Northern Lights over Kiruna

Tonight we are in London, leaving on Saturday morning.  From Heathrow, we came into Paddington Station.  When I was reading the Paddington Bear books to my children, I never really thought that I would ever go to Paddington Station!

                           

However, back to yesterday…

We caught the midday train from Abisko to Kiruna, a city a bit south of Abisko.  We had to stop overnight there as today we were catching a plane to London via Stockholm.  We had really enjoyed our time at Abisko, but were disappointed that it had been cloudy every night which made it impossible to view the Aurora Borealis, except for Friday night, when the auroras were at quite a low level of activity.  When we were leaving Abisko it was bright and sunny with clear skies.  It made everything look lovely, but made Anna a bit unhappy as she hadn’t seen many auroras because of the overcast conditions.

When we arrived in Kiruna it was a bit confusing as to how we got into the city centre – however we discovered that there was a free bus.  It is so nice to now be in a country where I can read the signs!  Although many people in Sweden speak excellent English; menus, instructions, directions, etc are usually only in Swedish.

When we got off the bus I realised that I should have put on more clothes and my grippers.  I had a very miserable walk to the building where the tourist information centre was located.  After having something to eat – we hadn’t had lunch – and putting on more clothes, I was ready to walk to our hotel.  It was actually quite pleasant, although in spite of only being about 4pm, it was almost dark.

Our hotel was interesting, it was run in conjunction with some sort of school.  Although our room was called a ‘twin room’, it was only a twin room as the desk had been removed and replaced by a folding bed.  Anna won this bed – she also wins top bunks!  The room, although small, was actually ok – it was clean and we had our own toilet and hand basin.  The showers were in the basement and were rather primitive (think school gym style), so we decided to give them a miss  We also had to make our own beds.

However we decided that the sky was clear so we dressed warmly and ventured outside.  We certainly weren’t disappointed  Here are two photos of what we saw!

We stopped out for ages watching the aurora form and re-form and dance across the sky - it was quite magical and a great finale to our Swedish trip.   

And then this morning the sun was shining.  This was the view from our window.

Hope the weather in London is kind to us...

On a quest to see the Aurora Borealis...

One of our prime reasons for coming to Abisko was to see the Aurora Borealis.  When I started writing this last night Anna and another couple of people were off to find a darker spot to hopefully view/photograph the aurora.  I went outside the back of the hostel with the others and we could see a hint of the (up until then) elusive aurora.  But I was not confident to walk in the dark – I have enough trouble seeing ice in the daylight and I have already had two “ice encounters”.  More damaging to my pride than my person, but wasn’t about to venture any distance in the dark!

Success!

 

Photo is thanks to our fellow Australian Emma, who has been great company the last couple of days.

However, back to Thursday October 24.  As that was the last day of our Eurail pass, we decided to catch the train down to Abisko Ostra – not far from where we are stopping at Abisko Turiststation.

As we were walking from the station, we came to a handicrafts shop.  The owner was sweeping snow away from the front of her store however she said it was closed.  I said quietly to Anna that at least it would save us money!  However just as we were leaving, she said that if the lights were on the shop would be open.  As we were crossing the road on our way to the supermarket, I had my first “ice encounter” and ended up sitting on the road – rather embarrassing as I had an audience!

Since then I have discovered that the shop at the Turiststation sells Nordic Ice Grippers, which I hope will help me remain upright if I again encounter ice!

After Anna helped me up, we made it to the supermarket and bought some supplies for lunches – we have paid for breakfast and dinner at the hostel but lunch isn’t provided.  Our next port of call was the service station/shop where we had lunch and I bought some waterproof gloves – I only brought woollen ones with me.  We then decided that we had exhausted the places of interest and were making our way back to the station to wait in the warmth.  However we noticed the lights on in the handicraft shop so went in.  I bought myself a necklace, which I love and we got a free cuppa thrown in.  It was quite pleasant to sit in the warmth and chat.  I am always amazed how well so many Europeans speak English.

We then made our way back to the station for our very short return journey.

Although we will get an extra hour of sleep tonight - the end of daylight saving - I plan on going to bed now and will write more later…    

Travelling north...

Last night we took an overnight train to Abisko in far Northern Sweden - 200km north of the Arctic Circle.  We are stopping at the Tourist Station, which (I think) is run by Hostelling International.  I joined YHA before we came to Europe, which entitled us to the HI rates.

We had a sleeper on the train last night.  Our only other experience with sleeper compartments was on Amtrak when we were in the US in early 2011.  On Amtrak, during the day we had two seats facing each other, which gave a good view.  At night, the two chairs converted into the bottom bunk, parallel to the side of the train and the top bunk folded down.  Last night, the bunks were at right angles to the side of the train and during the day there was just one bench seat.

Our compartment actually had three bunks, but fortunately we had it to ourselves!  Anna chose to sleep on the very top bunk which gave me plenty of head room!  Much appreciated as my head has only just recovered from the Camino!  There are seat belts for the upper bunks – it is a long way down.  On this train, I was actually able to use my CPAP machine, which I need for sleep apnoea.  The power occasionally dropped out, although what I tended to notice was the beep the machine made when the power came back on!

We arrived at Abisko at about 11:30am – we left Stockholm at about 6pm last night.  We awoke this morning to snow covered pine trees…

This is the view looking over the lake…

And this is the view from our bedroom window…

We have a double room with our own bathroom and are having breakfast and dinner in the dining room.  We will look around, but also plan to rest, relax and plan.  And of course we are hoping to see the Aurora Borealis!

In Stockholm our good luck with the weather ran out!  It was cold but fine when we arrived on Monday afternoon, but it was cold and wet yesterday.   However our hotel was fun.  We had chosen a yacht hotel, Malardrottningen…

 

This was the view from our window when we arrived…

And this was our view from our breakfast table yesterday morning…

Not sure exactly what we are doing tomorrow.  It will be good to slow down a bit…

From Hamburg to Copenhagen

We left Donaueschingen on Thursday morning (Oct 17) on our way to Hamburg.  We had an hour at Baden-Baden waiting for a connecting train.  To fill in the time, Anna and I took turns at minding the luggage and wandering around the station.  Anna pointed out that the newsagents had foreign language newspapers, so I decided to investigate the books I could see through the window.  This coming Tuesday, Anna and I are setting off for a week in northern Sweden and I decided that I would like a book to read.  The top two shelves of books were in English.  I wasn’t really interested in anything on the lower of the two shelves, however spotted The Casual Vacancy by JK Rowling on the top shelf.  This was a book I had intended to read, but hadn’t got around to.  I was looking longing at it, when a very thoughtful woman asked if I would like her husband to get a book down for me.  I was very grateful and now have something to read!

At that stage, little did we realise how stressful our trip to Hamburg was going to be!  With a Eurail pass, on some trains it is compulsory to book a seat, which costs a nominal fee, on some trains, it is recommended, and on other trains, it is possible.  We started off booking on all trains, but decided it seemed like an unnecessary extra expense if the train was not full.  Consequently we hadn’t booked on the Inter-City Express that we were catching to Hamburg.  Unfortunately the train was very crowded.  We eventually found two seats labelled as “released”.  When we enquired, we were told that someone might turn up to occupy them or not.  The very next station someone did appear, so I stopped in the unoccupied seat and Anna found another one.  I spent the whole time wondering whether I would be “seatless” after the next stop.  Fortunately there weren’t all that many stops and the train company provides a flyer which lists the times for all the stops!  At Hanover, quite a few passengers got off, so I sort of heaved a sigh of relief.  However, when we arrived at Hamburg, we went straight to the booking office and booked seats on the train to Copenhagen.

When we left Hamburg Station, it was cold and wet, but as usual we had booked a hotel that was comparatively close to the station.  However the next day was fine and sunny – another glorious autumn day.

After a visit to the post office, we went to the Rathaus (city hall), which is a very opulent building.  However, it was over an hour to the first English-language tour, so we looked around the ground floor and moved on.

The next place we went was Mahnmal St-Nikolai (Memorial St Nicholas).  This church was mostly destroyed during World War II and has not been rebuilt.

Firstly we caught the lift up to the 76.3 metre viewing platform inside the surviving spire.  In spite of not being too keen on heights, I usually enjoy viewing cities from above.  However I didn’t really enjoy this experience.  There was a fairly strong, bitterly cold wind blowing.  We stopped there long enough for Anna to take photos then came back down.

In the crypt, there is an exhibit on the horrors of war, focussing on three events from World War II, the German bombing of Coventry in 1940, the German destruction of Warsaw and the combined British and American bombing of Hamburg over three days and nights in 1943.  Anna in general avoids museums but found it very informative, she really knows very little about World War II.

When we emerged, the sun was shining and we decided to make our way to the wharf from where a number of cruises departed.  However we decided they were either too dear and/or would get back too late.  I wanted to go to the laundromat, which can be a fairly time-consuming activity!  Instead we sat in the sun and ate fish and chips.

We left Hamburg on Saturday morning (19^th).  I was very glad we had reserved seats as the train was initially fairly full.  We had a rather interesting experience.  Between Germany and Denmark, the whole train was driven onto a ferry and we had to go to the upper decks for the 45 minute crossing.  We took the opportunity to change some money into Danish krone.  It is useful to have some local currency as it is not possible to pay for everything by card.

When we were in Canada in April 2011, we flew from Vancouver to Prince Rupert.  We got off the plane, collected our luggage and put it onto the waiting bus.  After we boarded the bus, it drove onto a ferry to take us to across to the town.  But the concept of driving a train onto a ferry was new to me!

After we dropped our bags at the hotel, we walked to Nyhavn (New Harbour) and took an hour long canal boat ride.  It was cold but interesting.  Among other sights, we saw the Little Mermaid.  On the way back to the hotel we called by the Lego store.  There were some models on display, including one of some (I think 17^th and early 18^th century) townhouses at Nyhavn, where we had been.

We had a fairly lazy day today.  I am sure that Copenhagen has much on offer, but I am afraid we were a bit over things.  We did look around the Tivoli Amusement Park as we received free entry tickets from the hotel.  We wandered around, but the only money we spend was on Ben and Jerry’s ice-creams!

Off to Stockholm tomorrow.