Timing

When going on holiday it's always nice to plan stays to coincide with local festivals and celebrations. With this trip, however, I am where I am when I am and there's little I can do to alter that, as I move inexorably onwards towards my final goal (wherever that may be). I therefore often just miss out on various events that I would dearly love to experience but just can't reach in time. For example here in Norway I missed out on the National Day festivities on the 17th of May, which is supposedly the biggest celebration of the year, where people go a little bit crazy, wrap themselves up in their flags, and get horribly drunk in the streets (the latter is a common theme in Scandinavia). I was also wanting to do a fair amount of hiking whilst here (the landscapes of Denmark and the Netherlands don't really lend themselves to mountaineering), especially in the Jotunheimen national park, which is said to contain some of Norway's most spectacular mountain scenery and highest peaks. Since I would be doing this alone it is imperative to get properly informed, so I made my way to the DNT office (Det Norske Turistforening - Norwegian tourist association specialising in trekking) here in Oslo to enquire about conditions and about getting a map. The guy at the office said that this would be difficult for two reasons: firstly there is still a decent amount of snow from about 1000m and above (i.e. pretty much the entire park) - he even showed me a real-time webcam to prove his point; and secondly that the temporary bridges that are removed over winter have not been replaced, and so all rivers, which are now high with meltwater, need to be forded. Needless to say I will be revising my plans in light of this and will have to opt for lower altitude hiking.

Oslo's funky new opera house, whose roof has become a favourite public space.

Slag

Stockholm is, for the immediate future, the eastern limit of my travels - I now had to make an about turn and head almost due west towards Oslo, as I am hoping to circumvent the Gulf of Bothnia via Norway and Finland. My dilemma, therefore, was to devise an itinerary to get me there. My first stop was easy to choose: not only is Uppsala an erstwhile Swedish capital, but more importantly (for me), it was home to a certain Carl Linnaeus. He may not be a household name, but to biologists he is up there with Darwin and David Attenborough, for having devised the binomial system of classification of all living things which is still in use today. The town is cashing in on its famous son and there are a myriad museums and sites connected with his life and work. From Uppsala there are no obvious stops before Oslo and so I consulted The List. I find UNESCO world heritage sites a useful way to form a rough outline for a travel itinerary, which can then be fleshed out with more places as I do more research. I'm not overly dogmatic about them and do not feel I have to tick every single one off in each country that I visit, but I do feel that they are a useful starting point from which to begin investigating potential places to visit. They are invariably unique places and often they are either aesthetically beautiful or culturally and historically important or maybe even a combination of the two. Northwest of Uppsala (so roughly in the right direction) are two such sites, at Ängelsberg and Falun, that characterise Sweden's unique industrial past.

Even Falun's slag heaps (the detritus from the copper smelting process) are considered part of the World Heritage area.

Food In A Tube

Spring finally arrived yesterday with a bang: out of nowhere a balmy, sunny day with nary a cloud in sight. You could almost see the buds burst open in front of your eyes and by the end of the day most trees actually had leaves and were a beautiful, vivid green of fresh growth. I even managed to ditch my jacket and jumper and wear just a T-shirt for the first time as well (a memorable event which was duly noted in my personal diary). Café owners rushed to dust off their outdoor furniture as the sun-starved Swedes came out in force in their skimpiest clothing to take advantage of every last second of sun as if it might be their last, which, according to one particularly pessimistic countryman that I met on a bus, it well could be (at least for this year).

People are beginning to come out on Stockholm's streets as the sun makes a tentative appearance.

Desperately Seeking Spring In Sweden

From Copenhagen I crossed the Øresund, over the mighty Øresund bridge, to Sweden. Unfortunately my hitching exploits didn't get me far and I got stuck in Malmo and had to continue by train (the Swedes are notoriously reticent in picking up hitchers). The difference in landscape is immediately visible as so far the countryside had been dominated by flat farmland with the odd hill here and there, but now forests were holding their own against the agricultural hegemony and brick and cement houses have given way to brightly painted (mainly red or yellow) timber. And although the scenery might have changed a bit one thing that has remained constant during my trip has been the weather. I have been making my way steadily northeastwards and so have remained one step ahead of spring. Wherever I have been the signs of its imminent arrival have abounded: pre-spring flowers like daffodils, snowdrops and forest anemones are everywhere; the buds on the trees are awaiting to explode into leaf; and the weather's more changeable than a teenage girl deciding what clothes to wear to a party. The one constant has been the cold weather, with it barely ever exceeding 10 C so that my one jumper and thermal long-johns have become a permanent fixture of my daily wardrobe.

I headed quickly to the east coast towns of Karlskrona and Kalmar, which are interesting as they chart two tumultuous phases of Swedish history. Kalmar, the older of the two, used to mark the border between Denmark and Sweden and is famous for the treaty that was signed there which united the kingdoms of Denmark, Norway and Sweden. It was never really popular in Sweden though as they felt they were getting a raw deal from the Danes (with whom they have fought numerous times over the years and have a love-hate relationship) and it only lasted for 125 years. During that time Kalmar was at the centre of the Union, afterwards it withered away to a provincial backwater, albeit one with some nice old bits. As Sweden rose as a regional power (to the detriment of Denmark), with possessions on both sides of the Baltic, it decided to build a super-duper new naval base from scratch on a deserted archipelago on the south coast which became Karlskrona. Built in the latest baroque style the main town was off limits to civilians well into the Cold War era, but with the decreasing importance of the military it is now diversifying into a student and IT town.

Kalmar castle, at one time the capital of the short-lived union of Sweden, Denmark and Norway.

To See Or Not To See

Denmark occupies a strategically important position at the entrance to the Baltic Sea that has been its major trump card throughout much of its history. At its narrowest point the Øresund straight that separates Denmark from Sweden and the Scandinavian mainland is less than 4km wide. In the 14 hundreds the wily Danish king Erik (good name that) decided to make use of this interesting geographical feature and decided to levy all passing ships to help supplement his coffers - a clever move which funded the kingdom for the next 400 years (during the Middle Ages the Sound Dues provided two thirds of Denmark's state income). To back up his toll requests he carried a very big stick in the form of two castles built on either side of the straights at Helsingborg and at Helsingør, which is also known in English as Elsinore. To classical literature buffs the name of Elsinore is indelibly etched together with English literature's most quoted and most popular character: Shakespeare's tormented Hamlet.

The imposing Kronborg castle defends the Øresund Straight, once the main source of Denmark's wealth.

10 Years Old Again

For such a small country the Danes certainly punch above their weight when it comes to contributions to world culture. Even as a child I was surrounded by a cavalcade of Danish imports: Hans Christian Anderson and his stories; Thor and his Viking hordes; Brian Laudrup and his magic right foot; sizzling bacon in a full English breakfast; and Sandi Toksvig on childrens' TV (OK, scraping the bottom of the barrel with that last one). But no Danish invention has made a bigger impression on the world than a collection of coloured, moulded plastic. Welcome to the home of Lego.

A Lego model of an oil platform (sponsored by the Danish energy company DONG) for my old colleagues in London.

Viking Wisdom

As you head north from Lübeck you start travelling through the Jutland Peninsula. Had you been wandering around this area some 1200 years ago you might not have survived for very long as it was the heart of the kingdom of the Danes, who liked to go viking (apparently, the word viking, as indicated by its gerund ending, is actually a verb, and refers to the act of piracy and plundering that was carried out by various Norse peoples, and not to the people themselves - but seeing as that's not how people know them let's just call them Vikings and be done with it). Even though their pillaging days are over you can see their legacy in place names: the further north you venture the greater the number of towns that end in -by or -lund.

The two greatest Viking cities of the time, Haithabu and Ribe, were both situated on strategic crossing points of the peninsula and controlled the burgeoning trade between the North and Baltic Seas (much like Lübeck was to several centuries later). Their halcyon days, sadly, are long gone. Haithabu was sacked by some marauding Slavic tribes, and, although it reformed as the Germanic town of Schleswig and enjoyed moderate prosperity, it was never to regain its former glory when it was the largest city north of the Alps; and Ribe? well it never lived up to expectations and remained on the periphery of Danish affairs, especially once the capital left Jutland and moved to Copenhagen.

The Viking past does, however, live on in other ways (and not just the museums that try and cash-in on the Viking popularity with dress-up actors with long hair, stick-on beards and uncomfortable looking woollen shirts) - not so much in military terms, but in the towns' mercantile natures and openness to the world, mirroring the days when Norse traders roamed as far afield as Baghdad and Iceland and even the shores of the New World. Both towns were centres of learning, punching above their weight in terms of literary sons, and both were home to many sailors and merchants as I discovered when ambling through the old streets of Schleswig, taking pictures of picturesque old buildings.

"So you like old knick-knacks?" demanded an older, heavy-set man with a pail as I was kneeling down to get the right angle for my composition. "You're not Chinese are you?"
When I told him that I thought the old town was very pretty and that no, I wasn't Chinese, but Scottish, he brightened up and launched, unbid, into a reminiscence of his seafaring days.
"Ah, I was in Scotland once. In Lewis. Didn't like it though - I got fined £25 for wolf-whistling this lady there. £25 was a lot of money in those days."
"Indeed," I agreed, as I thought it was better to just nod sympathetically.
"But at least you got somewhere with them, mind you, not like those French Canadian lasses; there was one nice one in Montreal but you couldn't get (and at this point he made a gesture with his fist where he held his thumb between his second and third fingers - I had never come across it before but the meaning was pretty evident). No sir. Not without a ring on her finger, being Catholic and all. No ring, no - (and once again the sign)"
Again I thought it best to nod and make a few acquiescing "mmmm" sounds, as I didn't quite know what the appropriate reply was.
"Do you like fish?" he asked, changing the subject (or at least I hoped he was changing the subject). "I'm off to get some herrings," he said, pointing at his bucket.
Sensing a possible escape route I truthfully said, "Sorry, I'm allergic."
"Too bad," he muttered, before trundling off to the quayside.

And as quickly as he came he was gone again, ready to bestow his worldly wisdom upon other needy youngsters.

Hansa

The low, flat landscape of the northern Netherlands imperceptibly gives way to the low, flat landscape of northern Germany. Having spent a year at school here I always feel comfortable travelling through Germany, both from my ease with the language but also from a sense of familiarity. During that year our history lessons spanned the 14th to 16th centuries. At the time Western Europe, and especially Germany, was split into many little fiefdoms and kingdoms. One of the most important, and breaking the whole feudal trend, was the Hansa, or Hanseatic League. The League was comprised of (semi-)independent trading towns around the North and Baltic Seas, stretching from Scotland and Norway all the way to Russia in the east and Belgium in the south, interested in freeing and facilitating trade. In many ways the Hansa was ahead of its time, an early forerunner of the EU, with its emphasis on the rule of law and free trade to maintain stability in what were, for the rest of Europe, tormented times. The Hansa became so powerful that it even took up arms against countries, managing to sack Copenhagen and earn a draw with England. The Hansa have stuck in my memory probably because our class managed to persuade our (very easy-going) teacher to play a computer game, called Patricians, which aims to simulate the Hanseatic trade, as part of our lessons. (Which just goes to show how useful computers are as an aid to learning.)

Lübeck's iconic Holstentor and a couple of the city's churches with their spiky spires (Lübeck is also known as the City of 7 Towers because of them).

Fietsen In Friesland

Along with tulips, clogs, windmills and cheese the Netherlands is famous for being both the most densely populated country (of any consequence) in Europe, as well as the most intensively cultivated. Given these two pressures on space I imagined the country to be a duotony of cities and fields. The towns of the Randstand - the super-conurbation where two thirds of the population live and that spreads in a crescent from Utrecht in the northeast via Amsterdam, The Hague and Rotterdam to Dordrecht in the southeast - are certainly visually rather samey: sober brick buildings with a historic core both surrounded and bisected by canals. And for most visitors this is the only image they will get of the Netherlands. I wanted to see the other half too; the polders reclaimed from the clutches of the North Sea, the unending flat lands, the most productive farming area in the world. It's amazing to think that such a small country could be the world's third-largest agricultural exporter (by value). I pictured it to be some grim, soulless, bio-factory.

Typical dutch country house with its own, ultra-green patch of garden and bijou canal.

Shiny Happy People

Travelling in the Netherlands is a dawdle: distances are small, the public transport infrastructure is extensive, and you don't even have to wait long to hitch a ride. But above all the vast majority of people speak English. This not only helps when buying bus tickets, but also allows you to have more complex discussions, about politics, religion and family life; things that make people tick.

I've always had a soft spot for the Dutch: their live-and-let-live liberalism; their openness to foreigners; their modest, hard-working Calvinism; and their appreciation of British humour. The few Dutch people I have spoken to, however, are worried that their country may be seen to be losing its tolerant ways to the wave of protectionism and xenophobia that has been sweeping through Western countries (epitomised by, but not restricted to, anti-Islamic sentiments and pronouncements) and that has found its voice here in the form of the controversial politician Geert Wilders with his loopy views on Islam and immigration. There is a growing sense of impending doom as the national elections approach that his party might become a dominant force. Sitting side by side with the stereotype of liberalism is that of being dour, serious and humourless. This stems from their Calvinist history which frowns on ostentation and demands that people be honest with each other. To outsiders who may be more used to elaborate formalities when dealing with people this may come across as rudeness, but instead it is an effort to be as clear and precise as possible and to talk openly about things which are often swept under the carpet. In fact the Dutch abhor confrontation and work through consensus whenever possible (on two separate occasions I was introduced to the idea of the polder model, something the Dutch are quite proud of, and quite rightly so in my view).

A typically stereotypical (although actually not that common) Dutch countryside scene, complete with your obligatory windmills. Kinderdijk.