I wasn’t blogging two years ago, otherwise I might have written an entry very much like this:

I spent a few weeks in 2003 travelling through Scandinavia with Andrea, which was really good fun. This was the first trip I’d been on where I was really taking a lot of photos – I averaged a roll a day, and I kept about 250 of the slides that I got back. My Gallery has more of the shots from this trip.

Monday 30th June

We flew Ryanair from Stansted to Stockholm Skavsta at some ungodly hour in the morning (hence taking the bus from Coventry at 1:45 or somesuch), followed by a bus into Stockholm itself, finally arriving around lunchtime, if my memory serves me correctly. We found the youth hostel where we were staying (half of which is actually in a ship!), and got our stuff moved in.

In the afternoon, we went up a TV tower in the park, and then walked around the town a bit, before heading back to the hostel. There were some hot air balloons over the city, which was cool. I took lots of photos of the bay, Andrea went straight to bed.

Tuesday 1st July

We went to see the Vasa – a warship from 1628 which sank on its maiden voyage, and was raised again in 1961. It’s got it’s own building, an impressive museum with the wreck at its centre.

In the afternoon, we walked around the city some more, and visited the Nobel museum, which contained an interesting series of installations, covering the recipients of the prize.

After dinner, we walked to the Tivoli amusement park, sadly to arrive just as it was closing (at 11!).

Wednesday 2nd July

We got checked out of the hostel, then took a boat to the island of Finnhamn, a tiny place on the outer edge of Stockholm’s archipelago. This was the first day we were going to be camping, so we headed to the campsite (primitive!) and got set up, before going to explore the island. Which didn’t take long :-) Andrea tried salt liquorice ice cream, didn’t like.
We ate dinner sitting on an outcrop of rock overlooking the sea.

Thursday 3rd July

Rain. Had no choice to pack the tent up still wet, and head back to the boat. Hurried across Stockholm, to catch a much bigger boat to Helsinki, via the Åland islands.

The Åland islands are a small group inbetween Sweden and Finland, and their only relevance to this case is that they have an arrangement with the EU such that they count as international travel. Hence, no VAT onboard ship. This in turn led to my introduction to some scary Austrian rum called Stroh which is 80% proof, and still tasty. Danger!

We had dinner in the buffet restaurant on board, which was nice. Beer on tap… Going on these boats again, I’d probably choose to eat in one of the a la carte restaurants, they’re not much more expensive, and looked to be of a good standard.

Friday 4th July

We stayed in a very nice campsite in Helsinki. Discovered that wet tents don’t like being packed away and left in a hot cabin overnight – traces of mildew everywhere! The weather was nice, so we headed out to Suomenlinna- a fortress on an island just offshore from Helsinki. We spent most of the day there. Andrea got sunburned :-(

Saturday 5th July

Still in Helsinki, we spent Saturday exploring the town. We visited the Helsinki museum, which had an interesting history of the city, had ice cream in the park, watched some guys playing vibraphone in the street, and finally found an internet cafe for a quick email check. Back at the campsite, we went for a walk around the estuary there. Found some keep-fit stations all along the path, and people actually using them!

Sunday 6th July

Spent the morning relaxing in the camp, went for a walk along the waterfront again, and then caught a train to Vaasa, a small town further north in Finland. It was quite a walk from the train station to the campsite, but it was a good site, with a nice beach. We watched the sunset. At about 11pm.

Monday 7th July

We took a boat across back to Umeå in Sweden. This was a decrepit old passenger liner called Casino Express, that looked like it had been chugging around the baltic for decades. I particularly liked the picture of the boat in one of the stairwells, one of those classic images of the ship at night with all the rigging lit up. Except that it was a photo taken in the daytime, darkened, and with the lights painted on!

We arrived in Umeå, and planned to get across to Östersund and take the inland railway north within Sweden. The first step in this plan was to take a bus south to Sundsvall, where we could catch a train. However, on arrival in Sundsvall, it became clear that we’d mis-read a timetable, and would probably end up stranded in Sundsvall overnight. Which was a little boring.

So we changed plans, and took the last train out of Sundsvall that day – right up to the North of Norway, a town called Narvik. This was a 20hr train trip, passing back the way we’d just come by bus earlier in the day. Oh well.

Tuesday 8th July

We arrived into Narvik in the late afternoon and found the campsite, in a lovely location overlooking the fjord, but some way out of town. And in Narvik, the sun didn’t set. We were now far enough north that we had midnight sun.

Wednesday 9th July

We took a bus to Tromsø, the most northerly town in Europe. This place has a very solid feel to it, one can feel that living in this part of the world is a constant battle against the elements, for half the year at least. We found some space in the busy (but again, nice) campsite and relaxed there for the evening.

Thursday 10th July

We visited the Polar Museum – an interesting museum about the arctic, with displays about hunting and trapping, polar bears, Svalbard, Roald Amundsen, and Fridtjof Nansen.

Afterwards, we stopped for a Kebab, and then visited Polaria, a more touristy but still interesting visit, with more about the arctic in general, and an aquarium which has some seals.

Afterwards, we took a round-trip on a bus, to the other side of the island. It was rather accidental, but ended up being a good sightseeing tour.

Friday 11th July

We took the bus back to Narvik, then had to walk from the railway station to the bus station due to an incorrect timetable (and not, for a change, incorrect timetable reading!), but still got there in plenty of time. From Narvik, we took a bus down to the most northerly point in the norwegian railhead, at Fauske. We took the night train south to Trondheim.

Saturday 12th July

We nearly got derailled! Some rocks had fallen from the mountain, and so that stopped us dead in our tracks, so to speak. After sitting for a couple of hours, they managed to bring another train up behind us, to tow us back to the next station, from where we were bussed into Trondheim. In the end, it only added a few hours to the trip, we still arrived in Trondheim before lunch.
We wandered around the city for a while, taking photos and generally enjoying the ambience. We decided to stay in a makeshift backpackers, set up in the students’ union when it’s the summer holidays. Many beds in not much space, but not too bad.

Sunday 13th July

We decided to take the Hurtigrute boat south to Bergen. The Hurtigrute is a coastal service, which used to be the lifeblood of the area but now is mostly full of elderly German tourists. It provides a good view of the fjords, and shows off some impressive seamanship, manouvering very large ferries in very small harbours.

Monday 14th July

After arriving in Bergen, we went directly to the Rail station, heading for Flåm. Or more specifically, to Myrdal, which seems to mostly serve as one end of the Flåmsbana – an amazing mountain railway. We stayed in another decent campsite in Flåm, taking the opportunity to relax after the long trip down from the arctic.

Tuesday 15th July

We took the Flåmsbana back up to Myrdal, then continued on to Olso on a more conventional intercity train. We only stayed in Oslo for a couple of hours, before taking the train back to Sockholm. We camped (illegally) in a park, having arrived late in the evening. It was much nicer weather this time, hot and busy on the streets.

Wednesday 16th July

We visited the Medieval museum, with some interesting displays about medieval Stockholm, and cooked lunch on the grass in front of it there, before heading to the station, and back home.