heads up on top of the railway in a kind of giant concrete piggy-back.

Looking out of the window from the train tracks over the bridge, there's not a honestly a huge amount to see except kilometres of cracked ice, floating around in the Øresund Strait like frozen crazy paving. It's a stark reminder of how cold it is since the train, like everything indoors in Scandinavia, is toasty-warm. They're rather better at insulation than us Brits, as Karin likes to remind me at every possible opportunity.

It's not long before we pull into Malmö, and step out into another beautiful piece of railway architecture. Apparently Malmö centralstation (roughly pronounced "Malm-uhh Centraal-sta-hone") has had quite a facelift since Karin was last here, and it's so welcoming with its cafés and shops that I start to wonder whether we shouldn't just spend the whole week touring the railways of Sweden. (As opposed to what we actually end up doing, which is... oh, yeah.) No time for photos, though, as Karin's brother Gustav is here to welcome us and whisk us off for the next phase of our trip, a 40km car trip.

"Wow, your car needs a wash!" I say, amusingly, as we step outside and I spot Karin's mum Annika in what used to be a black car but is now pebbledashed with what looks like weeks' worth of salt and grit from the road.

"Yeah, we washed it last night," says Gustav, strangely unamused.

Getting into the car, there are quick hugs and greetings, and then we set off through Malmö City Centre towards our next destination, with Annika at the wheel - always an occasion to be wary. If she's not threatening to run down old people crossing the street or speeding past show-offs in BMWs, there's a good chance she'll just be speeding. Or getting lost.

I know precisely one Malmö landmark and it's a residential high-rise building called "Turning Torso" (a 2005-built skyscraper which is currently Sweden's tallest building), so I'm excited to spot it in the distance, even if it is just briefly from the car window.

Go home tower block, you are drunk...

"Ah - look, it's the Turning Torso!", I exclaim confidently, pleased to then get confirmation from Karin and Gustav that I haven't just completely made this up.

"No...", says Annika, "that's on completely the other side of town. I lived here for years, trust me, I know where I'm going..."

After a bit of family back-and-forth, the others eventually nod and murmur agreement whilst signalling to me not to pay attention. And somehow, even though it absolutely is the Turning Torso that we can see, and despite the fact that we're heading away from it and Annika therefore thinks we're going in completely the opposite direction, we do by some happy chance end up on the road we we needed to be on and start our journey towards the very Southwesternmost tip of Sweden.

Our destination is a town called Falsterbo - a strange sort of place out on a little spit in the sea, immortalised in the chorus of this cracking song from one of Sweden's best defunct all-girl Indie-Pop bands. It's one of the most expensive towns in Sweden but also one where nothing much happens, being more of a holiday and retirement destination than anything else, with its sandy beaches and golf course. Not that anyone's out making use of either today; in case you'd forgotten, it's a bit chilly. In fact it's so scrotum-tighteningly cold that the sea has frozen over as far as the eye can see. Where normally there'd be families sunbathing (as much as possible in a town that's on the same latitude as Sunderland), or playing beach volleyball, today they're skating, trying to stand upright, and playing Ice Hockey (or, as the Swedes call it, "Hockey", as if it had never crossed their mind that hockey might be played anywhere else.)

Actually, this might be the point at which I allow myself a little diversion to talk about Karin and her attitude towards Britain's favourite sports. She has extremely firmly-held but not always consistent views on what is and is not a "real sport", mostly I think secretly based on which of them she'd ever come across before moving over from Sweden.

Hockey ("Field Hockey") = not a real sport. Reason given: None, but I think it's to do with the lack of ice and the fact that the men all wear little shorts.
Cricket = not a real sport. Reason given: Anything requiring our nation to colonise other countries in order to have someone to play against is NOT a real sport.
Darts = not a real sport.  Reason given: Anything you can play whilst wearing gigantic gold chains and with gold bullion strapped to your fingers is not a real sport. I think she may have a point there...
Snooker = grudging acceptance that although not a real sport, it's strangely fascinating due to the mathematical knowledge required. That and Steve Davis' Prog T-shirts.


We're nearly at our destination now, and it's just as well; the car is deathly silent thanks to our extreme tiredness, brought about in most cases simply by having been awake since 3am but also by the fact that my lunch was not only extremely filling but also the most salty thing I've ever eaten in my entire life. I briefly contemplate leaping from the moving car and sticking my face down in the snow like a pig hunting for truffles, just to get a bit of moisture on my tongue, which has shriveled up like a sponge left out in the sun. But I don't.

Our destination is a rather posh retirement village, where Karin's grandfather lives by himself in a flat bigger than ours, making his own meals when he feels like it, diverting his landline to his mobile phone when he goes out for a walk, and serving a most excellent pot of Earl Grey tea (although I suspect this is for my benefit more than anything else.) He's 91 - although he acts about 45 and looks about 70, as well as suspiciously like the guy from the film "Up" (I've certainly never seen them in the same room at the same time.)

He's Karin's Farfar, which literally means "father father", in the brilliant way that the Swedes have of making their family words completely unambiguous. Never in Swedish does anyone get confused about your aunt or uncle or grandmother's exact relationship to you, which makes things a whole lot simpler. Hence when Karin's Faster ("father sister") Elisabeth introduces herself, there's no problem whatsoever figuring out who did what to whom - although later, when uncle Finnvid arrives, he just gets introduced by his name, so I don't get a chance to figure out if there's a word for "father sister husband", and, thank goodness, their dog just stays out of it completely.

Fa-ster-mans-hund? Oh, who cares, look at that sad face...

My heart sinks a little when a large plate of cakes is brought out to accompany the Earl Grey, but only because I imagine fitting anything else in my stomach will be somewhat akin to pushing the final piece of rubbish down in the bin - the one which finally makes it spill over the top and dribble slime all over your foot. (That's not just me, right?) Still, I have to give it a go, not least because these aren't just any old cakes, they're semlor - sweet, sugary buns cut open to resemble the Cookie Monster with a load of cream shoved down his throat, and a hidden dollop of almond paste in the middle. They're traditional in Scandinavia around Shrove Tuesday especially, which is...well, not for a few weeks, but still, nobody complains when Cadbury's Creme Eggs start coming out on Boxing Day so I'll let them off. I've just learned on Wikipedia that:

"Each Swede consumes on average five bakery-produced semlor each year, in addition to all those that are homemade."

I'd find this statistic slightly preposterous, if it weren't for the fact that I manage to eat 3 semlor before I head back to the UK on this 5-day trip alone. For today, though, while I drink as much Earl Grey as is humanly possible, and attempt to eat my one solitary cake without having a cardiac arrest, we chat about all sorts of things, including the time when Farfar went on business to the UK and nearly got thrown off a train in Eastbourne for not having a ticket.

Quite apart from everything else which astonishes me about this 91-year-old, his English is extremely impressive. People of his generation in Sweden don't generally speak English at all, unlike their younger compatriots, but he holds his own extremely well whilst managing to make both Helen and I feel part of the family. Swedes are extremely warm and welcoming like this – anyone who’s ever been on a school French exchange will be utterly bemused by the idea of arriving in a virtual stranger’s house and the whole family immediately switching their conversation into English just so that you could understand. You'd be lucky if they even acknowledged you were there, half the time.


It's a lovely afternoon, but we have another destination in the vague vicinity before we're allowed to conclude this insane day, so we bid everyone farewell and get back into the car. The next leg of the journey is a 50km car ride back North again, up past Malmö and beyond to a university town called Lund, in the heart of the Skåne region (Scania in English, like the lorries) - Wallander country for anyone who’s interested in such things. I can’t tell you a single thing about the car ride because I immediately fall asleep as soon as my backside hits the seat - so I’m therefore a bit dazed and confused as we climb out of the car again 45 minutes later and into the snow, but you can’t be tired for long at Carina and Stanley’s. Even the whisky I’m immediately given upon arrival perks me up more than anything.

Moster Carina (you've got the hang of these Swedish family words now, right?)  and, erm, Uncle Stanley are some of the most entertaining people you could hope to meet on your travels – it’s not every day you meet a middle-aged white Swedish lady with a broad Jamaican accent, for one thing. Stanley grew up in London and the West Indies but has been living here in Sweden since the 1970’s, so is a curious mixture of Swedish with a Jamaican temperament, as exemplified by his plans for their upcoming Caribbean holiday:

“Ohhh, we just take it nice and easy…”

The best thing about Stanley, though, is that he’s been everywhere and knows everybody. He gets talking to Helen about Deptford where she lives, and of course, “Ohhh, I’ve been all up around there…”, during his years working for the BBC. Karin and I tell him about our planned trip to Montreal in June and he says we should look up some acquaintances of theirs while we’re over there. In other people’s hands, such stories would sound fantastical and annoying, and yet you don’t doubt him for a second. He’s even friends with Sweden’s foremost rapper, Timbuktu (or his dad, anyway. But he's got the T-Man's mobile number.)

Carina, on the other hand, whilst being just as lovely, and sounding just as laid back thanks to the family Jamaican accent which even spreads as far as Annika on occasions, is rather less chilled in some respects – notably her concern for hers and other people’s health and safety. Hence when Helen complains about knee pain, she practically throws herself across the table to stop her from massaging the aching joint (apparently the worst thing one can do), and when I start coughing, as I’ve been trying not to do in her presence all day long, she immediately warns me, “Don’t you dare come anywhere near me!”, without a hint of a smile. She should also be on commission from various drug companies thanks to her constant endorsement of various wonder pills which seem to cure every ailment from colds to Lupus (although, if you’ve ever watched “House”, you’ll know that it’s never Lupus.) Last time’s miracle cure was Rinomar and today she extols the virtues of a pill called Treo, which apparently taken on a regular basis will cure anything that’s already wrong with you, prevent you from getting sick, and make you irresistible to goats (or something like that, the whisky and sleep deprivation make it hard to pay attention after a bit.)

Apparently we’ve not eaten enough yet today, so a huge spread is laid on for us – roast chicken pieces, salad, crusty bread and a salsa sauce with a distinctly Jamaican chili kick to it (oh, and more salt – they really do love their NaCl round these parts.) It’s all washed down with plenty of beer – or the type of 2.8% beer which is available from the supermarket anyway, the harder stuff being locked away in state run off-licences in Sweden and only available via a military operation which has even resulted in me being asked for ID on a previous trip.

"So, which button changes the channel again?"

As always, at Carina and Stanley’s place, time passes in a flash, as Stanley entertains us all with his stories before taking Helen and I upstairs to his study where he has a TV with Sky News, thanks to which we all have a good old laugh at the “snow chaos” gripping the UK. Meanwhile, Annika and Carina try to make sense of their new smart phones with limited success, and we finish up the evening with a photo session where Annika shows off photos of my family to our hosts, and the rest of us try to stave off imminent coma with whatever alcoholic beverages come to hand.

Apparently Helen is spared the photo session...

At around 22:30 we can take it no more, so we start the lengthy process of getting away, from the hallway to the staircase via numerous hugs and farewells, and thence into the car, where we have another 282 kilometres to go before we can even think about lying down on something soft. Actually, I would happily sleep on that broken carpet of ice under the Öresund bridge at this stage, I’m so tired (in case you’d forgotten, this is still the same day where we ate omelettes at Wagamama).

In the back of the car after an hour on the road, I’m really struggling. Not only am I more tired than the time I failed to sleep all the way from London to Canberra, but however much I beg Gustav in the front to turn down the heat, I feel like I’m slowly baking in a foil pocket. My cough is getting steadily worse, I’m desperate to both consume and expel liquids, and my legs start twitching. Eventually I wake everyone up and plead in my most whiney voice to be allowed to stop and get out for a bit at the nearest petrol station, which the others tolerate since they know me all too well and don’t honestly have too much choice.

Suitably watered and stretched, I shut up for long enough to allow us to get home without anyone having to bind my mouth with tape and/or throw me out of the passenger door, and we eventually arrive in Jönköping sometime after 1.30. I expect we remove our things from the car, make our way up from the underground parking to Annika’s apartment and whatever else one does when one gets home, but I have no idea.

All I consciously experience is the blissful, wonderful feeling of falling face down on an Ikea single folding bed and having it feel like the Presidential suite at the Sheraton. It’s 3:00 a.m in Sweden, and it’s been 23 hours since we got up. Time for a nap.

---
Next time: I fall off a snow racer (again), we check out the world's largest crispbread selection, and someone loses BADLY at Monopoly.

Scandinavia By Train: Denmark / Sweden January 2013 (Part Two)

Continued from here... (this doesn't exactly contain everything I promised it would but if I'd carried on writing we might all have died of old age before you got to read any more...)

Saturday 26th January (morning): Heathrow - Copenhagen

3.30am comes around, as apparently it does every day (I try not to notice, wherever possible) and off goes the dreaded alarm which signifies that it's time to get out of my nice warm bed after just 2 hours' sleep, step outside into the frosty Surrey morning, and drive round the M25 to Heathrow. To be fair, we could probably get up a little later but Karin's slightly obsessed with getting to the airport two hours before the flight in case of delays.

Actually, I'm quite into arriving stupidly early too - there's something exciting about dropping off your bags and heading through security (setting off the alarms, naturally, no matter how much you remove from your person), and then turning a corner to see what the kind people of local aviation have provided for you to pass the time. If you're very unlucky, you get a few rows of hard chairs and a vending machine containing gone-off chocolate (hello Limoges), however if you're extremely lucky you hit the jackpot and you end up at Heathrow Terminal 5.

Yep, Terminal 5 is a great place to window shop - containing as it does branches of Harrods, Tiffany's and various other hilariously overpriced mega-brands, as well as a Gordon Ramsay restaurant and a caviar bar. But none of these are our destination today - no, there's only one thing that's called for at Heathrow at 5.30am, and that's Wagamama. 

I always remember a well-travelled ex-girlfriend (rich parents) telling me about an airport McDonald's somewhere in the world which was open 24 hours, serving the proper burger menu all round the clock. This seemed impossibly glamorous to me at the time, but it's nothing compared to the wonders of ordering a bacon sandwich or an omelette from Wagamama, and then trying to eat it with chopsticks. To be fair, they do provide more regular breakfasting cutlery, but the sight of the conjoined wooden twins taunting me on the table is a challenge I'm only too happy to accept for the sake of comedy.

Actually, there are some intriguing sounding items on the menu rather more fitting to Wagamama's Japanese theme, such as Okonomiyaki and Breakfast Yaki Soba but none of us can bring ourselves to eat anything spicy at this time of the morning, so Karin goes for fruit and granola, whilst Helen settles for a Coke Zero. 

Eventually the gate opens, so we head along to the plane and I begin the ritual of preparing myself for the flight. This basically involves getting everything out of my bag that I might conceivably want to use whilst we're up in the air - book, phone, headphones, laptop, tissues, Vaseline (for dry lips, what else?) All the while a queue of Danes are trying to get past to their own seats.

"You really are the King of the faffers, aren't you?", says Helen, also reminding me that the flight is only 90 minutes long. Doesn't matter. Nobody wants to be stuck mid-air without immediate access to their favourite spreadsheet.

Once the plane gets going and the seatbelt signs are off, the trolley service starts and I begin to wonder whether I've wasted my money at Wagamama since it appears we're to be served breakfast on the plane on this occasion - never a given, nor is it always likely to be edible. The previous worst food I've been served on British Airways is a mushroom sandwich, however they up the stakes today with an Egg and Watercress Croissant - which I have no choice but to accept as the ridiculously inflated cellophane package also contains  some orange juice and the milk for my tea. Still, I find a better use for it than nutrition...

The flight's fairly uneventful until we come down to land over the sea, an occurrence which always terrifies the life out of me until the tarmac appears. However, on this occasion I don't even relax when I can see land, as I notice that the runway and everything in sight is covered in a thin layer of snow and ice. And then I remember that we're not in the UK anymore - we're in Scandinavia where 'Snow Chaos' looks like this...

... and not like this...

And somehow, even though we have a British pilot, we don't skid on the runway, take out a bus load of nuns and crash into a petrol tanker in a ball of flames, but come to a perfectly normal stop. I feel like applauding, but nobody else does, so I don't. 

Stepping off the plane, one thing strikes me immediately - it's pretty flipping cold. And we've not set foot outside yet, we're just on one of those funky sky-tunnel things. Never mind, we're soon inside and heading towards passport control for me to have my photo laughed at yet again (explanation here, if you really must), mingling on our way with outbound passengers, many of whom are clutching little bags from the Lego shop in the airport. I'm tempted to see if I can find said boutique, but then I remember that I'm not 11 years old, and more importantly that we only have a few hours to spend in Denmark as we have a date with the 13:53 to Malmö. Instead, we speed on through customs, collect our bags and head for the fast train to Copenhagen Central.

To get down to the train platforms at the airport, there are some awesome travelators, reason enough to visit any part of the world, I'm sure you'll agree. The three of us are fascinated by these because they're quite long and steeper than most - making us wonder how much fun it would be to let go of our trolley cases at the top and have them gently roll all the way down to the bottom, perhaps opening the sliding doors onto the platform and stopping nicely about where we want to get on the train. We don't do this because, well, we're still not 11 years old, and also we're British and therefore don't want to cause any kind of a scene, so this opportunity goes untaken.

Stepping out into the actual outdoors of the train platform, it becomes painfully obvious that the pilot wasn't lying on the way over when he told us (with as much 'Ha! Sucks to be you!' subtext as possible) that the temperature in Copenhagen is a brisk -4 degrees Centigrade, with a windchill factor of -12. (That's 24 degrees Farenheit with windchill of 10, if you're American. Or old. Or both.) Helen immediately puts on every piece of clothing she's brought, but still looks thoroughly miserable.

We're just standing there drinking in the wonderful Danish platform musk, when suddenly there's an almighty thud and the unmistakable sound of splintering glass from the direction we've just left. Going back over to take a look, the sliding doors are caved inwards and hanging from their fittings, and a slightly worse for wear trolley case is sitting forlornly at the bottom of the down travelator. What isn't forlorn, however, is its owner, who saunters obliviously down the remaining few metres, collects her bag and, finding that for some reason she can no longer get out on her side, signals for one of us to come and let her in through the 'Out' door.

"Thank you!" she says, as if nothing has happened.

"Um, you should probably go and tell someone about that," says Karin, pointing at the mangled steelwork and pulverised glass in a way that suggests this isn't optional.

"Oh, wasn't it like that before?", says our hapless tourist friend. Nice try, love.

"Er, no, it was working just fine a moment ago."

"Oh," she says, carrying on walking down the platform as we stare blankly after her.

At this point, the train pulls in, and, good citizens though we are, there's not another one for 20 minutes, so I do the only helpful thing I can think of and whip out my camera to take a hasty photo for us to all laugh at later, before we jump on the train and settle in for the epic 10 minute ride into Copenhagen proper.

With great haste comes rubbish photography.
Still, at least you can see I didn't make it up. And at the end of the day, that's all you can really ask.

We just about have time to sit down and count out the Danish money Helen has brought with her (about £12, or enough for a beer, as her boss jokes before handing it over) - a ramshackle collection of coins vaguely resembling proper money but with holes through the middle in case you ever need to wear them around your neck on a piece of string.

Stepping off the train, we head up from the platforms and emerge into Copenhagen Central station, which is rather nice as train stations go. As soon as the sliding doors open, an overwhelming waft of cinnamon immediately hits our nostrils, making us absolutely starving, and it's so good not even the friendly tramp who begs us for money within 15 seconds of arriving can overpower it with his musty goodness. Skilfully avoiding having to fob him off by means of none of us knowing enough Danish, we head across the concourse in the direction of the Left Luggage lockers, passing such artisan Dansk outlets as 7-Eleven and, er, WHSmith.

I get the job of speaking to the man behind the counter since, although Karin definitely knows more Danish than me, she's mortally embarrassed that she can't speak enough of it to have a Danish-Swedish conversation. These are more common than you'd think, especially given that the languages are reasonably close together - a bit like someone from Margate trying to have a chat with a Glaswegian. In fact, there's a whole (excellent) TV series called 'The Bridge' based entirely around the premise of Swedes and Danes trying to work together to solve a crime whilst steadfastly refusing to speak each other's languages.

Luckily for me, the Danish for 'Hello' is 'Hej', pronounced 'Hai', which sounds rather a lot like 'Hi' in a funny accent, so I'm able to do quite a passable impression of knowing what the heck I'm talking about.

'Hej', says the left luggage man. We stare at each other for slightly longer than is comfortable for two grown men.

"Errrrm, can we leave some bags please?"

Bags dropped off, it's time to actually start visiting Copenhagen. When planning this trip, we made a decision not to plan these three hours too much, as the idea of simply strolling through the beautiful streets of this ancient capital in a leisurely fashion, just seeing what we can see, seemed far more hip than making lists of must-visit monuments and museums. However, when making these plans, we were sitting in front of the TV on a nice comfy sofa with the central heating on full blast. And I don't know if I've mentioned this, but it's a bit nippy out on the actual day.

I'm auditioning for a part as one of the Seven Dwarfs, obviously.

Stepping out into Bernstorffsgade, the icy wind immediately strikes every part of our being; well, those parts that aren't covered up, anyway. Who'd have thought you could lose so much heat from your cheeks? Karin pulls out the map which we've picked up at the Left Luggage desk, and unfolds it so we can all take a look at which direction to head in, whereupon it is immediately torn in two by a particularly strong gust. I struggle manfully with it for a while, trying only to determine in which general direction all the "good stuff" might be, as various sections flap about, whipping my hands. Finally I grab the entire thing, crumple it up into a tiny ball and toss it into a bin. (I expect it's the wrong kind of bin, this being Scandinavia, but I don't care.)

So now what? The original plan was to take a quick look at the Tivoli gardens and amusement park, which looked great online but are distinctly closed for the season, and are being dug up and renovated (along with most of Copenhagen, as we will soon discover.)

The answer actually comes to us in the form of a crazy man in a bright blue coat - who spookily enough appears in one of my photos when I look through them later. It's almost as if he knew there'd be cold English tourists ready to be pounced on near the main railway station on a January morning.

"Hey, where you from? Ah, England, yeah, great, yeah I was there once! Well, we got a special deal today for the hop-on-hop-off sightseeing bus - normally 200 Kroner but we're doing it today for 150- you get to see all the sights from inside in the warm and the bus is right here..."

Our natural instinct, not wanting to be seen as tourist mugs, is to tell him to sod off, so I go with a "Yeah, thanks, we'll just have a think about it...", which lasts as long as it takes for us to step another 15 metres towards the city centre, observe each other shivering, and decide that being warm tourist mugs is infinitely preferable to hypothermia.

"Yeah, ok, we'll go for that, please - did you say 150...", I start to say, but he's off - running as fast as he can in the direction of the bus, which has just pulled out. Not for him the laws of the road; we start to follow but stop in our tracks as he comes to the main street and makes a kamikaze dash across, dodging between the Copenhagen Saturday morning traffic. Eventually he pulls up alongside the bus, frantically signals for the driver to stop, and then gently saunters back to us with a massive grin.

"Alriiiiight, enjoy your trip!"

Safely inside the bus, we ignore the glares from our fellow passengers for delaying their journey - it's warm, there are sights to see, and there's an unintentionally amusing running commentary which you can plug into with some earphones provided by the driver. It seems to have been recorded by a native English speaker, but I think it's fair to say she's more of a beauty salon receptionist than a professional voiceover artiste. (She would DEFINITELY say 'yourself' instead of you.) Either that, or she is a pro, and she's wondering why the heck she's been reduced to such menial jobs.

"On your left, you can see... the Tivoli gardens. The Tivoli gardens are... ... a world famous amusement park and pleasure gardens, opened in... ... 1843."

It's almost as if someone's standing there telling her to speed up and slow down, and she's getting more and more frustrated, as is evident from her intonation. Still, halfway round the route, she disappears mid-sentence and is cut off by a man with an Italian accent who barks some facts about a park completely apropos of nothing, before letting her resume. He still sounds happier than her, though.

Perhaps it's being forced to read out stuff in this vein, which is nearly as bad as the product placement in an episode of 'Bones'...

"On your right, you will see the historic Mariott Copenhagen hotel, completed in 1984. With 401 rooms, it's one of the largest hotels in Copenhagen and also has the best views over the waterside. With complimentary wi-fi in the lobby, and a selection of Danish specialities on the menu, it's definitely the place to be for Sunday lunch... which is where I'm going now... I'm done with this. You can stick your stupid holey money..."

Still, the bus tour is great - we get to see this...

... and this...

.. and, erm, this...

Huh.. huh... foreign languages are funny...

Yeah, I take a whole ton of photos, but although I do listen to what our friend Chardonnay has to say, I'm afraid none of it really sinks in enough to remember.That is until we get to the one thing we definitely wanted to see - which is probably the singular same landmark you know in Copenhagen - the statue of Hans Christian Andersen's Den Lille havfrue (The Little Mermaid). The Danes seem to have a love/hate relationship with their most famous landmark, having variously decapitated her, doused her in paint and blown her up at various times - not to mention dressing her in a burqua and putting a dildo in her hand.

I think she's rather fetching, iconic of the city and symbolising one woman's struggle between land and the water. I'm tempted to start singing 'Part of Their World' as the bus pulls up, but stop myself just in time.

You might want to put a top on, love, it's a bit parky out...

We're allowed to get out of the bus at this point, as it stops for a 5 minute photo-break, which seems rather stingey until we step outside and remember just how it feels by the waterside in the middle of winter. We therefore take several photos, enjoy the view for a couple of minutes and then hop back on, just in time for the driver to pull away with approximately two thirds of the number of passengers he had upon arrival. I do hope the stragglers were wearing some nice warm clothes.

The bus then starts heading back towards the city centre, past some more historical bits and bobs, including the canalside Nyhavn district, which is probably the only part of Copenhagen which looks beautiful today (and one of the few which doesn't appear to be under construction). However beautiful it looks, though, I can't agree with our favourite tour guide's insistence that it's "a lovely place to sit outside by the water, and drink a beer whilst watching the world go by..." - if it's alright with you, I think I'll leave that for a day when the water isn't completely frozen over.

Still, something for which it's never too cold is ice cream, and it's always one of the great joys of any trip abroad to find out what Wall's Ice Cream is called locally - here it's "Frisko". Valuable information and well worth the cost of the bus tour by itself, although not quite as much fun as the kebab kiosk I spot shortly after called 'Kebabenhavn' (Kebabenhagen) - I'd so steal that if I were ever going to open a kebab shop. (In Copenhagen.)

As we pull up close to where we started, in what our guide describes as the beautiful square of Radhuspladsen, only to see carnage and construction behind a load of ugly billboards, we all separately come to the conclusion that we perhaps haven't visited this great city at the best time of year, and decide to come back when you can step outside without running the risk of accidentally snapping your nose off.

Still, the good thing about Rådhuspladsen is that it contains the Rådhus, or Town Hall - so we take a quick peek at this, which will be familiar as the office of Troels Hartmann to anyone who's watched Series 1 of 'The Killing' . Even more excitingly, today it's the finishing line for a classic car rally from Aarhus, which rolls into town along with attendant news crews just as we cross the square.

We're crossing the square because we're blooming hungry, and our virtual tour guide on the bus let us know that over the other side is the start of Strøget, a giant pedestrianised shopping and tourist area (the longest in Europe, apparently - no, not the biggest, just the longest.) Not that we have the time or inclination to do any shopping, the only thing we care about is getting back in the warm and finding something hot to eat.

Hereford Village Steakhouse therefore benefits quite nicely by being one of the very first restaurants you come across when heading up Strøget, and also by having a few Danish-looking things on its menu - since I normally insist on trying to eat and drink local specialities wherever I go. This policy has previously seen me eating snails, horse, kangaroo, reindeer and 13 different kinds of Indian pickles and chutneys, sour milk and curd, amongst many other oddities - and yet somehow I still haven't learned my lesson.

I decide against the "2 Slags Potato with 2 Slags sauce", for some reason.

So up the stairs we go, above a baker's shop (of which more later), and opposite a dentist's office where we're able to watch a poor woman getting some fillings done while we wait for our food. It looks closed from the outside, despite the giant sign saying "Vi er åbne!" (We are open!), but on pushing the door at the top of the stairs which looks like it could contain anything from a firm of solicitors to a Soho "Model", we discover that they're just trying to keep warm, the sensible people.

The food is pretty good - Karin and Helen go for slightly less local fare with a chicken burger and a jacket potato respectively, but my regional food fetish lands me with the Danish Sandwich Platter - a deceptively filling plate of various popular sandwich fillings ranging from crispy pork rib to fried plaice, and a somewhat overgenerous portion of the local pickled herring, together with a red cabbage salad, a cucumber pickle and a basket of rye bread upon which to stack it all. Oh, and some cheese and grapes, in case that wasn't enough (it was.)

It's not even too expensive (for Copenhagen), at around 120Kr (£13), and the others' food is even better value. The same sadly can't be said for our 3 glasses of Pepsi Max, which come to 126Kr between them (nearly a whopping £5 a glass.) Seems Helen's boss wasn't joking after all. If Pepsi Denmark made beer, it'd probably be the most expensive beer in the world.

Suitably filled up, we head back downstairs, upon which we're immediately hit by that cinnamon waft again and can't resist popping into the Lagkagehuset  (one of Copenhagen's most popular bakery chains) to see what we can get with our remaining coins - no Pepsi, that's for sure. We pick up a variety of Danish pastries, which as I'm sure you all know, aren't called Danish pastries in Denmark, but rather Wienerbrød  (Vienna bread). Mine is a variety of snegl  (literally 'snail'), called a Direktør snegl - a curled cinnamon pastry topped with chocolate (hence the name I guess, since Direktør means 'Boss', and everyone knows that the chocolate variety of anything is always top dog).

Our trip to the bakery turns out to be last thing we have time for in Copenhagen, as it's definitely time now to head back to the station, retrieve our luggage from my new best friend and make our way down to the platform for the train to Malmö. Sitting down in the spacious carriage, I release my Direktør snegl from its papery prison (now worryingly see-through with grease) and take a bite. It's completely delicious.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the hot drink I've picked up at the 7-Eleven on the way through the station- a kind of chai tea which is supposed to be flavoured with cinnamon and licquorice but tastes suspiciously like it's been filtered through the underpants of the friendly local tramp, as revenge for not stopping earlier. It makes me pull this face. (What do you mean, that's just my face?)

Never mind, we've had a great few hours in Copenhagen, and we're on our way across the border to continue our mammoth journey; a trip which will take us another 300km North before the day is out. And it's still only just turned 2pm.

The last thing we see of Denmark, as the train speeds off towards Malmö, is a workman standing on the platform at the airport, scratching his head, trying to figure out what the heck happened to the sliding doors.


Next time... Oh, just wait and see - whatever I say will be next time invevitably won't be...

Scandinavia By Train: Denmark / Sweden January 2013 (Part One)

With apologies to all my Swedish friends and family...

Abba, Volvo, Ikea, Smörgåsbord, blonde people, meatballs and chefs. What do all these things have in common? Yes, that's right, they don't feature in this blog. Well, maybe one or two do, accidentally. The point is, though, that most Brits have a very limited understanding of what Sweden is really like beyond a few easily trotted-out cliches. And we certainly have no idea what Swedish sounds like (clue - it's nothing to do with 'blurgen splurgen flurgen'). Crikey, we can't even pronounce the Swedish words we do know properly. Hands up who read 'Schmore-gers-board' instead of 'Smerr-gorse-bord' a minute ago? Bad, bad people.

I first met Karin (that's 'Car-inn', in case you want to stick with the whole 'pronouncing things properly' malarkey) in 2008, and she moved to the UK to live with me in the summer of 2009, becoming one of more than 25,000 Swedes currently resident here. Yet it took until Spring 2010 before I was allowed to set foot in Sweden itself - almost as if, being from our great and wonderful nation, I would find hers a bit laughable and backwards. Nothing, however, could be further from the truth - however much Dansband music they produce.

Since then, I've made the trip to elk-land so many times that's it's almost a second home to me now (sorry, France) and I've stopped noticing all the things that I found so amusing/interesting on my first trip. Luckily for you lot though, we had a fresh pair of eyes on this trip in the shape of my sister Helen, who was eventually worn down by repeated invitations from Karin's family and put aside her mortal fear of death-by-frostbite to come along and experience Scandinavia for herself.

Scandinavia? Ah yes - here's another thing you may not realise about Sweden, it's ridiculously easy to travel between Sweden, Norway, and Denmark on trains and buses, so for this trip we decided to pay Copenhagen a brief visit on the way over and then carry on to our final destination via what felt like most of Southern Sweden. It all seemed like a good plan on paper. Here's what happened...


Friday 25th January: Surbiton - Kingston-Upon-Thames

Today is all about shopping. Helen's been shopping for this trip for over a week, desperately buying thermal undies, fleeces, gloves, waterproofs and those tennis-racquet type things you strap to the bottom of your shoes in case you have to run away from a Yeti. (Okay, maybe not really those but it wouldn't have surprised me.)

I've been scoffing at her over-preparation up to now, having experienced Swedish winter before and escaping without permanent damage. However, on Thursday night this screenshot of the iPhone weather app for where we're going appears on Facebook, and I start to think there might be something in this 'staying warm' lark.

Mind you, it is the iPhone weather app.
I once asked Apple maps how to get to Kings Cross
station and it directed me to Sydney.

Hence I find myself at Millets in Kingston trying to find two things which are missing from my winter arsenal - a warm and comfy pair of shoes for walking about in snow, and some long johns. I wander down to the shoe section and check out some possible contenders, before hanging about and clearing my throat in a very British way, expecting someone to come and help me. When no help is forthcoming within a few minutes I wander over to the guy by the changing rooms who's been studiously ignoring my subtle signals.

"Hello, can you possibly help me with some shoes?"

"Ahh, I'd love to," he says, "but I'll get fired if I move from this spot."

"Oh," I say. "We wouldn't want that."

"Yeah, sorry, we've had a spate of thefts from the changing rooms so I have to stay here and watch."

"Ok, no problem," I say, looking at him like a cat trying to comprehend Lego. "Have you got any long johns?"

"No, we don't sell long johns," he says, pronouncing each word as if it has sarcastic inverted commas round it, but he can't move his arms to act them out in case he gets fired again. "If you look over there with the ski wear though, we have some thermal base layers."

I wander over to the "thermal base layers", pick up a pair of blue and grey stripey long johns that make me look like a Victorian bather, and get the heck out of this crazy place.

Luckily the fine people of the Cotswold Outdoor company don't have any problems with thefts and so their staff are free to move around as they see fit. A very patient young man is therefore able to spend an hour watching as I try on 6 different pairs of shoes, walk around the shop and check myself out in the mirror more than is probably healthy and eventually settle on a pair of nice, comfy and warm walking shoes, suitable for all terrains but especially city, trail and forest.

As I'm on my way out, he asks where I'm going in them. "Oh, Sweden and Denmark, I'm off tomorrow."

"Isn't the snow there going to be deeper than those shoes?"

"Cheers, bye!", I say as I walk off, trying to pretend I haven't heard him.

Thankfully, it's not quite as snowy this year...

Back home, I lovingly stroke my new purchases before finally starting to pack at about 10pm, not the best plan I've ever had considering that we'll have to get up to drive to Heathrow at 3.30, but it gets done, and I don't forget anything. Unlike Helen, who arrives at getting on for midnight.

"I've forgotten my headphones...."

"Don't worry," I say, "I've got plenty of spares."

"Good. I've also forgotten my glasses and all my spare contact lenses."

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Next time: We actually leave the country, I impress everyone with my Danish, we eat more cake than I thought humanly possible and Karin's aunt tells me not to dare come anywhere near her...