10am, Storlien, Norwegian-Swedish Border, 19 August 2009
It's Wednesday morning, and I'm sitting on a train at the border station of Storlien. The pretty young woman in Norwegian Railways purple who checked my ticket as we left Trondheim has left the train – from my window seat I can see her from my window seat chatting to the driver of the returning train – and in her place a skinny blonde girl with orange fake-tan glow and a mouthful of chewing gum has boarded our tiny red train. As she draws nearer, double-checking tickets from the Swedish side of things, I see that her navy blue polarfleece vest bears a familiar logo...Connex. No, it's not a nightmare...Nabotåget, the “neighbour train” which I am riding, is operated on the Swedish side of the border by none other than our own dear Connex. Or at least an entity with the same name...
Globalisation brings strange reminders of home to this corner of the world: “Genuine Australian Made Ice Cream” in Brussels (apparently we're renowned for our ice-cream...), an Aussie accent cutting through a crowd in the narrow streets of Stockholm's Gamla Stan, a rack of Yarra Valley reds in Copenhagen Airport duty-free. But Connex in a mountain pass in Scandinavia? Who'd have thought it...
My week in Norway began in the city of Bergen, on the Western Fjords. This fjord-side town of a quarter of a million is Norway's second largest city, and probably its biggest tourist centre; in summer it throngs with tourists come to see the UNESCO World Heritage listed medieval buildings of Bryggen and the incredible coastline of fjords and islands that stretches for miles in every direction. The predominantly wooden Norwegian cities have a distinct tendency to burn; the entire town, with the exception of a handful of stone buildings (mostly churches), burnt to the ground in 1702, and there have been other major fires since. Today the buildings are mostly eighteenth and nineteeth-century structures; regal constructions of stuccoed brick and stone lining broad avenues in the centre, pretty wooden buildings huddling together along narrower cobbled streets as the city rises steeply up the sides of its surrounding mountains, where the flecks of red, white and yellow houses can be seen nestled among the trees. The steep, tree-covered slopes, the blue sky and the green waters of the fjord give, by encroaching so close to the city's core, a sense of closeness to nature, allowing the visitor a feeling of both openness and security; a broad vista and an enveloping snugness. The city is blessed with plenty of parks, gardens and pedestrian squares (often built as firebreaks), the air is fresh and tinged with seaside saltiness, and (thanks to those tree-covered hillsides) the drinking water is delicious.
I have noted in my few weeks in Scandinavia a tendency to odd museums: a museum of matches, a museum of herring can labels, a museum of penises, and even a museum of those tiny glass bottles you get in hotel minibars... Bergen's offering in this field is the Leprosy museum, in a genuine old leprosy hospital near the railway station. Norway has the dubious honour of having had one of the world's highest incidences of leprosy – possibly exacerbated by its coastal geography and high levels of foreign trade – and the last of the lepers at the Bergen hospitals (there were several) passed away only in the middle of last century. It was an interesting place, but terribly sad; the suffering of these people would have been very great, not only their physical pain and disfigurement, but the fact that they were locked away from the world, and from a real life, with no hope of treatment.
Bergen is also the home town of Edvard Greig and Ole Bull, and I was lucky enough to arrive during the annual Greig Festival. My second night in the city was spent in the Korskyrke (Church of the Cross) enjoying a concert of Greig songs for soprano, interspersed with some of both his and Bull's lighter piano works, and a very interesting commentary on Greig's life and works by both Soprano and Pianist. I don't think I've enjoyed a concert quite so much for a long time...it is a pity that the Norwegian lyrics probably make these songs less accessible to most singers, because the Greig's melodic writing for the voice is superb to listen to.
On my second day in Bergen I rose early, and wandered down through the crisp morning air to the harbour, where I boarded a ferry to the tiny township of Flåm at the head of the Aurlandsfjord, an inner branch of the mighty Sognefjord. This magnificent natural wonder in the longest fjord in the world, cutting inland 204km (almost halfway to Sweden!), at its deepest point over 1300m deep, and lying between mountains over 1000m high. The glacier that carved it left behind perhaps the most breathtakingly beautiful natural scenery I have ever experienced. Steep green slopes rose majestically toward snow-capped peaks; massive grey cliffs plunged hundreds of metres into blue-green water as smooth as glass except where our wake disturbed it. Here and there tiny red farmsteads clung impossibly to the high slopes, and occasionally quaint little hamlets revealed themselves huddled into a cove or bend, or climbing the face of a lush green valley. From the plateaus above us, waterfalls tumbled from their glacial sources down almost sheer escarpments, or cut narrow gullies so deep into the face of the mountains that they could be see only for a few seconds as our boat passed by.
Despite biting winds from our ferry's passage, and the heavy summer rains, I remained on deck as long as I could stand it, taking photographs or just staring out at the incredible scenery that unveiled itself anew with each slight bend in the fjord, from time to time thawing my icy hands over the ferry's heat exhausts and venturing into the cabin only when my I could no longer bear the cold. Huddling over the chocolate Hannah bought me before my departure I gazed out of the windows, wishing for the first time on this trip that I had worn warmer clothing.
Arriving into Flåm at lunchtime, I left the ferry for the trip back into Bergen via the famous Flåmbana railway. The Flåmbana is a remarkable work of engineering: the cute little green train climbs over 860m in just 20km, at a maximum grade of 1:18, through nine tunnels and over three bridges to Myrdal station on the mainline between Oslo and Bergen. All this is achieved with regular electric traction; Flåmbana is no funicular and there are no lines or cogwheels in sight. The rugged beauty of the Aurlands valley is spectacular, particularly the wild waterfalls and the views through the “windows” cut into the sides of the mountain tunnels near the top of the valley, but nothing could compare to the fjord journey I had just undertaken.
My last day in Bergen was spent exploring Bryggen, the UNESCO World Heritage listed waterfront shop/office/dwelling/warehouses of the medieval Hanseatic merchants. For anyone totally in the dark on the Hanseatic League, they were a kind of trading guild of northern european cities controlled by German merchants and centred on the city of Lübeck in what's now northern Germany. They operated out of hundreds of cities around the Baltic and the North Sea, and controlled key trade links and commodities between ports as far afield as Iceland, Portugal and Russia, but they had just four principle Kontore (offices) outside Lübeck itself: London, Bruges, Novgorod and Bergen. The league began operations in 1159, and reached its peak in the mid-14th century, gradually dying away in the mid-16th century as the power of the region's states (notably Sweden, Denmark and the German principalities) increased. The Bergen Kontor was founded in 1360, and for over four centuries controlled the vital trade in Norwegian stockfish, exchanging it for the grains that Norway's harsh climate could not produce. Something of an anachronism in a new Europe of nation-states, it operated until 1754, some 85 years after the last formal meeting of the League.
Bryggen (which means “the wharf” in Norwegian) was a city within a city, where the Hansa merchants, their journeymen assistants and the “boys” who served them lived a life that faintly resembled monasticism, if a monasticism dedicated to wealth-creation... There were no women allowed (although the row of brothels behind the wharf tells another story), they ate together in a Schøtstuene (a sort of dining room/meeting hall), spoke their own language, lived by their own laws, distributed their own punishments and followed their own customs. They payed little or not tax to the Norwegian Kings (whose castle was only a few hundred metres up the road), who tolerated them only because they controlled 80-90% of the stockfish trade and without them, Norway would struggle to feed its population.
Before catching the night train to Oslo, I spent my final evening in Bergen warming my hands on a hot chocolate and watching the sun set over Bergen. From the lookout on top of Mt Fløyen, accessible from the heart of town via the very steep Fløibanen funicular, I watched the sun drop achingly slowly into the water beyond the outer islands, tinting the clouds with beautiful shades of pink, orange and purple as below me the lights of Bergen twinkled in the twilight. I rode the funicular back down into the city in the gathering darkness, and found my slightly space-age train awaiting me in the cavernous interior of Bergen's bluestone station.
After a sleep disturbed partly by the unfamiliar motion of the train, but mostly by my highly addictive copy of World War Z: an Oral History of the Zombie War (is it weird to assess each place you visit not only for aesthetics, tourist appeal, friendliness, etc...but also for likely fate given a Zombie Apocalypse?) I blundered bleary-eyed from my cosy compartment into the crisp Oslo morning. As the tourist office was closed at this ungodly hour of 8am on a Saturday, I made myself a breakfast of sorts out of the food I was carrying: packet waffles from Trina, chocolate from Hannah, and fresh strawberries from the Fiskmarkt beside the harbour in Bergen. The friendly young woman in the tourist office looked at my askance when I asked her for directions to my hostel: “That's not even in Oslo” she said, raising her eyebrows. “You'll have to catch a bus for about 15 minutes.” Her voice betrayed more than a little incredulity at what was in her eyes a horrendous commute.
Once I had my things safely stowed in the rather cheerless hostel room, I returned to the city centre and, on a whim, caught a ferry out to the Bygdøy Peninsula, intending to visit the open-air Norwegian Folk Museum. The weather had other plans, however, and as the rain churned the surface of the Oslofjord I made my way between the puddles to the Kon-Tiki Museum. Thor Heyerdahl, anthropologist, explorer, seafarer and all-round adventurer, was a Norwegian, and this museum is a tribute to his exploits, his scientific achievements, and his firm belief that people of different cultures can work together for a better world. On the side of the museum is a quote of his which I liked:
Borders?
I have never seen one.
But I have heard they exist
in the minds of some people.
I found the exhibits on his expeditions to Easter Island particularly fascinating, especially the video of the local people demonstrating how the famous Malcolm-esque statues might have been cut, shaped, and moved the vast distances required. After lunch I dashed through the puddles to the Norwegian Maritime Museum – an afterthought in many countries, but in Norway something central to their history and way of life. The place was immense; some highlights for me were the “Supervideografen” panorama film of the beautiful Norwegian coast and the temporary exhibition on “boat refugees” which featured Australia (deservedly, given that Tampa was a Norwegian ship) in a less than positive light. There was a whole building full of coastal boats of various types, and an entire floor of model ships which put me in mind of Joe's house – I imagine that if Steve lived for two or three more centuries, he would create this place.
With fairer weather on my second day in Oslo, I was able to return to Bygdøy and visit the Folk Museum – a sort of medieval Norwegian Sovereign Hill made up of genuine historic buildings taken from places all over the country. They're a interesting things actually, another Scandinavian museum phenomena: there is one on the island of Djurgården in Stockholm, and another in Trondheim, and (according to Wikipedia) perhaps a dozen more in various spots around the region. According to my tour guide, they were mostly put together around the turn of the century as part of Norway's resurgent nationalism and the widespread desire to break the union with Sweden. For some reason, the nationalists decided that the inland farming peoples were the “most Norwegian”, and although they made up only a tiny part of the population their habits, costume, dress, language – and in this case, their houses – were given a privileged position in the national psyche. In many of these isolated farming communities, life had gone on unchanged since the middle ages, and so the nationalists inadvertently preserved much which was of great value.
The place is fairly large, but the highlight for me was the beautifully carved stave church. They were apparently constructed in the most amazing way: all the pieces were cut beforehand, and then put together like a huge 3D jigsaw puzzle. In the choir, our guide pointed out runic carving beneath the painted tableaux of the Last Supper. Consisting of prayers, thoughts, quotations and instructions, their origin is something of a mystery, as only the priest was allowed in the choir. The engraving on the door of the sacristy is plain enough though, above the high step below it reads: 'Do Not Fall Down'. Other highlights were watching folk music and traditional dancing, eating the sweet, flat lefse fresh from the griddle and dripping with butter, touring an apartment building with apartments done up to represent different periods in history (including one decorated as Ibsen's Dolls House) and visiting the quirky and slightly terrifying exhibit on Norwegian Dentistry down the ages...they really do have a museum for everything up here...
My last stop in Oslo was the Viking Ship Museum, which houses three ships – and their contents – uncovered in burial mounds around the turn of the last century. One, the Tune Ship, is quite badly broken up, but the other two, the Oseberg and Gokstad ships, are in remarkable condition, looking almost as if they could set sail any day now. Important Viking leaders were buried in their ships with all the supplies it was thought were needed for the journey to the afterlife. While grave robbers had stolen the most valuable grave-goods, much remains today: beautifully carved carts and sledges, tent poles and pegs, buckets, tools and cooking equipment, needles, combs, cloth...and of course the skeletal remains themselves. I think when I put the photos of this on Facebook, my mother the Viking Studies student will be here on my doorstep within three days...
The following morning I boarded a train heading northward to Trondheim, Europe's northernmost Catholic pilgrimage point, and the last stop on my own pilgrimage. The train journey was long – my “cheap” cut-price ticket (399 NOK, around $80 AUD) meant two changes and an eight hour journey – but the views were often beautiful. Norway has something of the “toyland” landscapes I described in Sweden, but they are tempered by a wildness in the natural beauty that seems less prevalent on the other side of the border. On the second train of the day – between Hamar and Røros – my neighbour attempted to strike up a conversation. As he was both unable to speak much English and (I suspect from other passengers' glances) something of a “train crazy”, this proved difficult. That his topic of choice was comparative literature made things no easier...
With just one full day in Trondheim I rose early, and walked along the ridge line through the pretty wooden houses of one of the city's hillside suburbs. I eventually reached a park, and cresting a hill found myself gazing out over a large expanse of grass to a solid, impressive-looking Festning or fortress surmounted by an enormous Norwegian flag. From the battlements I had a fantastic view of the town; the curving arcs of the River Nid winding out into the Trondheimsfjord, the surrounding hills and valleys and directly beneath me my next destination: the magnificent Nidaros Cathedral. The massive stone structure – sitting as it does somewhat apart from other buildings in a green and tranquil churchyard – conveys an aura of power and majesty, soaring upwards toward the heavens in the bright August morning. It's enormous, intricately-carved West Front stops even the modern viewer in their tracks, leaving them to stand rapt in awe and to contemplate the effect that seeing this structure might have had on a medieval pilgrim.
Entering the gloom of the Cathedral from the harsh light outside, the very “Gothic-ness” of the architecture dominated my thoughts. While the excellent tour guide pointed out the rougher Norman and Romanesque features of the lower parts of the transept, the overpowering effect of the cathedral was unmistakably Gothic: huge scalloped pillars towered upwards to pointed arches, supporting a groin-vaulted ceiling of great intricacy. In the walls of the aisles, stained glass in dark medieval reds and blues told the stories of Old and New Testaments to queuing pilgrims waiting to see the jewel-encrusted shrine of St. Olav, patron saint of Norway, and take the waters at his holy fountain. The shrine itself was stolen by the Danes and melted down to make their Crown Jewels, but Olav is still buried here somewhere in the cathedral, the location unknown because the Danes did not want their barely-subjugated Norwegian vassals to have a religious rallying point. As I leave the cathedral, the huge semi-precious stone in the centre of the West Front's rose window casts a heavenly red glow over the forest of columns in the Nave, the early-afternoon light catching the tableaux over the entrance, warning departing pilgrims with its depiction of the Last Judgement. The remainder of the day was spent wandering in the town centre and in the museums of the nearby Archbishop's Palace: I visited the Royal Coronation Regalia, the palace and cathedral history exhibits, the Rustkammaren (Military Museum) and the Norwegian Resistance Museum. The moving Memorial Hall listed the names of over 1300 Norwegians who died just in this county, Trøndelag, in the five years of occupation.
I've been in Norway for just seven full days – not nearly enough to explore this wild and beautiful country – and now I'm forced to turn south and head for Uppsala, my home for the rest of this year. I bring my journey to an end with somewhat mixed emotions. On the one hand I wish desperately for more time, particularly to push further north, perhaps even go as far as Nordkapp and gaze out over the Arctic Ocean towards the top of the world. On the other hand I feel relief that I can settle down, have my things around me in comfort and security, not have to worry about how long something will take to dry or what foods will pack well or whether it is safe to leave a valuable item in my room. And of course there is also the excitement of starting my exchange, with all the experiences and possibilities that brings.
Saturday, August 22, 2009
Friday, August 14, 2009
It's Tuesday, so that must have been Belgium...
12:50pm, Copenhagen Kastrup Airport, 11 August 2009
I'm sitting in a cafe at Kastrup Airport south of Copenhagen, picking at my leftover wedges, listening to “Rocket Man” on the PA system, waiting for my flight to Bergen (on the Western fjords of Norway) and trying to collect my thoughts on the last twelve days. In that time I've visited five different cities: Copenhagen, Malmö, Brussels, Bruges and Antwerp; I've met many new people; I've taken over one thousand photographs; I've attempted to speak Danish, Dutch, French and Swedish (none of them with much success, although as always my pronunciation of the four words I can remember is just lovely) and I have turned twenty-three.
Forgive me, vicarious travellers, for not posting anything sooner, but I think from that brief summary you might be able to gather why I haven't!! It is difficult to start...although I boarded that train in Stockholm just twelve days ago, it feels like much longer...
My X2000 high-speed train to Malmö left Stockholm's grand Centralstationen at 7:21am and very quietly (at least from the inside) rocketed south through the Swedish countryside. The scenery was slightly unreal...like something from a chocolate box or a children's book, and the relative silence of the train as it hurried along only added to the impression of something fantastical. Thick green pine forests broken at intervals by lakes – sudden shocking expanses of silver water – giving way further south to fields of waving yellow grain, and all of it interspersed with cute little red and white half-timbered houses, barns and summer cottages. I spend the journey nibbling at my food supplies, writing postcards, staring out at the countryside and reading Silence of the Lambs to counteract the impression that I had crossed over into Toyland.
In Malmö I had a picnic beside the canal in the sunshine – sharing my slightly squashed strawberries with a overly-friendly bumble-bee – before decoding a Swedish ticket machine and boarding an Øresundståg to Copenhagen. The Øresund Bridge between Malmö and Copenhagen must surely be one of the most astonishing works of engineering in the world, an eight-kilometer bridge and undersea tunnel carrying road and rail traffic across the Øresund between Sweden and Denmark via an artificial island just off Copenhagen. The bridge is 7.8km long and 204m high; this connects to a 4km artificial island, which itself is the beginning of a further 4km undersea tunnel to the Danish mainland. I took advantage of the tremendous views on offer by falling asleep, only stirring when the train slid into Køpenhavn H and disgorged me and my bags into the startling Danish sunlight.
Totally disoriented, tired and sore from my stupid shoulder bag, I blundered out into the centre of Copenhagen, and proceeded to write the whole place off as ugly, dirty, noisy, cluttered with too much ugly 70s high-rise and basically inferior to Stockholm in every way. I flounced down to the hostel I'd booked, City Public Hostel on Absalonsgade, and immediately had my disappointment reinforced. It appeared to be school which was closed for summer and hastily retro-fitted as a hostel. Everything had a partly institutional, partly temporary feel, and it wasn't even cheap.
By the next morning, Copenhagen was beginning to look much rosier. It was still not as pretty as Stockholm, but a good night's sleep, a shower and a shave, and a lobby full of friendly Aussies (from Geelong, no less...) do wonders for one's open-mindedness...
I spent the day wandering in Copenhagen, and once I got out of the centre, I found it much more attractive. Having been a bit sad to leave Stockholm on the verge of its apparently very exciting Pride Week Parade, I was surprised to find Copenhagen hosting the World Out Games. There were dykes and drag-queens and gay Nordic men in tiny shorts and angel wings as far as the eye could see. I felt bad for every gay person I know for not being there...it was some party! Feeling rather out of place as a straight man, I climbed up a church tower (around 390 steps) for a fantastic view of the city, walked along the canals looking at cute wooden boats and wandered through the rather sad remains of the “Free Town” of Christiania. Once apparently a thriving commune, it now resembles the Royal Melbourne Showgrounds if that was taken over entirely by aging hippies, dodgy carnies and drug-dealers. So a bit like the Royal Show then, but without the cows. I visited the Christiansborg Palace complex in the center of town. This is the seat of the Danish Parliament (which I couldn't find), and was in the past the Royal Residence. After being burned down and rebuilt for the third time (with no incarnation last more than about 50 years) the Danish royals apparently gave the whole thing up as a bad job. Now they use only the Royal Reception Rooms, which I had a guided tour of. They are very beautiful, and have a library straight out of “Beauty and the Beast”. I also thought I saw Mary & Frederick (HRHs) in the gardens nearby with their little princes, but not being an avid reader of New Idea, I couldn't be certain...
My second day was even better. I made friends in the hostel lobby with an Englishman named Tom, and together we caught the train up to the palace/fortress at Kronberg in Helsingør. Never heard of it? Yes you have. In English we call it Elsinore, and it's the fictional home of Bill Shakespeare's Prince of Procrastination, Hamlet himself. In real life, it was a symbol of Danish power and a practical weapon in control of the entrance to the Øresund. From the cannons on top of the walls, it was easy to see how the incredibly narrow straight and the prevailing winds could be used to force ships into the range of the guns and thus extract the “Sound dues” demanded by the King's treasury and the salutary dipping of the topsail demanded by his sense of self-importance. For anyone getting bored by the history, I also looked at the gorgeous carvings in the chapel, explored the very cool, almost pitch-black catacombs under the fortress, and (for the Gilbert & Sullivan fans) learned what a Ravelin is. It's a sort of defensive island within a moat, between inner and outer gatehouses. Now I just need to discover what the hell a Mamellon is, and I'll be the very model of a modern Major-General...
On returning to Copenhagen, I had one last walk through the city, checking out Castellen, the city's fort (still in military hands), the Little Mermaid (terribly underwhelming), the Danish Resistance Museum (terribly sad, but made me feel good about humanity), the Amalienborg Palace (a palace in the round...) and the University quarter. Then I headed to the train station where, after a few false starts (Danish trains apparently don't work in the rain) I crossed the bridge to Malmö, this time actually taking in the magnificent views of the Øresund.
There is apparently a saying that runs “When one is tired of Malmö, one is tired of life”. This could be considered a slight overstatement. A good breakfast smörgåsbord, a light drizzle, a plate of reasonably-priced meatballs, a twisted skyscraper, a collection of interesting museums (helpfully all in the same place: the Castle) and some amusing Welshmen are all very well, but hardly left me ready to write to Dr. Philip Nitschke...even when you throw in the vintage tram, the walk in submarine and the nocturnal animal house with its cute sugar gliders. Still, I had a reasonably entertaining time given that I had only one day to explore Sweden's third largest city.
Of course, I had only one day because I was spending my twenty-third birthday in Brussels with one of my oldest friends. Yes, you did forget my birthday. (Unless you didn't of course, thank you to those people, who are staying in the will). I was offered a bed (or a floor, at least) for as long as I wanted, and in the end I stayed for seven nights, leaving early this morning.
“What on earth does one do for six and a half days in Brussels?” I hear you wondering. “We didn't sign on for vicarious travel to the dullest capital city in Europe.” (feel free to suggest/share stories of duller European capitals in the comments below, by the way)
Fear not friends, for Brussels is the kind of town where having a local guide opens doors to a much more exciting lifestyle. And, while I lacked a true local, I did have perhaps the greatest Francophile and Europhile ever to come out of the ANU, my dear old friend Trina. My seven nights on Trina's floor (actually...six nights, and one on her friend's bed with about five other people in advanced stages of unconsciousness after a crazy housewarming party – actually the only one who didn't sleep on that bed was the hostess – she slept on the couch!) were actually an absolute godsend, and I'm sure I overstayed my welcome, although Trina insists not, and even gave me waffles to take on the plane with me...I'm nibbling on one as I write this...
This post is already far too long, so I'll have to just give the absolute highlights of the week. Firstly, a big shout out to any and all of Trina's friends who I met in Brussels, especially Rowan and Maaike, who were both so hospitable and asked only for foot massages and dirty secrets about Trina in return. On my birthday I wandered through the Art Nouveau wonderland of the Musical Instrument Museum, with its rooms of bagpipes, accordions and talking drums, its marvellous seven-belled valve trombone, and other instruments so weird I couldn't identify them (especially not with labels in Dutch and French); then Trina and I ate cake in her kitchen and we drank beer and ate fantastic choose-your-own-adventure stir-fry in Place du Chatelain. The following day for lunch I ate frites from the Best Little Frite-house in Brussels (reference entirely for Josh, who would love frites) toured the European Parliament building, which was fascinating to an EU novice like me, and spent the evening drinking mango juice and smoking strawberry shisha in a flat overlooking the Red Light District. Maaike provided binoculars for entertainment – I think I saw some guys break into a car...
I made two trips to Flanders on Trina's railpass: the first to Bruges, the second to Antwerp. In Bruges (hehehe) I wandered into a little church and sat listening to an organist practicing, before chatting to an ancient Benedictine nun who asked me (in Dutch, German, French, and eventually English) if I played the organ and then confessed that she had (at approximately 85) started learning so she could play at Mass! I took a boat cruise, ate more frites (which are freiten here, and God help you if you accidently say bonjour or merci...), climbed a belfry, ate a ridiculous amount of chocolate and walked all over town taking an absurd number of photographs. In Antwerp I explored every facet (pun for you sir) of the intruiging Diamond Museum, marvelled at the Brabant-Gothic meisterwerk of Antwerp's enormous seven-aisled cathedral (with its many excellent Rubens'), and ate delicious waffles with melted chocolate from a stall in the remarkable turn-of-the-century train station.
I saw the grand and beautiful high-baroque and high-gothic guild halls of Grand Place, the nineteenth-century elegance of the Galleries St-Hubert, the proto-fascist exuberance of the Mont d'Arts and the Gothic splendour of Notre-Dame d'Sablon. I wandered aimlessly through picturesque gardens, reading, writing postcards and eating ice-cream in the shade of grand avenues of oaks . I ate chocolate-coated strawberries so good that Trina and I agreed they were an adequate replacement for sex. I drank at least 6 different types of beer (not a lot for Brussels, where one bar has over 3000 different types), rode the filthy but surprisingly efficient underground trams and metro all across town for free, because nobody pays in Brussels (the city can't be bothered paying for revenue enforcement...too much like hard work), played “never have I ever” in a bar at 2am and partied in the open air outside the enormous Palais de Justice.
Indeed the only downside of the entire trip has been that Brussels Airlines managed to shred my bag somewhere between Copenhagen and Brussels. The poor thing looks like it's been dragged across bitumen all the way from Denmark...they have offered to repair or replace, but how the hell am I going to get one in Europe. I have bought a strap to hold it together and am hoping it all holds out until Uppsala. If need be I'll ship it to Australia and send the bill to Brussels Airlines ]:-)
This post must end here, it's already too long. I'll try to update a bit more often in the future...but I can't promise much. Next stop, Norway!
PS: There are photos coming...I just forgot the cable...
EDIT: I fail at technology...photos will happen, but probably not until I'm settled in Uppsala...which actually isn't that long. Thursday, hopefully...
I'm sitting in a cafe at Kastrup Airport south of Copenhagen, picking at my leftover wedges, listening to “Rocket Man” on the PA system, waiting for my flight to Bergen (on the Western fjords of Norway) and trying to collect my thoughts on the last twelve days. In that time I've visited five different cities: Copenhagen, Malmö, Brussels, Bruges and Antwerp; I've met many new people; I've taken over one thousand photographs; I've attempted to speak Danish, Dutch, French and Swedish (none of them with much success, although as always my pronunciation of the four words I can remember is just lovely) and I have turned twenty-three.
Forgive me, vicarious travellers, for not posting anything sooner, but I think from that brief summary you might be able to gather why I haven't!! It is difficult to start...although I boarded that train in Stockholm just twelve days ago, it feels like much longer...
My X2000 high-speed train to Malmö left Stockholm's grand Centralstationen at 7:21am and very quietly (at least from the inside) rocketed south through the Swedish countryside. The scenery was slightly unreal...like something from a chocolate box or a children's book, and the relative silence of the train as it hurried along only added to the impression of something fantastical. Thick green pine forests broken at intervals by lakes – sudden shocking expanses of silver water – giving way further south to fields of waving yellow grain, and all of it interspersed with cute little red and white half-timbered houses, barns and summer cottages. I spend the journey nibbling at my food supplies, writing postcards, staring out at the countryside and reading Silence of the Lambs to counteract the impression that I had crossed over into Toyland.
In Malmö I had a picnic beside the canal in the sunshine – sharing my slightly squashed strawberries with a overly-friendly bumble-bee – before decoding a Swedish ticket machine and boarding an Øresundståg to Copenhagen. The Øresund Bridge between Malmö and Copenhagen must surely be one of the most astonishing works of engineering in the world, an eight-kilometer bridge and undersea tunnel carrying road and rail traffic across the Øresund between Sweden and Denmark via an artificial island just off Copenhagen. The bridge is 7.8km long and 204m high; this connects to a 4km artificial island, which itself is the beginning of a further 4km undersea tunnel to the Danish mainland. I took advantage of the tremendous views on offer by falling asleep, only stirring when the train slid into Køpenhavn H and disgorged me and my bags into the startling Danish sunlight.
Totally disoriented, tired and sore from my stupid shoulder bag, I blundered out into the centre of Copenhagen, and proceeded to write the whole place off as ugly, dirty, noisy, cluttered with too much ugly 70s high-rise and basically inferior to Stockholm in every way. I flounced down to the hostel I'd booked, City Public Hostel on Absalonsgade, and immediately had my disappointment reinforced. It appeared to be school which was closed for summer and hastily retro-fitted as a hostel. Everything had a partly institutional, partly temporary feel, and it wasn't even cheap.
By the next morning, Copenhagen was beginning to look much rosier. It was still not as pretty as Stockholm, but a good night's sleep, a shower and a shave, and a lobby full of friendly Aussies (from Geelong, no less...) do wonders for one's open-mindedness...
I spent the day wandering in Copenhagen, and once I got out of the centre, I found it much more attractive. Having been a bit sad to leave Stockholm on the verge of its apparently very exciting Pride Week Parade, I was surprised to find Copenhagen hosting the World Out Games. There were dykes and drag-queens and gay Nordic men in tiny shorts and angel wings as far as the eye could see. I felt bad for every gay person I know for not being there...it was some party! Feeling rather out of place as a straight man, I climbed up a church tower (around 390 steps) for a fantastic view of the city, walked along the canals looking at cute wooden boats and wandered through the rather sad remains of the “Free Town” of Christiania. Once apparently a thriving commune, it now resembles the Royal Melbourne Showgrounds if that was taken over entirely by aging hippies, dodgy carnies and drug-dealers. So a bit like the Royal Show then, but without the cows. I visited the Christiansborg Palace complex in the center of town. This is the seat of the Danish Parliament (which I couldn't find), and was in the past the Royal Residence. After being burned down and rebuilt for the third time (with no incarnation last more than about 50 years) the Danish royals apparently gave the whole thing up as a bad job. Now they use only the Royal Reception Rooms, which I had a guided tour of. They are very beautiful, and have a library straight out of “Beauty and the Beast”. I also thought I saw Mary & Frederick (HRHs) in the gardens nearby with their little princes, but not being an avid reader of New Idea, I couldn't be certain...
My second day was even better. I made friends in the hostel lobby with an Englishman named Tom, and together we caught the train up to the palace/fortress at Kronberg in Helsingør. Never heard of it? Yes you have. In English we call it Elsinore, and it's the fictional home of Bill Shakespeare's Prince of Procrastination, Hamlet himself. In real life, it was a symbol of Danish power and a practical weapon in control of the entrance to the Øresund. From the cannons on top of the walls, it was easy to see how the incredibly narrow straight and the prevailing winds could be used to force ships into the range of the guns and thus extract the “Sound dues” demanded by the King's treasury and the salutary dipping of the topsail demanded by his sense of self-importance. For anyone getting bored by the history, I also looked at the gorgeous carvings in the chapel, explored the very cool, almost pitch-black catacombs under the fortress, and (for the Gilbert & Sullivan fans) learned what a Ravelin is. It's a sort of defensive island within a moat, between inner and outer gatehouses. Now I just need to discover what the hell a Mamellon is, and I'll be the very model of a modern Major-General...
On returning to Copenhagen, I had one last walk through the city, checking out Castellen, the city's fort (still in military hands), the Little Mermaid (terribly underwhelming), the Danish Resistance Museum (terribly sad, but made me feel good about humanity), the Amalienborg Palace (a palace in the round...) and the University quarter. Then I headed to the train station where, after a few false starts (Danish trains apparently don't work in the rain) I crossed the bridge to Malmö, this time actually taking in the magnificent views of the Øresund.
There is apparently a saying that runs “When one is tired of Malmö, one is tired of life”. This could be considered a slight overstatement. A good breakfast smörgåsbord, a light drizzle, a plate of reasonably-priced meatballs, a twisted skyscraper, a collection of interesting museums (helpfully all in the same place: the Castle) and some amusing Welshmen are all very well, but hardly left me ready to write to Dr. Philip Nitschke...even when you throw in the vintage tram, the walk in submarine and the nocturnal animal house with its cute sugar gliders. Still, I had a reasonably entertaining time given that I had only one day to explore Sweden's third largest city.
Of course, I had only one day because I was spending my twenty-third birthday in Brussels with one of my oldest friends. Yes, you did forget my birthday. (Unless you didn't of course, thank you to those people, who are staying in the will). I was offered a bed (or a floor, at least) for as long as I wanted, and in the end I stayed for seven nights, leaving early this morning.
“What on earth does one do for six and a half days in Brussels?” I hear you wondering. “We didn't sign on for vicarious travel to the dullest capital city in Europe.” (feel free to suggest/share stories of duller European capitals in the comments below, by the way)
Fear not friends, for Brussels is the kind of town where having a local guide opens doors to a much more exciting lifestyle. And, while I lacked a true local, I did have perhaps the greatest Francophile and Europhile ever to come out of the ANU, my dear old friend Trina. My seven nights on Trina's floor (actually...six nights, and one on her friend's bed with about five other people in advanced stages of unconsciousness after a crazy housewarming party – actually the only one who didn't sleep on that bed was the hostess – she slept on the couch!) were actually an absolute godsend, and I'm sure I overstayed my welcome, although Trina insists not, and even gave me waffles to take on the plane with me...I'm nibbling on one as I write this...
This post is already far too long, so I'll have to just give the absolute highlights of the week. Firstly, a big shout out to any and all of Trina's friends who I met in Brussels, especially Rowan and Maaike, who were both so hospitable and asked only for foot massages and dirty secrets about Trina in return. On my birthday I wandered through the Art Nouveau wonderland of the Musical Instrument Museum, with its rooms of bagpipes, accordions and talking drums, its marvellous seven-belled valve trombone, and other instruments so weird I couldn't identify them (especially not with labels in Dutch and French); then Trina and I ate cake in her kitchen and we drank beer and ate fantastic choose-your-own-adventure stir-fry in Place du Chatelain. The following day for lunch I ate frites from the Best Little Frite-house in Brussels (reference entirely for Josh, who would love frites) toured the European Parliament building, which was fascinating to an EU novice like me, and spent the evening drinking mango juice and smoking strawberry shisha in a flat overlooking the Red Light District. Maaike provided binoculars for entertainment – I think I saw some guys break into a car...
I made two trips to Flanders on Trina's railpass: the first to Bruges, the second to Antwerp. In Bruges (hehehe) I wandered into a little church and sat listening to an organist practicing, before chatting to an ancient Benedictine nun who asked me (in Dutch, German, French, and eventually English) if I played the organ and then confessed that she had (at approximately 85) started learning so she could play at Mass! I took a boat cruise, ate more frites (which are freiten here, and God help you if you accidently say bonjour or merci...), climbed a belfry, ate a ridiculous amount of chocolate and walked all over town taking an absurd number of photographs. In Antwerp I explored every facet (pun for you sir) of the intruiging Diamond Museum, marvelled at the Brabant-Gothic meisterwerk of Antwerp's enormous seven-aisled cathedral (with its many excellent Rubens'), and ate delicious waffles with melted chocolate from a stall in the remarkable turn-of-the-century train station.
I saw the grand and beautiful high-baroque and high-gothic guild halls of Grand Place, the nineteenth-century elegance of the Galleries St-Hubert, the proto-fascist exuberance of the Mont d'Arts and the Gothic splendour of Notre-Dame d'Sablon. I wandered aimlessly through picturesque gardens, reading, writing postcards and eating ice-cream in the shade of grand avenues of oaks . I ate chocolate-coated strawberries so good that Trina and I agreed they were an adequate replacement for sex. I drank at least 6 different types of beer (not a lot for Brussels, where one bar has over 3000 different types), rode the filthy but surprisingly efficient underground trams and metro all across town for free, because nobody pays in Brussels (the city can't be bothered paying for revenue enforcement...too much like hard work), played “never have I ever” in a bar at 2am and partied in the open air outside the enormous Palais de Justice.
Indeed the only downside of the entire trip has been that Brussels Airlines managed to shred my bag somewhere between Copenhagen and Brussels. The poor thing looks like it's been dragged across bitumen all the way from Denmark...they have offered to repair or replace, but how the hell am I going to get one in Europe. I have bought a strap to hold it together and am hoping it all holds out until Uppsala. If need be I'll ship it to Australia and send the bill to Brussels Airlines ]:-)
This post must end here, it's already too long. I'll try to update a bit more often in the future...but I can't promise much. Next stop, Norway!
PS: There are photos coming...I just forgot the cable...
EDIT: I fail at technology...photos will happen, but probably not until I'm settled in Uppsala...which actually isn't that long. Thursday, hopefully...
Saturday, August 1, 2009
One Week In
10:30pm, City Public Hostel, Copenhagen, 31 July 2009
It is now 6:30am in Melbourne, Saturday August 1. One week ago today I was sitting with my family, my girlfriend and my best mate, getting ready to board my flight. Just one week, but it seems like an eternity. I am now sitting in my third city proper, and my (quick finger count) eighth including all stopovers and flying visits. Today has been a day of travel, communication, rest and planning, but tomorrow I launch into Copenhagen, the city I have found myself in almost by chance, even as my current plans veer still further from the original itinerary. But I should return to the beginning.
After a long flight Melbourne – Sydney – Adelaide – Singapore, I arrived at the delightfully simple Changi Airport to be greeted warmly by my Uncle and Aunt and whisked back to their apartment in Mandalay Road (via many of the island's landmarks, if Simon's running commentary was anything to go on). There I showered, changed, and was taken out for Vietnamese food. The food was quite reasonable, the night air a pleasant thirty degrees, but the highlight was probably the reaction of the restaurant's patrons and staff to the enormous rat that darted along the overhead latticework about two-thirds of the way through the meal. Simon's cry of “Oh, a Tarantula” had me flat against the opposite wall long before he had corrected his assumption.
My short stopover in Singapore continued along similar lines, a sort of guided tour/running commentary from Simon, interspersed with suggestions from Ly, sumptuous feasts of Asian and Colonial cuisine, and diversions to purchase an Armani suit, an electric blue handbag and a stack of books almost as large as my travelling baggage. One of these went to me; Simon of course refusing to let me pay for anything despite repeated assurances of how marriage and unemployment are driving him to destitution.
The tome in question is now my most prized possession short of Joe's music box, my external hard drive and my much loved teeny puter: World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War. I have only read a little, but it is a triumph in the fine tradition of Studs Terkel, who wrote the definitive oral history of WW2. Apparently published in 2006, how this gem has escaped my browsing is a mystery.
My plundering of Singapore's literary resources completed, I journeyed onwards, and (skipping all the exceedingly dull parts in between) I found myself stepping through a set of glass automatic doors onto Swedish soil. Or Swedish floor anyway. Arlanda Airport and it's zippy yellow connecting train are a breeze (silly bloody Melbourne Airport), and I was soon strolling north on Vasagatan, delighted by even this rather ugly part of Stockholm and immediately regretting my choice of a shoulder bag in combination with my backpack. There is simply no method for comfortably wearing both together. Lesson for future travels, I suppose. Although I suspect the best thing would be to have no permanent daypack at all...
Yay, new packing goal!
I was delighted to find that the hostel I had booked, CityBackpackers in Norrmalm, was everything one could hope for. It occupies the ground floor and basement of a delightful eighteenth-century building in the Swedish neo-classical idiom, complete with yellow-washed plaster, white and marble trim, round corner towers and a peaked, well verdigris-ed roof. The facilities were modern, yet sensitive to the building's heritage, the large central courtyard and public areas were attractive and cosy, the security was top-notch, the staff helpful and friendly and freebies included: wireless internet, sauna, 2hrs bike hire per day and all-you-can-eat pasta. There was also a sweet little cafe and the offer of a bike tour of Stockholm, which I accepted enthusiastically.
I can't possibly list everything I saw and did in Stockholm...even in three and a half days there was much too much, and still more than a weeks worth of top notch stuff entirely unseen. I could probably get another four days or so out of the things I've already had a look at, to be honest.
Personal highlights included wandering through the narrow cobbled lanes of Gamla Stan, the old city, and it's neighbouring island Riddarholmen, particularly the cathedral Riddarholmskyrken and the unexpected and utterly delightful vistas which revealed themselves with every twist and sag and lean of the medieval buildings, streets and alleyways. Unexpectedly pleasant also was pushing up through the 1960s ugliness of the Centrum (all the more horrifying if one stops to consider what must have been destroyed) to the beautiful heights of Norrmalm, including the breathtaking City Library and the Observatory hill, where I saw a wild rabbit darting among the trees in the heart of the city. Wandering the foreshore of any and every aspect of Lake Mälaren, exploring the green spaces and and bobbing boats of the old naval island of Skeppsholmen, or riding the powder-blue vintage tram to Djurgården, Stockholm's pleasure garden; all have their own joys.
I visited the National Museum, which features pre-twentieth century art (no Hermitage certainly, but some very fine and well-known Rembrants and some fabulous Rodin bronzes) and a fantastic temporary exhibition on Swedish design from 1900-2000. I spent hours in the Vasa Museum, which houses an almost perfectly preserved 17th century warship raised from Lake Mälaren in 1961 after 333 years on the bottom. I rode a bottle-green and gearless Scandinavian-style bicycle through much of the city to the tops of the cliffs at Södermalm and on to a picnic in the park on the picturesque former prison island of Långholmen. I spent several happy hours among the scale models in the Architecture Museum, enjoying it's clear and articulation explanations of the evolution of Swedish design, housing, town planning, and public and private architecture. I took guided tours of the City Hall, where the architecture echoes Byzantium and Venice, and of the Riksdagshus, where the Swedish system of “consensus building” politics that first drew me to study here goes quietly about it's business, and I watched the changing of the guard at the Royal Palace. I ate ice-cream in the shadow of the royal cathedral Storkyrken and sampled fried, crumbed herring in the sun beside the locks.
I don't think I've ever fallen for a place quite as much in such a short space of time. “The Venice of the North” is more than worthy of its title.
Tomorrow I will see how Köpenhavn, “the shopping harbour”, compares. But I don't have much hope that anything can beat the beauty of Stockholm.
Look out for pictures in the near future...As you can imagine, I took over 5GB of photos, and I need to pick just three or four to illustrate this...
It is now 6:30am in Melbourne, Saturday August 1. One week ago today I was sitting with my family, my girlfriend and my best mate, getting ready to board my flight. Just one week, but it seems like an eternity. I am now sitting in my third city proper, and my (quick finger count) eighth including all stopovers and flying visits. Today has been a day of travel, communication, rest and planning, but tomorrow I launch into Copenhagen, the city I have found myself in almost by chance, even as my current plans veer still further from the original itinerary. But I should return to the beginning.
After a long flight Melbourne – Sydney – Adelaide – Singapore, I arrived at the delightfully simple Changi Airport to be greeted warmly by my Uncle and Aunt and whisked back to their apartment in Mandalay Road (via many of the island's landmarks, if Simon's running commentary was anything to go on). There I showered, changed, and was taken out for Vietnamese food. The food was quite reasonable, the night air a pleasant thirty degrees, but the highlight was probably the reaction of the restaurant's patrons and staff to the enormous rat that darted along the overhead latticework about two-thirds of the way through the meal. Simon's cry of “Oh, a Tarantula” had me flat against the opposite wall long before he had corrected his assumption.
My short stopover in Singapore continued along similar lines, a sort of guided tour/running commentary from Simon, interspersed with suggestions from Ly, sumptuous feasts of Asian and Colonial cuisine, and diversions to purchase an Armani suit, an electric blue handbag and a stack of books almost as large as my travelling baggage. One of these went to me; Simon of course refusing to let me pay for anything despite repeated assurances of how marriage and unemployment are driving him to destitution.
The tome in question is now my most prized possession short of Joe's music box, my external hard drive and my much loved teeny puter: World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War. I have only read a little, but it is a triumph in the fine tradition of Studs Terkel, who wrote the definitive oral history of WW2. Apparently published in 2006, how this gem has escaped my browsing is a mystery.
My plundering of Singapore's literary resources completed, I journeyed onwards, and (skipping all the exceedingly dull parts in between) I found myself stepping through a set of glass automatic doors onto Swedish soil. Or Swedish floor anyway. Arlanda Airport and it's zippy yellow connecting train are a breeze (silly bloody Melbourne Airport), and I was soon strolling north on Vasagatan, delighted by even this rather ugly part of Stockholm and immediately regretting my choice of a shoulder bag in combination with my backpack. There is simply no method for comfortably wearing both together. Lesson for future travels, I suppose. Although I suspect the best thing would be to have no permanent daypack at all...
Yay, new packing goal!
I was delighted to find that the hostel I had booked, CityBackpackers in Norrmalm, was everything one could hope for. It occupies the ground floor and basement of a delightful eighteenth-century building in the Swedish neo-classical idiom, complete with yellow-washed plaster, white and marble trim, round corner towers and a peaked, well verdigris-ed roof. The facilities were modern, yet sensitive to the building's heritage, the large central courtyard and public areas were attractive and cosy, the security was top-notch, the staff helpful and friendly and freebies included: wireless internet, sauna, 2hrs bike hire per day and all-you-can-eat pasta. There was also a sweet little cafe and the offer of a bike tour of Stockholm, which I accepted enthusiastically.
I can't possibly list everything I saw and did in Stockholm...even in three and a half days there was much too much, and still more than a weeks worth of top notch stuff entirely unseen. I could probably get another four days or so out of the things I've already had a look at, to be honest.
Personal highlights included wandering through the narrow cobbled lanes of Gamla Stan, the old city, and it's neighbouring island Riddarholmen, particularly the cathedral Riddarholmskyrken and the unexpected and utterly delightful vistas which revealed themselves with every twist and sag and lean of the medieval buildings, streets and alleyways. Unexpectedly pleasant also was pushing up through the 1960s ugliness of the Centrum (all the more horrifying if one stops to consider what must have been destroyed) to the beautiful heights of Norrmalm, including the breathtaking City Library and the Observatory hill, where I saw a wild rabbit darting among the trees in the heart of the city. Wandering the foreshore of any and every aspect of Lake Mälaren, exploring the green spaces and and bobbing boats of the old naval island of Skeppsholmen, or riding the powder-blue vintage tram to Djurgården, Stockholm's pleasure garden; all have their own joys.
I visited the National Museum, which features pre-twentieth century art (no Hermitage certainly, but some very fine and well-known Rembrants and some fabulous Rodin bronzes) and a fantastic temporary exhibition on Swedish design from 1900-2000. I spent hours in the Vasa Museum, which houses an almost perfectly preserved 17th century warship raised from Lake Mälaren in 1961 after 333 years on the bottom. I rode a bottle-green and gearless Scandinavian-style bicycle through much of the city to the tops of the cliffs at Södermalm and on to a picnic in the park on the picturesque former prison island of Långholmen. I spent several happy hours among the scale models in the Architecture Museum, enjoying it's clear and articulation explanations of the evolution of Swedish design, housing, town planning, and public and private architecture. I took guided tours of the City Hall, where the architecture echoes Byzantium and Venice, and of the Riksdagshus, where the Swedish system of “consensus building” politics that first drew me to study here goes quietly about it's business, and I watched the changing of the guard at the Royal Palace. I ate ice-cream in the shadow of the royal cathedral Storkyrken and sampled fried, crumbed herring in the sun beside the locks.
I don't think I've ever fallen for a place quite as much in such a short space of time. “The Venice of the North” is more than worthy of its title.
Tomorrow I will see how Köpenhavn, “the shopping harbour”, compares. But I don't have much hope that anything can beat the beauty of Stockholm.
Look out for pictures in the near future...As you can imagine, I took over 5GB of photos, and I need to pick just three or four to illustrate this...
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