Monday 10 June 1996
After an early breakfast we packed up our gear, checked out of the campsite and caught the S-Tog back into town. On the train, a friendly man with an American accent started talking to us. The man had the demeanour of an intellectual and I thought he looked like the composer Philip Glass. He recommended that we visit the Louisiana museum. I thought he was referring to somewhere in New Orleans (although he sounded like a New Yorker to me) until he explained that it was actually a modern art museum situated further up the coast of Zealand. I told him that we'd actually decided to visit Frederiksborg Slot (castle) today to which he started going on about the opulence of royalty here although I didn't think it would be anything we hadn't seen in Britain before. Besides the Danish royals seemed quite low-key compared to our lot, Queen Margrethe having even contributed the forward to a 'Welcome to Denmark' booklet I'd earlier picked up at the campsite.

The train pulled into the central station and we dumped our stuff in left luggage before grabbing a northbound train for the small town of Hillerød where Frederiksborg Slot was located. It wasn't long before we arrived there but our walk through the sparse main shopping street didn't prepare us for the sight of the castle itself. Situated behind a large lake, we entered this spectacular Dutch Renaissance building through the castle gate. Dominating the main courtyard was a statue of Neptune which incorporated a fountain that shot water high into the bright sunlight so that the spray cast a rainbow. Entering the castle revealed the true extent of the regal opulence that the American had told us about. According to my guidebook, the Danish Royal family lived here until 1859 when a fire consumed much of the building. Unable to afford the repairs, the family passed it on to Carl Jacobsen of Carlsberg beer fame who in true philanthropic style turned the castle into the museum that we were visiting today.

Following in the footsteps of groups of Danish and French tourists, we walked through the building, marvelling at the fine array of statues and paintings that adorned the ornately decorated rooms. Particularly notable amongst the rooms was the Great Hall whose vast walls were covered in detailed floor to ceiling tapestries depicting scenes from Danish history. The coronation chapel was another remarkable sight. This was where the ancient Danish kings were crowned and this small but perfectly formed space, with its hand-carved altar and black marble gallery, conjured up an intriguing atmosphere. Despite the undoubted opulence of the castle some of the rooms were quite sparsely decorated although there were a few paintings around which caught my eye. The portraits of the royals and other notables were not particularly flattering. You'd probably say that they weren't exactly oil paintings if it wasn't for the fact that they were. Amongst the gallery of uglies however, one portrait of a young female author caught my eye. Her name was Thomasine Christine Gyllembourg-Ehrensvärd and her portrait was painted in 1790. Her dark hair and seductive look simply sent a shiver down my spine.

We continued our ramblings through the castle, noting the wine cellar and various statues before walking back out into the warm sunshine. We walked around the lake for a while, watching cyclists and rollerbladers drift by and we then enjoyed the view of this regal idyll from across the water before heading back to the station for our return train to Copenhagen.

Feeling quite peckish we opted once again for a kebab at the Shawarma Grill House before grabbing a couple more beers at the Victoria pub. I was thinking that we would have to make the most of the relatively cheap alcohol here as things would be different in Sweden. We strolled back up Strøget and along the way, we happened to bump into Danny who was wearing a Croatia baseball cap. "I'll call you up in London!" he said before steering himself towards the pub. I wonder if he ever did.

Back at the station, we stocked up on a few essentials for our long trip; bread, cheese, water and some cans of Sunkist orange pop. We then collected our backpacks from left luggage and boarded the Swedish Railways train that would carry us overnight all the way to Stockholm. For the second time in a day, we travelled north through Zealand and it didn't take us long to arrive in Helsingør. It was dark by now so if the nearby Elsinore Castle (Hamlet's Castle) was visible from the train, we must have missed it. Helsingør harbour did however offer the strange experience of staying on the train whilst the carriages were shunted onto the ferry that would take us across the Kattegat to the Swedish port of Helsingborg.

The ferry trip only lasted about 20 minutes but we remained ensconced in our carriage for the whole of the journey. The carriages were then shunted back onto dry land but before we set off again, we received a visit from some border guards. The guards looked like they weren't about to take any shit from anyone so I was glad that they only offered me a cursory glance before moving on. A guy in the next row of seats wasn't quite so lucky. He said he was from Mexico which prompted the guards to ask him to submit his luggage for inspection although they didn't find him smuggling vast quantities of tequila which no doubt would have been a major crime in this alcohol-deprived country.

The guards finally departed and I pulled out my Sigg water bottle and poured out a good slug of Finlandia vodka (wrong brand, I know!) into my cup of Sunkist to celebrate arriving here. The carriage was quiet and most of the other passengers had crashed out for the night. I decided to stay up though. The darkness wouldn't last long and it would be nice to see the sun rise over a new landscape. Whilst it was still dark, I sought out other forms of entertainment so I took out my radio and tuned into a station which was playing electronic 'telephone on-hold' type tunes. Either this was the latest and most extreme incarnation of musical minimalism or I'd accidentally tuned into someone's ansaphone. Curiously all the tunes had a American theme, "When the Saints Go Marching In", "Stars and Stripes Forever" (aka "Here we go! Here we go! Here we go!") and most bizarrely "God Bless America". Yep, welcome to Sweden!

Luckily I managed to find another station which had a slightly more mainstream playlist and to accompany it, I browsed through a Swedish language alternative music mag called Groove which someone had left behind on the train. Maybe it was the vodka but I managed to get the gist of some of the stuff in the magazine. Sweden's latest pop export, The Wannadies ('You and Me Song' being a selection from their oeuvre I'd not only listened to but actually bought) were featured heavily in the mag as were other local heroes, the Cardigans. Reading about the Swedish music scene in Swedish proved a bit too much for me after a while so I eventually nodded off, missing the early morning sunrise that I had hoped to witness.

Tuesday 11 June 1996
I couldn't have caught more than a couple hours sleep on the train but I woke to see a thin layer of mist hovering above the gently rolling Swedish countryside. We passed lakes and pine forests which were edged by comfortable looking summer lodges whilst moored to their jetties, brightly painted boats bobbed in the dark blue water. This was a big country and the expanses here sharply contrasted with the denser spaces of Denmark. We still had a way to go before we reached Stockholm but I was quite happy just watching the countryside go by. For the first time on this trip I felt as though we were really travelling.

Eventually the pastoral scene gave way to the sprawling suburbs of Stockholm but our entrance into the city centre was dramatic. The sudden emergence of Stockholm's historic core, the Gamla Stan, on a clear sunny morning was a remarkable sight. Images of Stockholm were familiar from tourist brochures but seeing the islands that formed the city's central archipelago for real was much better.

We disembarked the train at the Central Station and made our way down to the metro system, the T-bana. As we descended underground, my impression of Stockholm didn't quite match my expectation. Based on purely uncorroborated stereotypical notions, I expected the metro system here to be sleek and state of the art, like a Volvo car or a Saab fighter jet. I knew it was the rush hour but the commuters drifting through the system did seem to be quite a miserable bunch which contrasted markedly with the happy-go-lucky Danes we saw in Copenhagen. Maybe it was just those Tuesday morning blues. You only have to look at London during any working morning to realise that the zombie scenes from 'The Living Dead' couldn't have been based entirely on fiction. However, there were other things which caught my attention. The green corrugated Soviet style underground trains were hardly the last word in passenger comfort and once we emerged from the tunnels, the relentless rows of grey suburban concrete housing developments cast a rather gloomy aura over the environs.

We got off at Brëdang Station and walked through a particularly austere looking housing estate before we reached a leafier corner where the Brëdang Camping site was situated. When we checked in, I had to join the Swedish Camping Club (it would have been easier if they'd just accepted my Danish Camping Club card) but I thought holding multiple camping club memberships conferred certain kudos on my travelling credentials so I wasn't complaining.

We pitched our tent on a slight slope underneath a tree which provided some protection from the sun if not the plethora of creepy-crawlies that threatened to tuck into us for lunch. When the sun shines this far north, it has a surprising intensity. Luckily this site was close to one of the many waterways that thread their way around Stockholm and there was even a little sandy beach that formed part of the site. There were plenty of people splashing about in the water and so in the heat, I decided to follow them in. The water was freezing but it felt fresh and clean. In the distance I looked across the skerries to the banks of pine trees that lined the water. Here I felt far removed from the urban scene that lay just a short distance away. Unfortunately, the breeze grew in strength which dropped the temperature and coaxed us back to the tent for some relaxation and something to eat.

Lorraine cooked up a nice veggie curry, accompanied by some local flatbread, which was an adequate stand-in for naan bread even if it could have done with heating up in a tandoor. Maybe I should have slapped the bread on the coals of the campsite sauna to get that authentic oven-baked effect but the meal was tasty anyway. Whilst we were clearing up, we had a quick chat with the man who was camping next to us. He was from Finland and he looked about sixty years old. He had a one-man tent, an old single speed bike and he was cooking a plate of sausages on a meths-burning stove. "Tomorrow, I'm leaving" he said. "I'm cycling to Lapland." That was a long way to go on a bike like that I thought.

By the time we'd cleared up, we were feeling quite tired so we decided to give the tour of Stockholm a miss and spend the rest of the day at the site. Luckily there was a shop which sold klass II beer, in other words Tuborg at 3.4%. Not the most satisfying brew in the world but it would have meant a trip into town if we wanted anything stronger. A few cans of that washed down with a couple of Finlandia chasers did provide enough inebriation to make venturing to the campsite café seem worthwhile so we drifted into there, ordered another beer and watched the Croatia - Turkey game on the TV. There wasn't a particularly lively atmosphere in the café and after a couple of Swedes departed, we were the only ones left. Once the game finished we climbed a scenic bluff situated behind our pitch which gave us a great view of our surroundings, and watched the sky transform into a luminous twilight as night descended.

Wednesday 12 June 1996
We treated ourselves to some veggie sausage sandwiches for breakfast and then we walked to Brëdang station to buy ourselves 24 hour Stockholm Cards which would give us the run of the transport system for the day. The first thing we did upon arrival at the Central Station was to book reservations for our next train journey. It took us ages to find the booking office but when we got there we struck up a conversation with a couple of Americans who were also queuing up for tickets.

As it turned out, we were destined to wait for quite some time as each transaction in front of us was being conducted at a laborious pace. In fact one person was trying to book a whole journey around Germany piece by piece which was taking ages. We did however find out a little more about the two Americans. One of them was a rather elderly woman from San Francisco who was just travelling around whilst the other was a studenty male from Santa Monica whose mother was Swedish so he was spending the year here to learn the language. We talked for a while about Sweden and the difference in weather compared to California, especially during the dark winter months. They didn't think much of the summer light here though, too hard to get to sleep apparently.

Our turn finally came up at the reservation counter and we booked a couchette on tomorrow's Nordpilen train, our route to the Arctic Circle. Behind the counter, there was a poster advertising this particular route. It showed a long straight railway line whose vanishing point merged with high snow-peaked mountains. However, before getting too carried away with hitting the North, we still had the sights of Stockholm to explore, so we said goodbye to the Americans, who by this time were quite happy yakking amongst themselves, and walked out of the station to see what the so-called 'Venice of the North' had to offer. I seemed to recall that Birmingham had also once laid claim to the 'Venice of the North' title although, strangely enough, the Brummie comparison wasn't too far wrong. Indeed, as we walked through Stockholm's central shopping precinct, Sergels Torg, the grey, rain-stained concrete conjured up equally depressing images of those fine examples of West Midlands urban architecture, the Bull Ring and the Rotunda. At least Birmingham had the excuse that it if its city centre hadn't been rearranged by the Luftwaffe then they needn't have built such places but Sweden had no such excuse. In fact it made me think about the urban housing concepts that the Brits imported from the Swedes during the sixties and which then went on to blight inner cities all the way from Deptford to the Gorbals. Of course it wasn't the Swedes fault, I think we just failed to realise that such schemes didn't fit in with the British psyche. After all Gardener's Question Time is not quite the same when you live in a tower block.

In terms of our own sightseeing, the Gamla Stan was a better bet than Sergels Torg so we crossed a bridge onto the small island which formed the historic core of the city. Unfortunately as soon as we arrived there it started to rain quite heavily so we sought refuge in the nearest café where I enjoyed a tasty blueberry tart and a large mug of coffee. Thankfully, the rain ceased shortly afterwards and we were able to explore the old town in greater detail. We started off near the royal palace which was as solid a royal abode as one could wish for if not the most spectacular we'd come across, at least in comparison to Frederiksborg Slot. We then swiftly moved on through the winding streets and alleyways of the old town which held much greater interest. There wasn't too much to see in terms of specific sites but this was a place where you could just meander and slip quickly off the beaten track. Many of the narrow streets were flanked by tall apartment buildings painted bright yellow which helped to cast a cheerful glow over the scene. Some of the buildings were topped with Dutch style gables which conjured up memories of other medieval trading ports we had visited over the past couple of years such as Amsterdam, Bruges and Gdansk. We came across a couple of restaurants serving reindeer steaks although there wasn't much for veggies, apart from a vegetarian Indian restaurant which was closed, so we settled instead for a large ice-cream cone each to keep us going.

Our Stockholm Cards included travel on the municipal ferries that linked the various islands and outcrops of the city so we hopped onto a boat and sailed across the water to Skansen which was the home of the Swedish heritage open air museum. The skies however were beginning to close in so we gave the museum a miss and instead walked around the surrounding park for a while. There was an edgy atmosphere in the park and we noticed some people swigging from wine bottles whilst sheltering from the rain under trees. Most of them appeared to be office workers warming up for a night on the town unless drinking in the park actually was their night on the town. Nearby a bunch of kids were playing baseball using beer bottles as bases. For some reason, there was no sign of the carefree ambience of Copenhagen here. After walking past a rather forlorn looking local version of Tivoli we took the next available ferry back across the water which once again gave us a good view of the Gamla Stan before catching the T-bana back to the campsite. After that there wasn't much else to do but crack open our emergency water bottles and indulge in a few rounds of Finlandia.

Thursday 13 June 1996
We woke up feeling a touch hungover, our rations of Finlandia having been somewhat depleted despite this still being the first week of our three week trip. A big plate of scrambled eggs and HP baked beans however helped to restore our spirits and gave us enough energy to pack up our stuff for the next leg of our journey. As we checked out of the campsite, our Finnish friend rolled by on his bike. We wished him well as he disappeared up the road and I felt a tinge of jealousy as he disappeared into the distance. His journey to Lapland by bike sounded just like the sort of thing I would love to do one day, except that I'd probably choose to have a bike with gears.

We walked back through the grim housing estates to the station, my attention being momentarily grabbed by an attractive shorts-wearing, bike-riding post-woman along the way. The train back into town wasn't quite so interesting although there was a weird looking man sitting opposite us reading a Donald Duck comic in between giving us menacing looks. Once at the Central Station, we decided to hang out there for a couple of hours before boarding our train rather than messing around with left luggage. A quick stroll around the station unearthed some bread, cheese and snacks for our journey and then I spent the rest of the time watching sleek X2000 trains departing the station for the high speed run to Gothenburg.

The time passed quickly enough and I managed to read a few more pages of Paul Theroux's 'The Great Railway Bazaar' to get me in the mood for our long journey ahead. The Nordpilen was flagged up on the departures board and we made our way to Platform 4 for the overnighter through Sweden to Narvik in Norway. The first thing we discovered was that we were the only ones with reservations in our six birth couchette so it looked like we would have the cabin all to ourselves, a good result considering the relatively inexpensive supplement we had to pay for our berths. My excitement mounted as our departure grew closer and a flavour of our destination was given by the old man dressed in traditional Same (Lap) garb who was staying in the cabin next to us. I noticed he was smoking a very long, thin pipe which I guessed was made out of reindeer antlers. The train finally departed and we soon left Stockholm behind. After passing through the neat looking university town of Uppsala, the landscape gradually became wilder, and the towns we passed through started to feel increasingly remote.

After a while I decided to have a walk through the train to see if it had anything interesting to offer. There weren't many passengers on board but some of them were hanging out in the 'Bistro Car', enjoying overpriced beer and nibbles. The bar area was quite well equipped and this was the first time I'd ever come across a CD jukebox on a train. The train also boasted a cinema which tonight was showing the James Bond film 'Goldeneye'. I had a quick peak inside the cinema before the next show and it really did look like the real thing apart from the fact that it was only three seats wide. I was more interested in watching the free show out of the window though so I made my way back to the cabin to enjoy the scenery. The route we followed between Bollnäs and Ånge was particularly attractive, the lakes of this region being dotted with summer homes and boats. I still however hadn't seen anything that resembled the photograph on the Nordpilen poster so I went to bed at midnight wondering what the view would have to offer in the morning.

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