Gothenburg -> London
Highlight
- Enjoyed an Ikea style breakfast, complete with your own trays, as usual, at the hotel. As usual, I couldn’t eat a lot of the stuff, but at least they had interesting juices
- Got to the Maritiman, the floating museum nice and early. Very interesting to be able to go into all the ships, especially the Submarine Nord Kaparen to see how small and narrow it was
- The huge Destroyer HMS Smaland was interesting because of its sheer size.
- We didn’t get to finish the museum, as we were rushing to get to the boat for Alvsborg Fortress, and, as I thought might happen, the boat didn’t show up, just like the bus from yesterday. It seems after August the whole place shuts down, so even though they advertised the boat, they can’t be bothered showing up. That was frustrating as we could’ve stayed and finished the Maritiman.
- Had to make do with visiting the City Museum – which had an interesting Viking display, but the bit on the history of Gothenburg was pretty boring.
- We finished early, so decided we might as well go to the Maritime Museum as well. This one is again aimed at the kids, and wasn’t very interesting, especially because there was no English.
- We ran out of things to do, so went to stock up on food at Hemkop
- Back to the hotel to have our "welcome" drink at the bar. The sun finally came out, just a little too late.
- Had so much time to spare, so wondered around the Norstrum shopping centre and the bus terminal.
- Enjoyed our food at the airport while we waited ages for the flight.
- The flight was really full so it wasn’t comfortable at all.
Food
- Novotel breakfast:
- dark bread with cucumber, cream cheese, peppers and tomatoes
- muesli with natural yoghurt and dried fruit
- scrambled egg, bacon, sausge, meatball
- croissant
- custard and jam danish
- cardamom bread
- pineapple, watermelon, orange
- blueberry, mango, rosehip juice
- Hex chocolate bar
- crayfish and potato salad
- salmon pate
- dark rye bread
- orange juice
London -> Gothenburg
Highlight
- The terravision bus driver was crazy and I couldn’t’ sleep.
- The plane ride was smooth and arrived “early” as usual
- Managed to get the Gothenburg pass at the airport
- Managed to visit H&M, where the prices were the same as London, but still managed to pick up a few things. Checked into our hotel, then headed straight to the “fish church”, where the fish market is held.
- It’s a very small place, but we picked up some yummy seafood, then sat outside for lunch…the weather wasn’t really great for that though, so we ate quickly and left.
- Was supposed to go for a Bus Tour with the pass, but the bus never showed up. So instead we did the Paddan boat tour. The highlight was going under the hairdresser bridge. We couldn’t go under the cheese grater bridge as the tide was too high. Otherwise, we got a good history of Gothenburg, together with big blasts of wind, but there was really no exciting buildings or sites.
- Off to the Salum hall, which is supposed to be the big indoor food market, but I found it small once again, but it’s all about quality and not quantity, and we found plenty of things we liked. Even though we had lunch, we couldn’t resist sitting down at the counter at Alexanders, who only sell soup and one or two other dishes, to try the famous lentil soup. It was very nice and well deserved its reputation. By 2pm they had sold out of everything except one soup!
- Off to the famous amusement park, Liseberg, supposedly the most visited site in Sweden, where we watched people scream on rides and win giant chocolates
- Universeum – again, loads of kids, especially in the interactive area where it was overloaded with them. We didn’t fight with them to try any of the displays, although they looked interesting.
- Highlight was the live rainforest and the animals that is mixed into the informative museum displays – like a mix of a zoo and a museum.
- Back to the hotel, before heading 200m to our Michelin star restaurant. They were very busy with a wedding reception. People were dining very early to very late.
- The seafood was outstanding, service was a bit slow, but the place was charming to look at with its wooden beams, and the food, when it arrived, was bang on being one star. We had the lobster degustation since it was lobster season, and it didn’t disappoint.
- Staggered back to hotel for sleep.
Food
- crayfish salad with dill
- shrimp and crayfish roll
- Alexanders:
- Greek lentil soup with roll (35 SEK)
- sjomagasinet dinner:
- smoked mackerel with chilli and dill
- dill, aprociot wholemeal, rye, Swedish cracker bread
- Lobster salad with mushroom aioli served with pumpkin,
quince apple and pickled chantarelles - Lobster soup with crayfish quenelle and lobster
- apple and cinnamon sorbet
- Butter fried lobster and cod with horse radish- beurre blanc served with potato fondant
- Brie de Meaux filled with lobster, cheddar and truffle with bread
- Crème brulée flavoured with Sri Lanka- cinnamon served with plum sorbet and apple doughnut
- chocolate truffle
Malmo
- hairdressers
- trolls
- babies and prams
Stockholm
- McDonalds
- design shops
- harbour
- babies and strollers
- kids
- H&M
- hairdressers
- hot blonds
Copenhagen -> Malmo -> Copenhagen -> London
Highlight
- After a leisurely breakfast, walked to Central station to catch the extremely nice and quick train to Malmo.
- Going over Oresund Bridge was not very spectacular as we were stuck in the bottom level and couldn’t really see anything.
- Malmo was a dead town when we arrived at 10am.
- Strolled around the central square, Stortorget, the largest city square in Northern Europe (which was not really that big) to see the statue of King Karl X Gustav and the city hall, among other things.
- Observed the families at work, with the designer strollers, at Folkets Park. The park itself wasn’t too pretty, but there were a few ponds for the water effect.
- Malmohus Castle was pretty boring, we didn’t even bother walking up to it, you can get a good view of the Turning Torso, a funny twisted building, though.
- Tried to find the market they talked about on Wikitravel but it was closed.
- Dropped by the supermarket to pick up our Swedish chocolate bars.
- Walked down the major shopping street. By now it was 12 noon so I was expecting more shops to open, sadly it was not the case.
- Started to feel sick, so I rested while the guys ate at a family oriented steakhouse, Jensens Bofhus. I actually was so bad that I didn’t even try the food.
- Was feeling even worst, so decided to cut the trip short (well, we’d seen almost everything anyway, just missed <> street and the Turning Torso building).
- Spent most of the afternoon sitting or leaning against various object, until we made our way to the airport.
- Arrived at the airport 4 hours early, wandered around the shops, sorted our photos, sat around being bored, and was finally able to board our plane.
- Luckily plane was on time so we got time just after midnight.
- Don’t get me wrong, Copenhagen was an extremely beautiful city, it was just that when the major attractions were not open and the weather not that beautiful, there was not that much to see and do.
Food
- Hotel Savoy breakfast:
- soft-boiled eggs
- muesli with peach and raspberry yoghurts
- Danish ham, salami, cheese with rye bread
- chocolate croissant
- chocolate cinnamon scroll
- seeds bread with herring in curried yoghurt sauce
Stockholm -> London
Highlight
- Got a later start than planned, but the weather was much better today.
- Walked around the harbour to Vasamuseet. Quite a lot of tourists (must be very crowded in peak times, but the ship was absolutely magnificent.
- The displays were great and the architecture superb. It was definitely worth the money.
- Went to NH (the David Jones equivalent) to get excellent pastry and lingoberry bread.
- Ate lunch by the river, the sun was truly out then, but we didn’t have time to wonder to bjurgarden, although all the locals seemed to be heading there (with their walking sticks).
- Finally made it to Gamla Stan (old town). Reminds me of the hill town of Tuscany. Highlight was seeing Kungliga Slottet’s guards who don’t stand still and march randomly.
- Palace itself was the most spectacular.
- Made our way to Storkyrkan, one of the more interesting and pretty churches, whereas the Tyska Kyrkan was less interesting.
- Walked through the narrowest street of the old town, Marten Trotzings Grand.
- Most of the shops were closed because it was Sunday, but some were still open, with the most interesting being Ekovaruhuset, selling only organic stuff, with some very pretty organic clothes, and Kalika, selling toys including Pippi Longstocking dolls and finger puppets.
- Stocked up at the supermarket on herrings, salads, bread, gravalex before our flight.
- The Arlanda express was efficient, we hadn’t caught a late train yet in Stockholm.
- Airport was very boring though ,no Swedish shops like at the Revjavik airport, just international labels, and not interesting ones at that.
Food
- Connect Hotel breakfast:
- bread
- cucmber
- tomato
- pate
- ham
- cheese
- hot chocolate
- cappuccino
- peach and apple yoghurt
- roll with pate
- NH cardamom scroll
- NH lingoberry bread
- salmon gravalex
- pickled herring
- prawn salad with dill
- prawn, mushroom salad with dill
- wafer chocolate bar
Stockholm
Highlight
- The weather was quite bad, being very cold and overcast and it even snowed!
- The hotel breakfast was very boring, but they had some very nice bread.
- Caught the train to wonder around as things don’t open that early.
- Skogokyrkogargen Cemetery, the most picturesque cemetery I’ve been to, with tall pine trees and fresh flower beds. It’s famous for its architecture and Greta Garbo’s grave, which was really unexciting.
- Continued on the Garbo trail, to the place where she spent her childhood at Blekingegatan 32. There was a bust there to commemorate her, but otherwise, there was nothing there. At least you could observe suburban life though.
- Back on the tourist, past the seaside, to Katarina Kyrka, where you can observe some of the “old style” houses before they were knocked off.
- The church itself was yellow and beautiful, but it was burnt and rebuilt.
- Another church, Maria Magdalena Kyrka, was just about the same as the other one, so that was boring.
- Stockholm’s Stadmuseum is one of the only free museums left in the city, but the displays were modern and interesting. We learned about Stockholm’s history.
- Up Katarina Hissen for a view of the city. Had to walk though as we didn’t want to pay money for the lift.
- Wanted to go to Ostemalms Saluhall, the famous foodmarket for lunch, but a misprint on Lonely Planet meant we went on a wild goose chase instead, waited for ages for the bus, only to find that the stop we were supposed to go to turned out to be a museum!
- Bumped into Linus, who was here for the weekend, and he invited us to drinks.
- By the time we got back, it was 1:30, and sat down to an extremely good meal. We didn’t want to eat too much as we had booked dinner, but we did get a coffee at a recommended place (which turned out to be not that great).
- The 40 minutes we wasted on the wild goose chase meant that we had less time to shop as most close around 4-5pm and don’t open on Sundays.
- We managed to hit:
- Judits Secondhand - v cool and hip, with the whole SoFo area vibe.
- 10 Swedish Designers – funky fabrics
- Designtorget – closest to Ikea we found
- Nitty Gritty – very expensive and out there, combining clothes, music, books, a hairdresser and a cafe
- Byt this time a lto of stores were closing, so we wondered around a few clothing stores (btw, H&M are everywhere, but it’s quite popular and stock different stuff to what you get in the UK).
- Made it to Chokladfabriken just before they closed, got a very good hot chocolate and some truffles. The place was very full and very happening.
- Back to more wondering the streets…Ahlens (the Myer equivalent) and tried to get a hair cut, but we were too late and they were closed.
- We finally got kicked out, so headed early to F12 via yet another church.
- As usual ,we were the most underdressed of the lot. The wait staff were excellent, with very good English as can be expected. The place was very stylish, green being the dominant colour. They explained everything. We had the “innovative” tasting menu. While creative, some of the flavours were too strong and didn’t work well together, but it was very fun and different nevertheless, plus the waiters were very cute.
- Went back to change for the bar, but we were still the most underdressed, not to mention the ugliest. Everyone was blond, tall and skinny, and all seemed to be having a good time.
- We got to O’Baren just before midnight and had to line up. The place was packed and the drinks very expensive (well, the whole of Sweden is expensive, but their alcohol is outrageously so)
- We met quite a few of Linus’ friends and had a pretty good time.
- We left after 1am and got back after 2am, and was dead tired.
Food
- Connect Hotel breakfast:
- bread
- cucmber
- tomato
- pate
- ham
- cheese
- hot chocolate
- cappuccino
- pineapple and papaya yoghurt
- tasta mari lunch:
- herring plate with potatoes (80)
- saffron seafood soup(110)
- Roberts coffee latte (29)
- Chokladfabriken passionfruit truffle
- Chokladfabriken cardamom truffle
- F12 dinner:
- bread and bread sticks
- sour - onion pickle, salt – clavier, sweet – oyster crème brulee
- celery and apple drink
- .....
London -> Stockholm
Highlight
- Plane was delayed by 1.5 hours, but no announcement was given. There were lots and lots of people at London City airport, with absolutely nowhere to sit.
- The airport at Stockholm was completely different of course, it was completely deserted when we arrived.
- We were really confused by the train for ages, before finally figuring it out.
- We were confused again by the hotel, and couldn’t find the entrance for ages.
- Needless to say, it was very late before we got to sleep.
