Stockholm and Icebound Baltic Sea Crossing

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So, after a brief but enjoyable day in Copenhagen, I was ready to undertake the next step on my journey eastward. I rose bright and early on Thursday morning and took the 8.30 train to Stockholm. The train takes an exciting route along the 8km long Øresundsbron Bridge which crosses the straight between Denmark and Sweden. The landscape got more and more wintry as I headed further north, and it was well below freezing by the time I arrived in Stockholm.

I had tried to memorise the route to my hostel, and after a couple of false starts I made it there with the afternoon to space. Once I'd checked in I set out to explore the city, one of my first tasks being to buy a pair of gloves, as my hands were blistering with cold. My jaw dropped at the cost of living in Scandinavia, I'm sure I saw a pair of crappy kids ski gloves for the equivalent of 30 GBP.

After kitting up for the cold weather I climbed up to the highest point I could find to take some photos. Stockholm is a truly beautiful city, full of grand old stone buildings and built over numerous islands which merge imperceptibly with the Baltic Sea. I climbed up a high building and braved the biting wind to take some pictures of the city below me, and decided where to explore the next day.

The next morning I decided to explore Tyresta national park, 20km south of Stockholm and easily accessible by public transport. The park consists mainly of pine forest, surrounding several lakes and was almost deserted in March, which is still very much winter in Sweden. I tramped around in the snow for a couple of hours, admired the frozen lakes, managed not to get lost and then hopped on a bus back to Stockholm. In the afternoon I wandered around the Island Park of Djurgården, just outside the center of Stockholm. It's a huge place, several kilometers across, with extensive woodland; it's really possible to forget you're within the limits of a capital city for much of the time. It also contains numerous wharves and moorings for boats, several museums, numerous cafes and an amusement park, and it really worth spending a lot more than the couple of hours I was able to give it.

I was enchanted by Stockholm (apart from the prices) and certainly intend to go back and see it in the green and bright summer. Unfortunately I had a schedule to keep and had to move on after just two days. I took the morning ferry to Turku in Western Finland, which takes twelve hours to cross the Baltic Sea, including a stopover at the Åland islands halfway across.



It was truly one of the most spectacularly scenic journeys I've ever taken. The ferry threads it's way along the winding channel which connects water-bound Stockholm with the open sea, passing hundreds of islands dotting the water. These range in size from rocks jutting out of the water to kilometers across, with their own forests and scenery. Many of them are occupied by holiday cottages and boat houses, and apparently the Swedes flock to them in the summer. In the Winter it's possible to walk to many of them, and even at the end of March many of them were still surrounded by ice. Much of the Baltic itself was still covered in a thin layer of ice, which the ship broke through with a soft crunching swish. I spent as much time as I could on deck, losing myself in the scenery and taking photos, but the wind of the sea was breath-takingly cold. At least it felt so to me; While I paced up and down the deck, wearing every item of clothing I possessed, chilled to core, the Swedes and Finns sat in t-shirts and tank-tops, smoking and laughing cheerfully, as though they were on Spanish Beach in July. I kid you not

Up next, Finland, Lapland and the Northern Lights!

Useful links!

City Backpackers Hostel, 2 Upplandsgatan, Stockholm, www.citybackpackers.org



Tyresta National Park, 20km south of Stockholm, www.tyresta.se



Spectacular Baltic ferry crossing from Sweden to Finland. Operated by Tallink Silja Line,<cite> www.tallinksilja.com/en/</cite>
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