Stockholm to Earlsfield by train? Yes, it can be done. Verdict: fun, relaxing, slow travel, quirky
Sunday: Stockholm to Copenhagen, six hours.
Comfortable high speed train. Toilets: door opens inwards, complicated mechanical lock, rather old.
Food provided: whole egg, salad, small granary roll, tiny peppermint and apple juice, tea and coffee available at the end of the carriage. Yes, real food.
Drama of the day: None – apart from watching people struggle with the mechanical lock on the toilet.
Copenhagen overnight – I used to think “Copenhagen” sounded so romantic, but now I know it just means “shopping harbour”.
My first time in Denmark and entirely centred on Tivoli Gardens. This was like a Christmas market but for Halloween, decorated with thousands of lights and an equal number of pumpkins. All real. They even had a giant pumpkin competition, with each neatly labelled with weight and who grew it. My favourite was Per B Thomsen’s weighing in at 309kg (not a typo). The size of an extra large and over stuffed bean bag.
Monday: Five hours to Hamburg. A rather old-fashioned train, where you sit facing each other in little rooms of six, trying not to make eye contact. Toilets: simple mechanical lock, adequately clean, door opens inwards.
Food provided: ultra processed pretzels and biscuit sandwich with pesto flavouring, bottle of water. Also, a woman wandering up and down with a backpack filled with hot water out of
which she squirted said hot water for coffee. Weird and somehow humiliating.
Drama of the day: An older German woman challenged a Japanese Mum and her 11-year-old daughter, saying that she had booked the window seat that they were sitting in. They fought back by waving mobile phones with Japanese characters on the screens, and smiling. Then the conductor arrived and threw the German woman out into second class. 11-year-old girl proceeded to watch TikTok on her phone for the rest of the journey while the Mum watched the 11-year-old girl adoringly, occasionally tapping her hand to remind her to take a sip of water or eat a biscuit. They did not look out the window.
Hamburg: an ugly city. Filled with traffic and scowling buildings. I headed for the historic centre, which featured Unesco buildings. I couldn’t believe that these blocky dour buildings, the colour of expired chocolate, were Unesco listed. Not helped by building works everywhere.
This was followed by an evening boat trip on the canal and harbour. Primarily featuring container ships. Gary would have loved it. But no one else I know.
On the plus side, three dogs came along for the ride, and two of them didn’t get on with each other.
Then on to a highlight of the whole trip – the biggest miniature world in the world! Open till
1am (not a typo). You have to climb a lot of steps, and it was pretty crowded… but I loved it. An utter delight. Teeny tiny scenes, and if you just stand and stare for a while you then spot little details – a broken down car, a family picnic, dolphins swimming, the tiled floor of a Pompeii ruin featuring a dog – an exact replica of which is in Tullgarn Slott near Trosa.
Sweden was represented by the mine at Kiruna, the ice hotel, and Pippi Longstocking. The UK was not represented at all.
Tuesday: Hamburg to Brussels four hours plus two hrs via Two ICE trains. Excellent. Super comfortable seats, very clean. Toilets: simple mechanical locks, door opens inwards, actually pleasant. Top marks! No food provided, but you could buy tea and coffee.
Drama of the day: Refusing to pay for the tea I ordered because a) they didn’t tell me you had to pay and b) it was tepid (they delivered a cup of hot water only, and came back with the tea bag 10 minutes later). Rookie mistake ordering tea on a German train. But then I bought (and agreed to pay for) a coffee, which was excellent.
Brussels overnight: I have been there once but had forgotten how gloriously beautiful and over-the-top the main square is. Luscious buildings on all four sides, lots of gold, no cars, no restraint. Fabulous.
I also visited the Cathedral perched at the top of the city. One of those oversized, dreary cathedrals you see so often in Europe. Inside it was ugly and oppressive, with no sense of joy or love, and little beauty. I wondered (not a typo) around, realising that I could not recognise my past self that was Christian. Though to be fair, bible study had always featured lots of cakes.
Wednesday: Brussels to London by Eurostar 2.5 hours. Very comfortable seats and carriage, swankier than I remember.
Toilet in premier class: scary electric circular high-tech thing. No good for me. Too many potential points of failure. But a normal inwards opening door with simple mechanical lock in standard class.
Food provided: ultra processed chocolate biscuit plus some other unrecognisable item, bottle of water. However, this came with a profuse apology from the staff. Something else was planned, but they had problems. Instead, they gave us details on how we could apply for compensation. Seriously, what kind of crazy world have we designed when a bunch of wealthy people can get compensation because they’re a bit disappointed in their breakfast?
Drama of the day: the first thing I did on arriving in England was to find a nice café and order bacon and eggs. But as I sat there, there came an announcement “Plain clothes and uniform police patrol this area in order to keep you safe.” A few minutes later, “CCTV operates in this area in order to keep you safe.” Then, a few more minutes later, “Thieves and criminals operate in this area to keep you unsafe.” As I sat there munching my second disappointing breakfast of the day, I counted eight such announcements (not a typo). That was one every four minutes. The constant adrenalin surges affected my taste buds. But I knew I was back in Old Blighty.
