The Road To Stockholm

Another long day: 649 km in the car from Copenhagen to Stockholm. Amsterdam to Copenhagen was only slightly longer, at 676 km.

The Øresund Bridge took us from the outer suburbs of Copenhagen across into Sweden. After a customs woman quizzed us as we came off the bridge, we were on our way across a surprisingly rustic landscape. I had expected the suburbs of Malmö to greet us, but it obviously doesn’t sprawl as far as the bridge.

After filling up with petrol (twice: the petrol pump shut itself off after tanking SEK 400, so I had to insert my credit card a second time), we started heading north. With the Swedish motorway maximum stuck at 110 kmh, I was hoping for interesting scenery, since the drive itself, across scarcely populated, scarcely winding motorway, was not going to be a riveting experience.

To be honest, the drive was fairly dull until we reached Jönköping. Then, the motorway led us around the east side of the humongous lake Vättern and the drive became pleasanter.

The thing that really struck me was exactly how sparsely populated Sweden is. It’s a massive country, but the motorways have very little traffic and the distances between towns of any significant size are considerable. The Swedes really do have an enviable amount of space at their disposal.

The road remained quiet until about 30 km from Stockholm, when the scenery started to take on the shape of an imminent urban conurbation. Not until about 8 km from the centre did things really start to build up.

We pulled into Stockholm from the south, through the borough of Södermalm. It’s an up and coming area and had obvious instant appeal. The bridge that brought us into town was apparently one that levies an automatic toll as part of the city’s congestion charge system, although I’ll be impressed if they actually manage to levy the toll on us.

A few minutes later, we had located our hotel across the water in Gamla Stan, which means ‘Old Town’. We checked in and then I left to find somewhere to park the car for the next few days.

Stockholm is absolutely hopping on a Friday night. As we walked along Götgatan looking for a restaurant in which to eat, we were surprised to find virtually every place full to the brim and pouring out onto the street.

Eventually, we found a place with a free table and hastily commandeered it. It was a great place to people-watch. The people of Stockholm are a beautiful crowd, almost overwhelmingly so, and they’re perhaps at their preening best on a Friday evening.

I think we’re going to enjoy our stay here. After just one evening, I already vastly prefer Stockholm to Copenhagen. It’s much more beautiful and charming; the girls are better-looking, too, which doesn’t hurt.