Scandinavia

The joys of being an independent traveller

In a reflective mood, it occurred to me that some of my favourite travel moments are defined by having an open mind on where to go and then somehow getting there, even if turns out to be a right pain in the arse. I was first bitten by the travel bug in 2005 when I convinced a friend to visit Stockholm with me. In the winter. Ridiculous. But the flights were about £12, so, why the hell not?Evidently, this isn’t the definition of flinging myself off the beaten track, but being a third year uni student, it’s the polar opposite to a ladz holiday to some island full of babes and booze, and since then I’ve never looked back. And at the age of 36, I don’t see any lads holidays in the future.

Stockholm archipelago in 2005, taken on a charmingly crap camera

Despite my fear of crashing and burning into the ground because, in my mind, all aircraft are just flying tubes of petrol, I loved the moment the plane went above the clouds and I saw a beautiful sea of rippling sky-pillows beneath me. We explored Stockholm, visited the island full of art galleries and even took a boat out to Vaxholm island where it absolutely pelted it down with incessant rain. To be contrary, I acted like this was exactly what I wanted, but my friend remained glum and didn’t believe my tricks. Luckily, we found a cafe that sold cake with vanilla custard and hid from the deluge.

Other holidays followed, including an exciting trip where we went from Brussels (hugely underrated city!) to Cologne (bland) as a spontaneous day trip and then more standard trips to Madrid and Barcelona. A visit to Tallinn and Helsinki confirmed my adoration of all that northern Europe can offer and in 2009, a trip to Georgia, near Russia, really lit a fire about the sorts of holidays I wanted to have.

I fell for Georgia almost immediately, struck by wooden scaffolding, cleaners harassing rubbish on the streets with brushes that looked fairly similar to broomsticks and, not being unkind, genuine hags. Tbilisi was a magical eye-opener and part of the thrill and annoyance that comes with travelling off your own steam was experienced at the train station. We needed to get a train from Tbilisi, across the country to Batumi, now some sort of cut-price Vegas by the sea. We queued patiently to get train tickets, so locals would push in front to argue with the person giving out tickets and leave with tickets. I couldn’t argue in Georgian, and I’m not terribly keen on doing it in English, so when we got to the counter, we were denied tickets because of a power cut. I had wondered why things were gloomy. We did eventually get tickets when a tour guide we spent two days with, argued with the ticket seller on our behalf.

In Georgia, we arranged to go on a cycling tour, and the package was to part ride, part drive to a village called Tianeti. We spent a night with a host family who cooked us a feast of the most spectacular Georgian food, food I still cook to this day and rate as amongst the tastiest on the planet. I was in traveller heaven. I’ll always remember the woman picking out wild garlic and coriander from her garden. The flavours were spectacular. We all got drunk.

I have a book of soviet bus stops, so seeing one was well exciting

A year later, a friend and I went on an ambitious tour of Sweden, starting in Stockholm and taking in the archipelago, as well as Umeå, Luleå and Arjeplog all by planes, trains, boats and automobiles. The island of Finnhamn was intensely relaxing and in terms of amenities, it had a little store open ’til 5pm and then a fantastic restaurant, open late. Once again, we were caught out by taking matters in our own hands and not booking in advance, finding that the restaurant was fully booked until at least 10pm. With no other options for food open to us, we sat on the terrace, looking at the view in front of us and adding secret glugs of Finnish Koskenkorva vodka to glasses of coke.

Finnhamn

We visited Arjeplog for the midnight sun and when recently discussing that evening in Arjeplog, our memories were specific to the point of words we spoke. It is burned into my memories as something so mind-blowing it’ll be there in that photo montage bit you get before you die. As we took a night train over 1000km back to Stockholm, a woman in the train cafeteria asked us what we had been doing in Arjeplog and the answer that we’d done almost nothing but look at the scenery, walk and stare open-mouthed at the midnight sun. This didn’t seem to move her to tears as it had me. But that’s the Swedes for you, they are rather reserved.

In 2011, I went on a trip to Jordan and Syria, where I got to enjoy see Amman, Petra, Jerash and Wadi Rum in Jordan. Our hotel in Amman had been bombed by Al-Queda in 2005, so every time we entered our bags were X-Rayed and we were vaguely patted down, but I still felt very safe in the country and refused to let the actions of some pathetic terrorists stop me exploring the world.

In Wadi Rum we stayed in a tent made out of goat hair and spoke to people who were on an organised trip, which had cost one couple thousands of dollars and included things like hot air balloon rides – I will never entrust my life in wicker baskets powered by flames – and camel rides, where the camels growl, spit and walk at a slow pace. They believed that the Goat Hair Inn was some sort of exclusive place; I did a Google search after seeing how incredible Wadi Rum looked and $120 dollars later, my friend and I were staying in the exact same conditions as them. We all ate food that was cooked in a pit below the sand and afterwards, my friend and I stood in the desert, transfixed by the silence and stillness of the emptiness all around. Later that night, I got paranoid that we’d be stung by lobsters, until my friend told me I was actually afraid of scorpions. Great, that’s two animals that wanted me dead. I slept like a log in the end.

Wadi Rum

After this we headed to Syria, where things were slowly unravelling, the Friday we were in Aleppo was the deadliest in the unrest so far, with reports that up to 100 people were killed. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary for us, but it was clear that tourism was way below what would be expected. After a trip to some ruins outside Aleppo, we encountered a small protest where people waving olive branches were briefly around our car. Knowing that the government was shooting live ammunition and tear gas at people, my body froze with fear that something would go wrong, but we passed on. Later that evening, we found ourselves in a gay sauna, suggested to us by locals who clearly thought we’d appreciate the experience. It was bizarre when I had to ask the masseuse to give me a half-hearted rub; he seemed taken aback that someone wanted to do anything other than flirting. I’m fairly certain that hammam was partially destroyed by fighting. It always feels exciting to find a guide on the street and use their services to explore a place, and in Syria we found a driver who suggested we take a day to visit the Dead cities in-between Aleppo and Idlib and to the magnificent remains of Krak des Chevaliers, near Hama. Why trust a random bloke in the middle of the street, you say? He showed us lots of leaflets in the boot of his car and he had a lanyard, so we felt pretty sure he was the real deal. Luckily, we were right.

I couldn’t recreate this holiday now, but I am forever thankful that I got to do it at all. Had it been just a few weeks later and I am sure I’d have backed out, especially as the Foreign Office at this point had make Syria entirely red on their travel advice map, a colour if remains to this day.

Aleppo Souq

My 2012 jaunt to Cuba was thrilling for many reasons, but what stood out to me was the informality of the country. You really could hang out looking like a confused tourist wearing a straw hat and someone would come along to offer you accommodation or tell you your accommodation was on fire/full of rats and voila, you’d have a place to sleep. I recall how we dropped by a place we’d previously stayed at in Havana, needing to find somewhere to stay and the owner flipped through a rolodex and called some friends. Twenty minutes later we were in someone else’s home and they were frantically making swans out of towels for us. In my notebook, I had written that there was a woman in Viñales who made heart-breakingly good food and somehow, without GPS and wifi, we found her house, knocked on her door and asked if we could eat there. Sure, she said, in her pyjamas. There’s a certain sense of adventure in just turning up at a stranger’s home and hoping for the best, but generally, Cuba didn’t let us down. I recall being in the stunning city of Trinidad, heading to a beach near our fantastic accommodation, Casa Munoz and after our beach excursion, where real life Cubans were downing neat Havana Club in the sea, we had no transport back. A man with a truck sensed we were tourists – the straw hats, the pale skin and union jack tracksuits probably gave us away – so he let us jump into the back and took us to Trinidad. What a dude.

Friends that have been in the past few years have come back with mixed feelings; wifi seems to be everywhere, which for me takes away from the magic of escaping the news cycles and restaurants either need reservations or have queues going out the door. Places are fully booked, you need to reserve. Americans are everywhere. Where’s the magic in that?

Havana

Bosnia was the next up in 2014, and I feel a certain affinity with this place as my Dad was there during the Balkans war. Mostar was our first stop and my friends seemed somewhat uncomfortable with the sheer number of bullet holes in the walls, if a wall still stood. As the city grew closer, our taxi driver tried to sell us some “top quality sunglasses” which we reluctantly passed on, what with us all wearing our own sunglasses. While a bit shocked that some twenty years after the bloodshed, the town still looked broken, I also fell in love with the human spirit and the country. Seeing the Mostar bridge was both awe-inspiring and heart-breaking; watching videos of the bridge being shelled was a horrific reminder of how wars kill people, history and cultures and very often achieve nothing at all. Sitting at a table with a view of the river one evening, a lone firework explodes, telling Muslims observing ramadan that it’s time to eat. Soon around us are families chatting and eating and the city feels beautifully peaceful. The next morning, we stroll around the town looking for Muslibegovic House. Naturally, the only person around to help us spoke no English so we peek behind every door and fence to find the beautiful Ottoman-era house that my map tells me is definitely, probably, just there. Eventually, we find it and it is worth the wait. Unblemished by war, it’s a stunning building with a peaceful courtyard. I particularly liked the mannequins that are re-living the lives of the Ottoman-era. One looks just like David Bowie. You can stay in the house and it’s just €90 a night. Now to convince my boyfriend that he wants to visit Mostar…

Mostar

Sarajevo is an easy sell for a tourist; it’s a great city, full of energy, optimism as well as reminders of the war. I loved the Baščaršija, the old town where you get a sense of east meeting west. Many cities really do like to claim this but here you get to see Austro-Hungarian Europe one moment and a Turkish market the next. It’s a perfect warren of merchants to explore. At the time, I wrote that the city marketed itself as the place where we witnessed the “start of the 20th century” and where the “20th century ended”. At the beginning, Franz Ferdinand was shot and World War 1 began. At the end, words like ethnic cleansing become necessary and museums like the War Tunnels remind us of the three year blockade of Sarajevo. the History museum of Sarajevo showed fascinating images of the city during the war and now. The reconstructed Sarajevo City Hall, shelled in 1992, looks spectacular and the stained glass ceiling is a thing of wonder.

Sarajevo City Hall

So many of my travelling adventures have been helped no end by drunken conversations, searches on Google maps, happy coincidences and curiosity. So, my advice to everyone is pretty simple. The world is a great place and people are wonderful. Go and see it! Holiday resorts can wait.

11 reasons to visit Trondheim

It took eleven visits, but I have finally cracked why I love Scandinavia; by now I have written about it so much that a definitive reason was bound to percolate through. There is a sense of peace that comes with a trip to the region which positively affects my mood. In the UK, life is fast-paced and even if we want to slow down, we often get caught up in the speed without realising. In Norway, when it’s you, nature, some local food (and probably some great wifi), your pace and mindset dial down.

My May 2016 trip to Norway was my fourth to the region in a year. In May 2015, I visited Skåne and Copenhagen, August 2015 was Oslo, Flam and Bergen and October 2015 was Stockholm. This trip was my third to Trondheim, where my friend Dave from Life in Norway lives and I feel duty-bound to give you eleven happy reasons why you should visit Trondheim.

Reason 1: Getting a direct flight to Trondheim is hassle free from London Gatwick; for under £90 you can get a return on one of Norwegian’s shiny new planes with intermittent wi-fi on board. Booking ahead will help keep the cost low, so save spontaneous trips for elsewhere!

Reason 2: Coffee and cinnamon buns. I love Dromedar cafe with good latte’s and good buns coming in about around £7.50 together. This is a small chain with the best location being on Nedre Bakklandet, right by the Old Town bridge, Gamle Bybro, which dates back to 1861 in its current form.

Gamle Bybro

Reason 3: The Nidaros Cathedral. It’s one of those places that seems to be super important but without anyone ever having heard of it. But it’s the most northernmost medieval cathedral in the world, the most important cathedral in the country and parts of the Cathedral have been modelled on Lincoln cathedral. We took the tour of the Cathedral and found it informative without actually focusing on the religious stuff. Phew. The most eye-opening fact was that sections of the Cathedral were used as stables for hundreds of years – but to find out why you’d need to visit.

Reason 4: The cafe at the contemporary art gallery. Trondhjems Kunstforening is a modern art gallery I haven’t managed to visit but I have ordered the chicken salad three times. Every time, the salad has been a highlight of my food year. It is enormous and bursting with fresh flavours, this is the salad of the kings. The garden is a lovely spot for eating and people watching.

Reason 5: Trondheim Microbrewery. Aha! Just my sort of place. The website might not have an English translation, but beer is a universal language. The IPA stands out in particular and my tireless experimenting of their beers has given me the knowledge to say this is a good place to hang out. You are welcome. It’s relaxed, people are drinking for pleasure rather than as a sort of bloodsport (at these prices, etc…) and the music isn’t ramped up to the point where you might as well forget ever talking to your friends again.

Reason 6: Solsiden. Fifteen years ago, an industrial part of Trondheim was transformed into Solsiden, a shopping, nightlife and restaurant location. The landscaping is gorgeous, ideal for sitting outside for a spot of people-watching. We chose Bare Blåbær for this task and, of course, there are many restaurants to throw your money at. Which leads me to number 7, in another part of town…

Reason 7: A reasonably priced Chinese restaurant in Trondheim! Shanghai Restaurant, on the banks of the river at 21 Kjøpmannsgata, offers large, tasty meals for about £13 with beers around the £6.50 mark. I ordered the pepper beef which came with a ton of rice. Even when my fellow diners were nibbling at my meal, we couldn’t finish it.

Reason 8: Rockheim! One thing I really like about Norway is that each city feels important in some way. Trondheim doesn’t feel like some provincial city and giving it the national museum of Norwegian pop and rock music sets that tone. Rockheim is as about as fun an afternoon as you can have for £10. It is all about interactivity here and if you ever come across my song – mostly me saying “Lindaaaa” like Jill does in Nighty Night over some confusing drums, feel free to draw up the record contract. It turns out I am not a talented guitarist, but I can dress boys up to look real pretty if given access to a dressing up box.

The building is fantastic, the exhibits are much more interesting than you would expect and the views from the top floor are superb. Rockheim is how all museums should be!

Reason 9: Trondheim’s ‘alternative district’. Ok, it’s small but it’s cute and as you’ll walk past it if you go to Reason 10, there’s nothing to lose. As Dave writes here, the bar called Ramp is where hipsters can go and be tattooed and beardy, free from the daily oppression they never face. Actually, I wonder if a hipster in Trondheim would wear one yellow and one pink Converse like one I recently saw in Tesco metro in Walthamstow? Around the area is a brilliant installation made of…bits of old plastic I suppose.

More information on the district is here.

Reason 10: Ladestien, the trail leading past the Lade peninsula is a great walk that starts with the fantastic megasized megaphone that the University of Science and Technology gave to the city to play with. I had hoped it would blast out Lana Del Ray across the city, but that didn’t work. If it looks like a megaphone, you’d assume it is a megaphone. But still, it’s fun to run about on it.

The walk leads on to the usual Norwegian trio of big sky/water/trees, leading me back to my happy place. Along the way was a piano high above the path that is terribly out of tune. Who would take a piano, carry it about fifty feet up a hill? A cool Norwegian, that’s who. Legend has it that the piano has moved to another location in the city, so be on the lookout! Carry on along the water and you’ll reach a beach area where Ben, my friend on the trip with me, dived into the water immediately, like a true Norwegian. I am British so I ate my sandwich on a picnic table. It rained, then it stopped, then it rained again.

Reason 11: No trip to Norway is complete without a hike in the hills, with the big skies that make you feel smaller but equally remind you that you’re part of nature. When I lived in Devon, I started to develop a love for the open air, with Dartmoor’s piercing cold, windswept afternoons. None of it mattered because Dartmoor is Dartmoor. Now I live in London, the first spot of rain sees me scurrying into a cafe for fear of a head cold. Our walk around Bymarka was blissful. It’s a city forest with hundreds of kilometers of marked trails and once you get beyond the initial throng of people, you can find yourself alone, picking berries and in time, without a thought in your head. From the city centre, we took bus no. 10 right to the forest and walked a route marked as 5km, but with our meanderings, selfies and diversions, it was more like 8km. We walked to the tram stop at Lian where we took the tram back into town.

170,000 people call Trondheim home, and I bet every one of them is content to be there. It’s a real charmer of a town, in a country I adore going to. But there’s so much more to Norway for me to see, as Dave loves to point out. There’s Tromsø, there’s the Lofoten islands and maybe even Svalbard. Until next time!

The Bergen Line Railway will change your life!

There are some things that should be on every travellers bucket list and the Bergen Line railway is one that feels pretty mandatory. It really is a wonder of technology and a showcase of Norway’s beauty. I was lucky enough to take this train journey as me and a friend went to see why our friend had upped sticks to Norway. It became apparent pretty soon why he moved there. His website, on life as an expat in Norway is here.

On our first night in Oslo, we found ourselves invited to a party in a great old pub in the centre that fulfilled all my Scandinavian dreams of dark wooden beams, old tables and weird bar staff who claim only girls drink cider. Granted, the only cider on offer was the reliably girly Kopparberg, nothing like the manly scrumpy I drink in England. The Norwegians we met told us about the journey to Bergen and agreed it was average for the first few hours before becoming beautiful.

The journey is around seven hours and so I decided to sleep for the first 2 hours; when I woke I noticed the landscape had already changed dramatically to one of lakes and big hills…not quite mountains. Even this landscape was undeniably impressive!

The early stages of the train journey

A while later, as the landscape became ever more dramatic, the time came when words such as “epic” and “awesome” became default to describe the views from the windows, but equally they felt insufficient to the task of getting across just how… epic and awesome the landscape looked.

As the landscape changed, we became more and more excited, jumping from one seat to the next. This is where we found paying for the Comfort Class came in handy; it’s like First Class but still remarkably cheap for Norway. Nobody was in our way as we hopped from seat to seat and basically acted like we’d never been on a train before. For a one-way trip on the Oslo-Bergen railway, you’ll be looking at about £40. This may be the best deal in Europe.

One of the most arresting sights on the journey was a valley filled with mist. At the moment the mist was most apparent, the view cleared up and we could admire it in full.

Misty

We were able to track the temperature and the height above sea level on the train and over time, we noticed we were gaining altitude without ever being aware of it; the temperature outside was hovering close to zero and at every stop, we rushed out to take photos and just breath in the air that was bracing and sweetly scented. As we reached 600-800m above sea level we started to see the beginnings of snow in the distance and so we recommenced being as excited as puppies.

Lake Silencio

Little did we know as we spoke of how this was the most beautiful thing ever that in fact, we were seeing the pre-amble to ascending Europe’s highest mountain plateau where the beauty was cranked up to 11. Here, the mountains were dusted with snow, the lakes were half-frozen and it was hard work getting back on the train, such was the desire to just explore the area, move into a wooden hut with a grass roof and marry a woman called Helga.

Sigh

After we reached the peak, 1,222 metres above sea level at Finse, we could feel ourselves heading downwards, and the snow started to dissipate. It was a really surreal train journey, going from 10c in Oslo, to -3 in Finse, to 8c in Bergen, seeing the weather change so dramatically.The station at Myrdal, 880m above sea level, is the stop for the Flåm railway which is another trip I will have to do. It is Europe’s steepest railway line and looks every bit as spectacular as the Bergen line.

Myrdal Station

This journey is wonderful for anyone who is in Oslo and who fancies a day out that will live with you for years to come. For us three, the trip was just for the railway, we weren’t expecting Bergen to be as charming as it was. For a town that rains 220 days a year, it was utterly delightful and rain free!

More photos here! http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrbutler/sets/72157627868138499/

A Copenhagen travel diary

This was first published in 2011 – so some things may have changed since then!

Copenhagen was recently chosen as the third most liveable city in the world after Helsinki and Zurich by Monocle magazine. That might have been based on principles that benefit the inhabitants more than visitors, but eagle-eyed tourists will spot what makes Copenhagen such a success as a city. Most obvious is the prevalence of bicycles: imagine the number ridden in Cambridge quadrupled and you’ll still be far off the total here. As a short break destination, Copenhagen has a lot going for it. The city aims to be carbon-neutral by 2025. There is a passion for good quality food: a ‘fat tax’ was recently introduced on ingredients like butter, but there are bargains to be had when eating or drinking. It is an attractive city with a wonderful waterfront location. Public transport runs like a dream – even if it is costly – and the whole city seems to cater for people, rather than being as stressful and unyielding as London can be. Danish design is another reason to visit, with beautiful design stores in abundance, such as Royal Copenhagen’s ceramics.

The city centre is handsome, and no visit to Copenhagen would be complete without a visit to Nyhavn, the 17th century canal and street lined with boats and brightly painted buildings. the street itself doesn’t have any unmissable sights on it, but it is immensely pleasurable to stroll its length.

For these clearly positive sides to Copenhagen there are also oddities. For example, smoking is permitted in bars of less than 40 square metres, but it seems the law is left unchallenged in larger bars. This approach is presumably part of a liberal agenda where people are free to do as they wish, but it also seems quite regressive when many other countries have passed successful anti-smoking laws that attempt to accommodate everyone. We saw one man unzip and urinate wildly on the escalators of a busy metro station. It was unexpected and disappointing to see this in the middle of the city centre.

This pales into insignificance next to Christiana, where archaic ideas such as smoking bans and drugs laws don’t apply. Christiana is a commune that the Danish Government has allowed to flourish intermittently over the past 40 years. The Social Democrats allowed the old defence ministry land to be slowly taken over by people who have transformed the area into an enormous autonomous ‘city’ as part of a social experiment. As Governments and priorities have changed, Christiana has found itself to be both a mark of a liberal country and a pain for residents who have to put up with the drugs trade in the area known as Pusher Street. The previous centre-right Government was close to tearing Christiana down and forcing massive construction on the area, but over the summer of 2011 this plan fell apart. Now the residents of Christiana are to buy the place from the Government cheaply to be given a high degree of autonomy from the state. If you needed something to make you realise the difference between Denmark and Britain, this is it. Christiana is worth a visit to experience it but you might just see what we did: namely, people sitting around listlessly drinking and smoking weed. And some militant chaps who definitely don’t want you taking photos. Somehow, I missed the many signs and got told off.

The only photo I managed to take of Christiania!

Of course, Denmark is visibly wealthy and happy. Forbes recently calculated that Denmark is the second-happiest nation on earth, thanks to low business start-up costs, excellent education and a lot of freedom. Education – even at PhD level – is free and the welfare state is very generous. People say the Danish tax rates are high, and they progressively climb to 51.5 per cent. They are designed to operate in such a way that earnings are equal in the nation, meaning a banker won’t expect the massive bonuses people get in Britain, and a teacher won’t feel much worse off.

On the waterfront

The Vesterbro area mixes hipsters with drug dealers and prostitutes, giving it a distinctive feel. It is undergoing the predictable wave of renovation and gentrification that moves the original inhabitants on, but there is a still a real feeling of industry here that defines the area. In the middle of this is Le Le, the very popular Vietnamese restaurant that has a 20 per cent booking and 80 per cent walk-in policy: if you want a good chance at eating there you should book. When we went it was almost entirely full, although there are plenty of small bars in the vicinity if you do end up waiting for a seat. The food is delicious and reasonably priced, with Vietnamese staple pho bò at around £13 and wonderful cocktails around the £8-10 mark.

There is a word in Danish for being cosy, comfortable and content. That word is ‘hygge’, and relates in some way to the long winters. Hygge is apparent in cafes across the city with blankets on chairs outside and candles everywhere inside. Lonely Planet offers a guide to getting cosy in Copenhagen, but my tip would be to add Paludan to the list. Paludan is a bookshop and café where the walls are lined with beautiful old books and there are cosy seats everywhere. The food and drink menu is great and you could easily spend a happy few hours here enjoying the atmosphere. A city centre café that is reminiscent of a grand café you might find in Brussels is Café Norden, which comes with stuffed deer heads on the walls and a menu that offers coffee and cake in the day or heavier stuff in the evening.

A very handsome man! Oh, it’s me!

Another Copenhagen gem is Cofoco – Copenhagen Food Consultancy – which allows you to eat great three-course meals at reasonable prices. We booked for Public House and ate the duck rillette, the main course of chicken and shallots in a paprika sauce, and the chocolate cake with raspberry sorbet. The menu changes frequently but there are three or four options for the meals, and at £28, it won’t break the bank. We had this with a Kir Royale and two glasses of wine each and the bill still came in at under £50 each.

Copenhagen offers a decent-sized gay scene: on our trip we only tried Can Can and Centralhjørnet, both in the city centre. They were both friendly and unpretentious, and Centralhjørnet excelled in playing three Abba megamixes and four Kylie tracks in a 90-minute period. Don’t say cheers when you can say skaal!

For an excellent art fix, Arken currently has three world-class exhibitions that all offer something really different. There is a Damien Hirst exhibition running until September 2012, showing eight pieces of his most important works including his biggest dot painting to date – made especially for the exhibition – and his cow in formaldehyde. There is also an impressive Warhol and Basquiat exhibition, the first time their collaborations have been shown in Denmark, on until January 2012. The most exciting piece is by Olafur Eliasson, a local artist who has had major exhibitions all around the world, including the giant sun of The Weather Project in the Tate Modern Turbine Hall. His work is often focused around the elements, and this installation, Din Blinde Passager, sends the visitor into a long plywood tunnel, immersing you in a thick fog. As you go through the tunnel, the light changes, at one point plunging you into almost total darkness. It’s a genuinely exciting piece of work that plays on our fears of being unable to find our way around but it also professes to discuss the idea of utopia.

Copenhagen is an undeniably enjoyable destination, but it has a fight on its hands to claim the crown for most exciting Scandinavian capital. Oslo, Helsinki and Stockholm all rank at the top of the league tables of best cities in which to live, in countries that all figure highly among rankings of the happiest people. If you long to visit this part of Europe for a short break, Copenhagen cannot disappoint: it is wonderfully multicultural, tolerant and cheap to get to. However, for longer trips, Stockholm has the stunning archipelago, Oslo has access to the fjords and Helsinki offers a tempting high-speed train link to St Petersburg. Indeed, you might enjoy this slice of Scandinavian life so much that it will be impossible not to explore more of this fantastic region.

Photos from my visit are here.

Stockholm in the Autumn

My landing to Stockholm’s distant Skavsta airport was accompanied with necessary drama by John Grant’s Black Blizzard playing on Spotify. Through the clouds came a countryside aflame with the colours of Autumn, with additional synthesiser fanfare. Minutes later, a walloping wind buffeting the plane’s descent had Grant howling about eternal winters to soundtrack my terror. Bumpy landings and I don’t get on, but Sweden and I get on just fine. My third visit to Stockholm, once in the depths of winter, one in the middle of summer and now in Autumn confirms its standing as one of the most beautifully sighted cities. It is built on fourteen islands, so access to water and woodland is as easy as finding a cinnamon bun. Stockholm’s jewel in the crown is the spectacular archipelago of 25,000 islands heading east into the Baltic sea, where 50,000 holiday cottages dot the landscape. If you ever have the chance, board a ferry to one of the islands. You won’t regret it.

Stockholm is a perfectly proportioned capital, its size making it a haven for walkers if you don’t want to use the excellent public transport system. It’s less pretentious than London yet the occasional glimpse makes itself apparent whenever you see the sign saying “Stockholm: The capital of Scandinavia” which is hardly going to get the neighbours cheering you on. And come to think of it, all the coffee shops are as obsessed with damned filament lightbulbs and deconstructed brickwork as everywhere else. And the hair – so fussed over…but enough.

The old town, Gamla Stan, is where I head to first to meet my friend who recently secured a job in the city. We eat at a decent Thai restaurant where a meal of chicken satay, rice and salad and a coke comes to about £12. Sated on satay, exploring Gamla Stan and the more historic parts of Stockholm is a joy. Even under a gun metal sky, it lifts the spirits, but in Autumn sunshine, it is spectacular. The terracotta buildings of Gamla Stan are deeply atmospheric and the mixture of government and Royal buildings mixed with smaller residential buildings in a warren of streets makes for a great opportunity to wander aimlessly. I walked from the cosy cafe Fabrique on Lilla Nygatan towards the Royal Palace, all austere and somewhat clinical as all palaces seem to be. Some streets would lead you to believe that Stockholm’s main economy is tourist tat but it’s easy to find a quiet street to cut through if you can live without reindeer toys and t-shirts declaring your love for Swedes.

Across the Strömbron bridge and onto Södra Blasieholmshamnen leads you towards Skeppsholmen, home of the modern art museum, worth a visit just for the gallery shop. Galleries always have the best shops, and this one has a particularly good selection of posters of past exhibitions. The view from the Skeppsholmbron (Skeppsholmen bridge) is a delight. Standing in the centre of the bridge you will enjoy 360 degree views of the city and the water around you where I took a moment to just enjoy the view and relax. To be in a city centre, hearing horns blare and knowing hundreds of thousands of people are around you and yet feel completely alone is rather surreal.

The next day, in search of a cinnamon bun I could tell the grandkids about, I headed to Kafé Esaias on Drottninggatan. Heading north from Sergels Torg, the street is dreary at best and plain grimy for a long stretch until the central shopping district thins out. It is a reminder that city planners can really balls things up. Finally, I reach Kafe Esaias and feel that this cinnamon bun is well earned after all that urban decay. Good news – it’s one of the best cinnamon buns I have ever had. My grandkids will definitely be hearing about this cafe, and if I have to hire grandkids to tell my story, so be it. I sat in the cafe for a long while, enjoying the atmosphere and the coffee before working out what to do next. Then I sat a while longer and came to the realisation that I have a great aptitude for just sitting.

Forcing myself back into the city, I settled on a walk to the Vasa Museet – a museum dedicated to a ship that capsized and sunk on its maiden voyage in 1628. The walk takes you down Strandvägen, a picturesque boulevard that is part harbour and part esplanade. In the beautiful light of Autumn, Stockholm was ravishing and Strandvägen banished all thoughts of Drottninggatan from earlier in the day. Stockholm uses its waterfront exceedingly well and boats of all sizes are present, but the closer I got to the Vasa Museet the more it became clearer that only the mast of the boat was visible with the rest of it encased within a large building. It really is a fascinating museum, and I now get why people say it’s worth setting aside half a day for. Entry costs SEK130 (£11) but you get a seriously comprehensive museum which explains why the boat fell over as soon as it launched from Stockholm harbour, in slightly inclement weather. It’s a classic tale of pride, greed and ego overtaking common sense. Common sense would be making sure your boat has enough ballast to keep it on an even keel in a storm. Common sense would be to say to the King that the boat wasn’t ready, though King’s of old were never known for their gentle temperament. The boat had beautiful sculptures on it, all to add to its sense of greatness and when the cannons weren’t visible, you’d have mascarons of fierce lions staring you out. Seeing this up close is very special; time has been kind to the boat and the sculptures are remarkably detailed to this day.

Everything about the Vasa was about power and superiority, but this is also a story of human ingenuity. When the Vasa was rediscovered in the 1950s, they decided to lift it (apparently the filling it with ping pong balls or freezing it in a block of ice weren’t very practical) by spending two years digging tunnels underneath the hull and then slowly moving it to shallower waters using two pontoons. The museum has excellent visualisations of this, to show just how incredible the raising of the Vasa was. The reason that there’s anything resembling a ship left is because the Baltic is brackish and in these waters, a shipworm that would usually feast on the wood was not present. What’s left is sensational; indeed, I read that over 95% of the boat is original and the visitor is left with an intriguing point that this boat was one of a kind and had it successfully set sail, we wouldn’t be left with this incredible wreck to marvel at.

If the Vasa museet is Stockholm’s must see attraction, there are plenty of other museums and galleries still worth some of your time. I found the photography gallery, Fotografiska, to be a diverting spot for a couple of hours – of course it had a great shop attached and a brilliant location near the socialist utopia/concrete hell that is Slussen. Many people find the gallery by following the road that clearly leads to it, whereas I clambered over road works and found myself trapped by a cliff on one side and a metal barrier to the other, so don’t take that route. With a rotating selection of exhibitions, you’ll find the majority of the space taken up by a major exhibition with smaller displays on the upper levels. At SEK 120 (£10) it can’t possibly match up to Vasa museet, but the gallery does hold some impressive events to make a visit worthwhile.

My journey back to the airport included a last stroll from Sodermalm to Riddarholmen, with the wonderful Riddarholm Church as its focal point. Yet again, it is mildly surreal to be in the centre of a city that feels so quiet and close to nature. Despite some fairly calamitous attempts to turn the city into a concrete mess, it stills feels manageable in scale and somewhere ideal for fans of walking. In fact, there’s a Swedish phrase “Lagom är bäst”, which is translated as “the right amount is best”. Perhaps this is a good way to sum up the reason that Stockholm is such an attractive proposition.

With its waterfront and islands, Stockholm easily offers up one of Europe’s most beautiful capitals and with the added bonus of the archipelago, the question isn’t are you going to visit, but when are you going to visit?

This is worth the flight alone.

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