Week Three

The train kept stopping every hour or so and that, coupled with an inflow and outflow of passengers, and the background buzz of walkman sound meant I didn't get much sleep. However I did get a good distance further north. I struggled out at Kemi just after 7.00 in the morning as the sun was coming up. There was a bus timetable which told me there was a bus to Tornio at 07.50. I checked this at the railway station information office: "The next bus leaves at 09.20," the man informed me with a depressed air of resignation. I wonder how many people actually come to Kemi in order to come to Kemi, rather than simply to leave it again as soon as possible.
Anyway, I didn't believe him (I have a great faith in printed timetables), so I checked the board again - it looks like there are two Kemi stops, and the 7.50 only stops at one of them. So I wandered towards town, looking for the other stop, and found the bus station about two blocks away from the railway station. 27FIM got me a ticket to Tornio, right on the border. The bus fairly quickly filled with children (this being a school day) - they, and a number of the other passengers, used smartcard bus tickets, which is a pretty good use of smartcards: presumably like a season ticket, but you only pay for what you use.

Tornio and Haparanda (in Sweden) are pretty much one town - there is a river that flows out into the Gulf of Bothnia here, but the whole thing is on the Finnish side (as opposed to separating them, as you'd expect). Tornio and Haparanda are separated by a much smaller river: and, on the map, Tornio looks about twice the size of Haparanda. Oh - and it starts to rain just after I arrive.

I had expected the north of Finland to be like Sweden, but actually it's the other way round - the north of Sweden is very much like Finland - all flat and water and trees. As we head down the western shore of the Gulf of Bothnia, we cross a number of really large rivers - presuambly these have flowed all the way from the mountains of Norway. Somewhat disappointingly, even though the Finns seem to have built dual-carriageway at least as far as Tornio, the Swedes haven't done the same up the other side.
Eventually (it's quite a distance) we arrive in Luleå - again, the train station is only a couple of blocks away from the bus station. I dump my stuff in a locker and set out, undaunted by the continual drizzle: I find it instantly easy to spot that I'm back in Sweden, on account of the shopping area being pedestrianised. First (and only) tourist site is the Domkyrkan - modern, and effectively their third! They built the first one in the wrong place (apparently the land is rising here, which means that what was once a good place for a port eventually ends up inland), and then the second one burned down in . . . yep, the Great Fire.
Other than the Domkyrkan, there really isn't a lot else to Luleå except the rain: there's a very small port area, but it's really just a harbour that wants to grow up to be a dock. At about 3.30 or 4.00pm it begins to get dark - the sun doesn't actually go down, but it gives the impression that it's trying, so I return to the station to wait for the train.
Up here, the train service is provided by Tåg Kompaniet - "Train Company" one assumes - and they're a little more amateur than regular Swedish railways: instead of having a stamp for your ticket, they use a black biro to simply tick it. And the carriages are all older than those down south. This is obviously Sweden's attempt to de-regulate their railway network: by giving all the dodgy northern lines, and all the oldest carriages, and all the black biros to a separate company - and then giving it an original and catchy name to attract more passengers. In their brochures, they actually boast of the fact that their sleeping cars are second-hand off the orient express.
Everyone shuffles round as, at every station, more people get on (many of whom have reservations for seats that other people are already sitting in). I end up sitting with a couple of girls who've been to Luleå on a shopping trip - I don't know what they've bought, but it fills eleven bags (almost certainly clothes, then). After half an hour, the queue to the buffet car stretches half-way along the next carriage. Even at this stage, I still haven't been able to get through to the youth hostel in Kiruna to get a booking - so I'm travelling north on the day's last train to/from Kiruna, with no accommodation waiting for me, and no knowledge of how big or small the place is - I'm hoping it's more than 200 people, so I have accommodation options if the youth hostel's closed or full.

As we climb into the evening (yes, we're climbing) there are still lots of trees, now half-shrouded in mist, but precious few lakes: these are apparently the fjells. It occurs to me that we really are in the middle of nowhere. We cross the Arctic Circle (it's sign-posted) and another train snow-plough (the frequency is worrying) and it occurs to me that if all the people on this train are getting out at Kiruna, then Kiruna must be quite large (to fit them all in).
Travellers' Tip: Swedish for restaurant is restaurang: like the French, but spelt how they pronounce it: I don't know it it's a deliberate piss-take.
By Gällivare the ground is white: Gällivare looks like a good-sized settlement, and 60% of the passengers get off here. If there's nothing at all in Kiruna, then this is the palce to try and hitch back to. After Gällivare it's black - I mean, really black. Peering through the window, I can see that the landscape is actually white, and there are gradually more and more patches of open land without trees, or with solitary leafless trees strung out at random, distant intervals.
And eventually into Kiruna, where's it's night and it's snowing - yes, there's white stuff ont he ground, and it's falling from the sky. Signs to the youth hostel lead me into the centre, but then stop - I resort to asking a local (it's far too cold to piss about), who pretty much leads me to the door. The locked door, that is. There are lights on inside, which is a good sign and means that the hostel isn't closed for winter, but there's no-one at reception. From a phonebox down the road, I try the number which I've been ringing all day again, and finally get through - a little man comes round and lets me in: yes, he's got lots of free beds. The cost of the hostel itself is quite reasonable, but there are a lot of oncosts. To use the laundry is a whopping 50SEK - I'll decide on that tomorrow.
There are three others in the dorm: two Swiss Germans who are interrailing, and one . . . German German, who is hiking. The hiker, after five days in the fjells, is already turning in, and the two Swiss have a big map and are planning their next 13 days worth of train journeys. Investigation reveals that there is nothing to do in Kiruna except:
1.) take a trip down the vast iron mines (and hunt for mushrooms, they say), or
2.) visit the Ice Hotel and stay in an igloo.
I give Kiruna 1/10 almost immediately, and hit the nearest pub instead.
There are only two other people there - a Swedish girl and a Scots guy who's doing some contract work (presumably engineering - good money) at the minue. Eventually the Swedish girl leaves (do you blame her?), and we're left with (probably) the only two Scots within 100 miles, being the only two people out drinking on an Arctic night like this. So much for national stereotypes.

I get up at 06.30 and shower: looking out the window, I can't shake the idea that I must be in Norway, since this landscape is so different from the rest of Sweden (being covered in snow adds to that impression). At 08.00 the thermometer tells me that the temperature has climbed to 0 degrees, and at 08.10 another man arrives. He shows me how to work the laundry, unpadlocks (seriously) the washing machine, and charges me 50SEK for the privilege. I'm so excited by the sudden progress that I forget I also want to wash what I'm wearing. Probably just as well, since the wash cycle takes an unbelievable one hour (for a 40 degree wash), which leaves insufficient time to dry anything (especially since the dryer seems to be working on much the same speed principle). In order not to miss the train - and it's very much the train from Kiruna), I pack my clothes wet (don't worry: I have waterproof bags just for this sort of eventuality) and trudge down to the station. Wet clothes, of course, weigh a lot more than dry clothes.

I meet up with the two Swiss guys at the station, and we share a compartment to Narvik (the last compartment on the train, so we can look out the back window as well). The journey takes about three hours from Kiruna where they dig up the iron ore to Narvik, from where they ship it out - they can't use Luleå because it freezes during the winter, which somehow doesn't surprise me. The journey starts off going through the same blasted landscape of last night, in mist and occasional sleet/rain, and then runs alongside an immense lake. I don't know how I can explain this, but there's absolutely nothing up here except the scenery and the road (which hugs the same route as the train): the trees have all shed their leaves and the clouds are hanging lower than the peaks of the snow-covered mountains, all of which adds to the whole post-apocalyptic top-of-the-world atmosphere.

And eventually, after the top of the world, we begin the sharp plummet all the way back down to sea level. It starts after Riksgränsen (literally "State Border", as far as I can tell) and winds down a remarkable rail-line which is so narrow in places it's almost printed on the side of the fjord. And then into Narvik, where there is brief excitement as the local police force arrive to (very forcefully) escort some very rowdy chap off the train. I separate from the Swiss (who are returning to Kiruna on the next train in three/four hours), and Tourist Information directs me to a new hostel - Spor 1 - run by an ex-backpacker called Britt. Superb place, not open long, and about 200NKR a night (way less than half any of the alternatives, since the Youth Hostel closed mid-August, like everything else in Narvik).

Narvik is a one street town - it comes in over the bridge, passes the railway station, the two shopping centres, the bus station, then the port (the big port - there's another one to the north for small boats, called Småbåthavn). The houses are all timberclad, painted in pastel, and climb up away from the water - in fact, it's Oban (even down to the "Norwegian Sweater Shop"): except that it has a mountain cable car (not running) instead of an amphitheatre. Oh, and the massively vertical crags all around - that's another difference.
There are no historic buildings, but quite a few monuments to those who lost their lives here in the campaigns of WWII (that was the only reason I'd heard of Narvik). Also there is the sprawling iron ore terminal, which takes up most of the best ground and the natural harbour. Finally of note is the Swedish Church, which runs a bar, a café, and a free internet service (for 30 minutes) - it's presumably for Swedish workers/sailors connected with the iron ore works. The people who are actually using it - well, apart from mostly Russians (struggling with the keyboards), there was a chap reviewing some Iranian Kurdistan stuff; and someone else working through some dodgy Arabic material; and an attractive Middle Eastern girl who stormed out, cursing, halfway through her session.
Well . . .
That was the excitement of Narvik.

Other points of note? Well Bob the Builder is Byggmester Bob. And alcohol's really expensive (£27 for a normal 70cl bottle of Famous Grouse!). And in Sweden, "cider" is alcoholic - in Norway it's not. And Primula cheese (cheese in a tube): at home they're experimenting with chilli-flavour - here they already have paprika, tandoori chicken, cheddar/jalapeño, etc. as well as chilli. And I found a little souvenir troll which looks remarkably like me friend Ken - I may buy one tomorrow and give it to someone who doesn't know him.
Finally back to the hostel (like many of the buildings in Narvik it is built half-underground, presumably for insulation), where I meet my room-mates - a Dane (again, hiking in this terrain!), a Swede (here on business), a Kiwi (doing Europe). A chance to write up the diary, check on my clothes which I hung in the boiler-room (still a little damp - should be okay in the morning), shower and get to bed early.
Throughout the night, huge iron ore trains rumble up and down the valley - the one I counted had three engines and fifty-two laden wagons.

Got up late (06.25), so it was a bit of a rush to get ready (hopefully I haven't left anything in the half-darkness, but time will tell), and got out just in time to flag down the bus as it pulled out of the bus station. And then the long journey south by road.
Most of the time the bus clings to the shore of the fjord, sometimes passing through brief tunnels, but on occasions it climbs up and then plummets back down with spectacular views. Autumn is in full swing here, and the lower slopes are all covered in yellows and golds and browns. I'd thought about taking the boat out to Svolvaer, for the scenery, but it couldn't have been much better than this - particularly since it was (still) pissing down, and outside on a boat might not have been hugely pleasant.
As it happens, I got to experience the fjords-from-the-water thing anyway since part of the road south is actually a 20-minute ferry. Funny kind of scenery from the boat - it's too wide. Its awesome in any direction, but it all starts too far away - in photos it will just be a thin wavy line between 45% water and 45% sky: close to camera-proof scenery. It's kind of like being in a gigantic dessert bowl, standing at the very centre.
During these long journeys here, as in pretty much everywhere else so far, a fair number of the passengers simply sit and play games on their mobile phones - which seems particularly pointless to me, but hey-ho. For me the excitement is provided when, at every second bus-stop we seem to rendez-vous with another bus, and an exchange of packages takes place. Either all the drivers are part of a huge drug-smuggling operation, or else the buses function as part of the postal service. Actually, after three hours, we stop for a cigarette-beak in a little village, and closer inspection reveals the packages to be newspapers.

Another couple of hours (this is a long bus journey) and we stop in Fauske, where the train network intercepts the bus network once again, and an hour after that we're in Bodø (BOHduh, or BOOduh - I heard both: actually they seem to have crossed out the second "o", so perhaps the place is really called "Bod"). Bizarrely, having started with £60 of Norwegian Kroner, I seem to have worked my way through £45 worth without really buying anything. Norway therefore goes into the book as the most expensive country so far (and possibly on the planet).

The trip along the fjord into Bodø has more great scenery, even though it's still raining and the cloudbase can't be much more than 1000ft: at least all the vertical streams (ie. waterfalls) are full of crashing white water. Unfortunately, that was probably the best thing about Bodø. Narvik was a bit of a dump, but very very scenic. Bodø is an entire town (c. 40,000) with nothing to do, and nothing to see, and it was raining all day. I hooked up with a Dutch guy called Alex and we trekked along the shore where we saw the Nordlands Express boats - a whole line (fleet?) of them - they're quite small boats: catamarans, in fact. Next we tried to find some good scenery - there is some, but they've built a (huge) airport in front of it, and there's no good vantage point from inside the airport. Then we went past the Commonwealth cemetery and finally back into town via any significant buildings (only the church spire of note).
How can I sum it up? Bodø is a town, like Stoke-on-Trent, which has so little to see that they put their Shopping Centre on the postcards.

We fill a couple of hours eating in a cheap (actually "cheap" refers to the decor, etc., rather than the pricing) restaurant. Locals, as in the rest of what I've seen of Norway and Sweden, seem to kill time by standing for hours at slot machines - it's some kind of national addiction. We kill our time talking about privatisation and watching the station's automatic doors, which are opening and closing at random in the rain.
This is the most exciting thing to do in Bodø, so it gets 1/10.
Although the incoming train was late, we leave on time and plunge into the darkness as the rain starts trying to fall as snow.

I wake up just after 06.00 - many of the previous passengers (the train was quite busy) have got off, and we've been joined by two family groups (one with a fantastic and enormous black-faced shaggy dog) and a gaggle of girls (in the first phase of Norwegian womanhood: "clinically cute", as opposed to "remote and statuesque" or "matronly"). The combined noise level is easily enough to keep me awake until Trondheim, so I use the hot running water (it's a sleeper, after all) to freshen up and change clothes. The train runs along one side of fjord all the way into Trondheim. Fjords, by the way (or at least the ones I've seen so far) are largely flanked by lines of hills and are wide, as opposed to the stereotypical image of being narrow and flanked by vertical cliffs. The overall effect is similar to a wide lake in a very mountainous region.

We pass the town of Hell on the way in - doesn't look a lot to it - and half an hour later we're in Trondheim and, frankly, this is more like it. I put my stuff in a locker, pick up the nasty free advertiser's map (it shows where Tourist Information is, where I can pick up a better map), and then set out. There is a sizable booklet free at Tourist Information and there's enough in Trondheim to fill it, but even though most of the stuff is still open it's largely not open before about mid-day: the huge and impressive cathedral, for example. Trondheim is, to Norway, much the same as Uppsala and Turku were (it even has a street "Port Arthur" which is a district in, I think, Turku) - it was the old capital, and has the most significant cathedral. I'll have to come back to that, though, because it's closed.

Old Trondheim was built at the mouth of a river, which immediatgely loops back on itself (kind of a cross between Durham and Al Clut/Dumbarton), so it's an excellent site to defend. Also, there's a hill which overlooks the town, where they've built a small castle (which saved the town from the Swedes, apparently). I have a look around that (a noticeable climb) and (though neat) it turns out to be seriously small. Trondheim has an excellent system of free bikes, by the way: they operate like many shoppping trolley's in the UK - ie. by depositing a coin, which is later returned. I was briefly tempted, especially since there's an assisted lift half way to the castle (you put your foot on it and it propels you up), but since much of Trondheim's on hills and the flat (central) bit is quite small, it seemed more trouble than it was worth.
From the castle, I cross to the University (good, large building, looking down over the town) and then return to the old town to look at the shops and the old city wall (which I fail to do - it's not where the tourist map claims it should be). Then I take the tram (Trondheim has one tram route), and try to locate the Trøndelag Folkemuseum. I go way past where I should have got off (and it later turns out that the tram is not a smart way to get there anyway - it doesn't go in quite the right direction), and have a three-quarter hour walk back down to it. The museum's okay, I guess, mostly comprising replica buildings from Viking times to the present (they were pretty miserable in the constant rain), but there's also an indoor section which, when I was there, had an exhibition of life in the area through the last century. En circuitous route to the museum, I was also passed by a guy on roller blades using (ski-like) poles to help propel him uphill - haven't seen that before.
Not wishing to risk the tram again, I walk back to town, where I can't help but notice that they've still got "Millenium 2000" flags and banners up - possibly they spent a lot of money on them.

By now the Cathedral is open and, despite signs claiming that they will charge me 35NKr to get in, it appears to be free. It's a large romanesque and gothic building, with little rococo touches - it is also very dark inside, and you're not allowed to take pictures. It's very reminiscent of the grand cathedrals of west and southern Europe: far more so that its counterparts in Uppsala or Turku. It's been on this site, in one form or another (they've had great fires in Trondheim too), since about 1050 (and the town was around before then) and is built over St. Olav's grave - the same St. Olav as in Olavinlinna, presumably. Olav seems to have been a good Nordic/Viking saint, since he died in battle (near here, I believe). The cathedral is called the Nidaros Cathedral, possibly after the old name for Trondheim (possibly, in turn, derived from the Nidelva river on which it stands).

Next I return to the station - it's time to catch the train to Hell. Trondheim is the first station in a while which has Arrivals/Departures boards, but they don't help much since they only list the trains' ultimate destinations. I catch the first local train (which leaves about two minutes after I reach the station), on the basis that Hell was quite local. The ticket inspector on this journey is doing his best to be Jacques Tati (of Jour de Fête, rather than Hulot), which provides some amusement. Twenty minutes out of Trondheim I ask him if this train stops at Hell - it turns out that it does (which will save me some time), but that you have to request it to: otherwise it will just go sailing (?) blithely past.
I get off and cross the big road bridge ("Hell Bru", which sounds more like a deathly concoction by Barrs) - I check the ground, but it's all concrete, metal and tarmac: not a good intention to be seen. Then into the Hell Centre - I've got an hour to kill before the next train (which, incidentally, I'll have to flag down). I buy some of the excellent postcards and write them in the Hell Café. Children are running around, screaming through the centre as I write; and when I leave, it's really chucking it down and I get soaked. As I stand at the desolate platform waiting for a train to wave down, and getting wetter and wetter, I ponder on just how accurate the name is. One last joke - Hell, from a rail point of view, is a large Goods Yard, rather than a passenger station. This means that the sign at the station says "Hell - Gods Expedition".
While waiting for the train, the day-train from Bodø goes past and I get a chance to see the engines - they have seriously wicked double-layered snow ploughs at the front, rising at least a metre above the ground. Welcome to Norway, I thought.
I also thought, I came to Hell and it rained.
Typical.

I return to Trondheim and, as the darkness closes in, trek out to an Internet Café I spotted earlier. From emails I discover that Mal has been transferred to her new home in Paisley and that my Access card will now charge 2.5% on all foreign currency transactions instead of 1.75% (!!). I think my Visa card may suddenly start seeing more use, and it may also be time to apply for a Mastercard from a different bank. And that, co-incidentally, on the day when I first resort to withdrawing cash with my credit card.
As I sit in the station, waiting for my 23.05 train, I decide that Trondheim has to get 4/10, despite being twinned with Dunfermline.
As the rain continues to piss down outside, I also muse that after only three or four days Norway has given me a cold - which Sweden, Finland, Denmark and Estonia all failed to do even though (down here) Autumn is just getting under way.

A pretty good night's sleep (opposite an English woman who is carrying her own pillow around Norway in a BHS plastic bag) sees me arrive in Oslo: on the way in, the inspector asked to see my reservation, so they're quite serious about people having to buy a ticket and a reservation - ie. they've found a way to get money out of inter-railers. My first stop is the station information office which (un)helpfully informas me that there is no such thing as a night train out of Oslo, except to other parts of Norway. Bastards don't want people to leave, obviously. Ah well, to be honest I was getting pretty fucked off with Norway anyway, what with their train "service", their bizarrely expensive everything, their weather, their 6-week tourist "season", and so on. So I'll leave this afternoon for - actually for anywhere ("anywhere", incidentally seems to be Berlin - Thomas Cook tells me it's the only real option).

Oslo is laid out on a similar basis to Washington DC, in that there's a wide central esplanade/park/mall and all the major buildings are arranged around it. In Oslo this runs from the royal palace (Slottet) to the parliament building (Stortinget). The cathedral lies just behind the Stortinget, and the Central Station lies just behind the cathedral: so there's not much walking to do. First up, past the square outside the station (which has a cool sculpture/statue of a tiger) and straight on to the rather dull Domkirke. Disappointed, I strike north to St. Olav's Kirke, which is also rather dull but entails passing the far more interesting Trefoldighetsk church. Back down to the main drag (actually a park, flanked by two roads - Karl Johans Gate, and Stortingsgata) and up to the very box-like palace (slotter): a sort of small Buckingham Palace, finished in pastel. Like Buckingham Palace, the front's actually on the other side, and opens onto a nice little park (open to the public).

From there I hit the harbour (via the modern Concert Hall, which isn't too bad) which is looking very pretty in the growing sunlight and blue skies. I notice that half the ferries and tours finished - you guessed it - in August: it's as if they're deliberately trying to truncate their season. Overlooking the harbour is the monolithic Radhuset, a twin-towered brick construction which must have lowered property prices for miles around when they finished it. Also at the harbour is an eternal flame - rather than being dedicated to someone they want to remember forever, this one's rather vaguely dedicated to World Peace: which is all very warm and cosy, but rather pointless.

Overlooking the World Peace flame are the guns of the Akershus castle, which guards the approaches to Oslo. Not too bad as a castle - still a military site, but open to the public - it also contains teh Hjemmefrontmuseet (fairly obviously the Home Front Museum) about the German Invasion and Occupation, and the Resistance to it. Well worth putting an hour aside to see if you're in Oslo, though (like all such places) it tends to engender anger at the Germans (even this long after) and puts a question mark over, for example, the West's approach to the Taliban government, when we were capable of just as bad so recently.

Then back into town to check out some of the shopping (which, in common with almost every major city on the continent, makes me wonder why the shopping in Edinburgh is so second-rate). I also check out some of the other buildings off Karl Johans Gate: the University buildings, and the Stortinget: okay, but nothing special. I stop off to buy a Japp bar (they rarely have Mars, but Japp is similar - not quite the same), and other supplies. For your information, I am currently living on:
a.) sour cream and onion crisps
b.) tandoori primula spread on digestive biscuits, and
c.) vitamin pills.
Hey - it works for me.

And then back to the station, still wondering why there was so much horse-shit on the pavements, especially around the harbour - it was like being at an Old Firm game. It also worries me that Oslo is part of a continent-wide obsession with chemists (Apotek, or the local equivalent): there are millions of them, possibly more than any other type of shop except newsagents and clothes retailers. They have 24-hour chemists: and in several of the places I've been so far, chemist shops are even marked on the free tourist information maps! And this wierd paranoia seems to extend all across the north of Europe.
Anyway - Oslo, I'm afraid, only gets 3/10 - which is equivalent to "Okay, I suppose". As a country, Norway seems to be doing particularly badly in terms of settlements. The scenery is the best after Karelia, though.

I catch the 1300 out of Oslo and out of Norway - I assume we cross the border at a place called Halden, because there's a castle there and a very prominent, large Norwegian flag. Two hours after Oslo, we pass through Ed: Sykes, whom I last worked for, have a site there - by the looks of it, it must be about the only thing in town.
Into Göteborg just after 17.00: looks fairly industrial, but I didn't get a chance to look around. Straight onto another train: a Swedish X2000, for which I'm supposed to pay a supplement. The inspector seems as ignorant of that fact as the last one was, which I was relying on: I only have 7,50 SEK (about 50p) in local currency. Another 3 hours of pretty good (right along the coast at times) scenery sees me back in Malmö, and it's at Malmö that everything goes a bit pear-shaped.
The trusty and reliable Thomas Cook European Timetable (September Edition) unfortunately failed to inform me that the overnight Malmö-Berlin train stops running at the end of September. It seems the last long-distance trian south now leaves at 18-something, so I'm scuppered. I hop on a train to Kobenhavn whip out my Youth Hostel handbook, and set off into the night. The hostel turns out to be deceptively far away, and it's over an hour's walk (with the rucksack) before I get there: thankfully they have a free bed ('cos having to walk back would have been a real pisser), and it seems I'm the only person in the dorm. I freshen up, do a bit of repacking the rucksack, plan out a route to the Netherlands for tomorrow (dependant on all the trains still running, of course), and crash out just after one.

I'm joined in the dorm by someone from "Livon", which turns out to be Lithuania, at about 06.00 (which is odd, because check-out time here is 10.00 - hardly worth his time). He chats for a bit and then goes to sleep, and I snooze on until after 08.00. Then onto a bus (buggered if I'm walking back) and get my route (as far as Köln) confirmed: even thought there are trains leaving quite early southwards, my quickest option is to catch a later train which takes the Rødby Ferry, and hence cuts out a lot of the pissing about in Denmark. The train requires a supplement and a reservation, all of which costs me a fiver from the station ticket office - this includes a reservation for the Hamburg-Köln section as well.

It's a bright, warm day (it was 13 degress at 23.00 last night in Kobenhavn - for me, that's warmer than it's been for days), and then train south passes through mile after mile of flat, arable land: autumn has hardly touched here, with only 5% of the trees even beginning to think about turning anything other than green. And then onto the Rødby ferry: they (because there are several, perpetually to-ing and fro-ing) are pretty immense for 45-minute trips. The train goes on the lowest deck - a normal car deck with rails - flanked by trucks; then there's another car deck above; and then there are a couple of decks of cafés, shops, viewing galleries and the other usual paraphenalia. We come ashore, as it were, at Puttgarden - the ramp also has rails, and the train simply drives out onto the German rail network: we get to leave the ship before anyone else.

The very flat coastal plain on both sides of the crossing is littered with white generating windmills - I know they're ecofriendly, but they're a bit of an eyesore and take up so much more space than an equivalent conventional station. Incidentally, I can't be sure, but it appeared from the train that the twin spires of Lübeck (cathedral?) lean away from each other: I'm assuming this is an optical illusion, because otherwise the Leaning Towers of Lübeck would be famous.
Into Hamburg - what can I say? Hardly anything, since I almost immediately get on a train to Köln: only that their "No Dogs" signs are (rather than an unidentifiable mutt, as in Scandinavia) quick definitely a poodle. Oh, and the German (Steffi Graf) nose is very much in evidence here. Oddly, DB charge a supplement for the train out of Hamburg which, frankly, looks and feels like a reject from 1970s Eastern Europe. The first stop after Hamburg was Bremen, which seemed quite different by rail (I used to arrive by air, and drive straight out to the suburb that was home to JLG's German subsidiary).
The whole north of Germany (extending into neighbouring countries as well) is a flat plain - so the scenery was essentially dull until we get to the Ruhr Valley area, where it's all built up and industrial/post-industrial - so again, essentially dull, but in a different way.

A lazy day today - worked on the site a bit (the photos take forever), and then caught a direct train from Heerlen to Breda (a huge thing, with eight carriages, which was largely empty). In Breda a bit of investigation reveals that there is a bus which runs pretty much directly to Marleen's front door (even on a Sunday), so the whole collection-of-stuff thing turns out to be really straightforward. I have time between trains for a short walk around Breda, which seems pretty enough - though the temperature (about 15ºC) probably elevates my impression after Norway. The bus may have been running, but most of the shops were closed, which meant that I couldn't get my next batch of photos developed.
I head back almost immediately, stopping briefly in Eindhoven which is open on Sunday, but was closing by the time I got there - ie. there wasn't an hour left to do one-hour photo development. And then back to Heerlen, where Sys'n'Rich's house turns out to be in a straight line from the station (which is useful). A takeaway Chinese for tea (bless them) and then TV - gosh, haven't seen TV for a while: it turns out that we're in the process of attacking Afghanistan.