This is not strictly a travelogue of collecting a queen, because the gather was one day out of 18, but I don’t have anywhere else to put this and it was a journey of epic proportions, so here it is, in all its sweary glory. The one-day gather for Caroline of Brunswick can be found here if you don’t care to read my 10,000 word diatribe on how much my feet ache.
Day #1
If my first day travelling was exemplary of me travelling I’d never leave the house or write another word about it again. Nothing went wrong, it was just frightfully dull. Apart from the final packing, which was not exactly successful, every suitcase and rucksack I own has been left littering my living room after it became obvious I didn’t have a bag big enough for everything I needed to bring. Its mainly the fault of the arctic coat. Even in a compression sack it takes up half the space. So I’ve ended up with the 65l rucksack I took to Europe the last time, which in even a day I have learnt to re-hate all over again, and my 10l day sack. Once the rucksack is on its kind of OK but getting it on is a bastard. Also a couple of thick jumpers had to be sacrificed, which is probably not the right priority on my way to the actual arctic.
So, got a cab to the station with a lovely chatty racist driver, bacon buttie from Dashi, wait for the slightly delayed train, overcome my spatial confusion at waiting in Zone 1 instead of Zone 9, and board. I’d treated myself to 1st class an it was a bit weird. I’d been given a table seat which I hate and I looked for an empty single seat but their tables don’t move either. Why is that a good thing? I want space. I got a complimentary cuppa so I shouldn’t complain. The ride was very pleasant actually. I listened to the last hour and half of Montmerency read by Stephen Fry and daydreamed at the scenery. I admit to feeling a little afraid, and that feeling hasn’t necessarily left. At the moment everything’s known but by this evening I’ll be in Germany, where I haven’t been in 15 years, and then in Denmark where I have no frame of reference at all. This is one of those times when no matter how stressful, weird, frightening the reality is, I will be able to look back and be proud of myself for doing it.
I didn’t realise until I was packing that the shutter release for my camera was the wrong size so after I checked in I went for a wander to look for an electronics store – I found a million LycaMobile stores and an Argos but no joy. I’ve got a week before I’ll need it. I should be able to pick one up in Copenhagen or Stockholm. I had dinner in the hotel, there’s plenty of time and opportunity to test my social skills later, and got an early night. Proper early. I was asleep before 8.30.
Update: just saw on the news – which is inescapable in the hotel bar – that the EU is demanding the return of illegally sourced cultural artefacts i.e. the Elgin marbles and I never love the EU more. I hope they win.
Update: It is likely my next holiday will be whale-watching in Scotland.
Day #2
First word spoke in Germany: Salami. Second word spoken in Germany: pizza. Third word spoken in Germany: bitte. There it is, that’s German, that counts. Back to the beginning, though I’m starting to worry that if I don’t write things down straight away I’ll forget them, there are so many. Like the above – it took me a full, wobbly circuit of Cologne station to get the nerve to order pizza and I felt so pathetically proud. Fortunately there are many and various opportunities for speaking a foreign language, and at Cologne that came mostly from fending off persistent beggars.
Woke super early, between 4-5am seems to be par for the course these days. Shower, ate what I could at Travelodge’s frankly rubbish breakfast buffet and tottered off to the tube. The train wasn’t until 11am but with travel and check-in time that meant getting on the Piccadilly line at rush hour so I was stood for the 45 minute ride. No worries, I thought ahead and put Kindle on my phone so I cracked a couple of chapters of Kenilworth. I loved Ivanhoe but now I’m wondering if the loving memory of Ciaran Hinds sustained me because I have to admit its dragging a bit. Staring vacantly into the empty tunnel was only very slightly less interesting. Its one from my Read Harder list so I’m committed – and Kat and I will be book-clubbing as soon as I get back so I will finish it, if only out of spite.
I have to admit to struggling with the rucksack. I just don’t have the core strength to heft that bastard around the way I used to. To the point I was window shopping suitcases, but it would have to be huge to take all my crap. It’s the damn coat. I know I’ll be grateful of it when I get to Abisko – or Stockholm judging by the weather – but it is royally fucking me off right now.
OK, Euro-star check-in. Bag straps almost broke the conveyor belt, set off the alarm so got some minor sexual abuse from the border patrol guard and found a seat. I had been thinking that I hadn’t seen that many backpackers so far but suddenly they all appeared, and they were all tall, willowy, strong looking vikings tossing their packs around like the corpses of their enemies. Fuck off all of you. I really wish they’d allow more than 20 minutes to board. A Euro-star has 18 carriages: even with 60 seats per carriage that’s over 1,000 people trying to board through the two small, and on this occasion broken, doors and fight their way to their seats. I’m coming to really dislike the Euro-star. The seats are cramped, there’s never enough luggage space, there’s no quiet coach, there’s only one door per carriage so if you’re in seat 60 you still have to board at seat 1. Also the view is awful most of the way. The English side has concrete walls most of the way an while the French side offers a bit of a view, its mostly flat farmland – and for some reason not the beautiful, romantic vistas I saw on my way to Le Havre, but dreary fens and encroaching industrialisation. I read a good chunk of Murder on the Orient Express, dozed a bit but for the last half hour of the journey I was mentally jiggling my leg uncontrollably because I had previously only had 20 minutes to change at Brussels between the Midi and International platforms, and thanks to a red light before we went into the tunnel that had been reduced to 8 minutes. I wasn’t panicking, at least on the outside, my Interrail pass would allow me to get the next train if I missed it but I really didn’t want to fuck up this early on. There’s a blog called The Man in Seat 61 which describes stations and journeys, even floor-plans for when you’re changing at confusing hubs – awesome. He showed me a shortcut which meant travel time between one train and the next was about 2 minutes. Hero. Of course wagon 27 was the other end of the platform but I got on with 2 minutes to spare. Seat 61 – yes, actually 61 and I only just noticed that as I was writing this – was a solo seat so room for the bag next to me, got comfy, had a little cry from relief at making it, had an even bigger cry when the tanoy said we were delayed by 5 minutes.
The train was lush: little glass pods for quiet travel, wood panelling, actual glass and crockery. Also the announcements came in four languages, English last, so entertained myself seeing if I could work out what they were saying from the first three. I did pick up enough to realise she wasn’t saying the same thing every time – I distinctly heard ‘chilli con carne’ in her German description of the dining car which did not make to into English. No chilli for you, scum. I was too wound up and simultaneously exhausted to read so I listened to some of Mrs Gaskell and Me audiobook. I don’t plan to finish any books on this trip, just start a few hundred.
I had thought, in a fit of nostalgia, that I would use the precious changeover time at Cologne to revisit the cathedral which I remember from travelling as being super impressive. Don’t get me wrong, it is, but what is more impressive when you are carrying a bag the size of a small car and haven’t eaten in 10 hours is a place to sit so I paid some hurried respects to the imposing facade, purchased and inhaled my very German pizza and ascended to the platform. I don’t think I appreciated this before but I love German trains. A train from X to Y will always arrive on the same platform, it will always have the same number of wagons, will have the same formation – sleeping coaches at the front etc – and will always stop at the same place on the platform. So not only can they advertise the platform in advance, there are little diagrams of all the trains that will arrive at that platform for the whole day telling you in which section your wagon will stop. Its like the entire system was designed by autistics.
There were a few moments with beggars, and one guy who might have been begging or might just have needed change – either way I’m pretty sure I made the same mistake as in Tours an told him I only had maps. He went away which is the important thing. Now came the first moment of regretting having a seat reservation. My carriage had been taken over by some mid-life crisis, ex-army twats with a loudspeaker and a lot of beer so the first half of the journey was spent grinding my teeth in a very English manner.
Later…
I have experienced a slight snafu of the ‘watching your train leave without you’ flavour so I’m taking the opportunity to catch up on yesterday’s entry. An hour at breakfast was not enough time for all the sitting and reading done yesterday to be fully described.
The twats got off after a bit and were replaced by Efficient Mum and her family who had booked the seats around me and helping me to correctly stow the rucksack instead of it being on the seat next to me, keeping me safe behind an impenetrable wall of pants and adaptor plugs. Eventually they left too and the girl opposite me and I both spread back out across the vacant seats, sharing a relieved smile. Got off at Munster, popped to the loo which cost E1 but gave you back a 50c voucher, not sure how I would spend it – and also enjoyed the futuristic spectacle of the automated toilet seat cleaner. Literally, the toilet seat rotates after you flush and antiseptic is wiped around the rim by a little robot attachment.
Did not feel like dealing with people when I got to the hotel so I stocked up on sausage rolls and Lays at a supermarket and hiked off in search of the hotel Ibis. Which kind of felt like a hostel but was surprisingly lush. Big bathroom, picture window, roomy bed – I should let other people book my hotels for me more often, they have better taste than me. More futuristic nonsense in that the lights only work if you put the room key in a little slot by the door – which is completely fucking useless if you check in after dark. Tortured myself with some badly dubbed Indiana Jones – there are Amazonian tribes-people who do more convincing Harrison Ford impressions – ordered an extra pillow and got an early night.
Day #3
Hey, guess which two European countries don’t use the Euro? Is it the two I’m in? And did I bring only Euros? Am I shit at organising? Yes to all the above.
I am both exhausted an invigorated this morning. It may be the prospect of not having to touch the rucksack if I don’t want to, or today being the first proper holiday day, I don’t know. Anyway, today is tomorrow’s problem. I need to focus on yesterday. Wow, there’s a whole pathology in that sentence alone.
The title for today’s odyssey will either be ‘is she ok?’ or ‘I left my tooth at the Danish/German border’. I’ll leave my publisher to decide. Got as good a night’s sleep as could be expected in a strange bed – receptionist slash male model provided me with an extra pillow for between my knees and I only had one moment of maybe-cramp but I spoke firmly to it and it subsided. Spent as much time primping in the awesome bathroom – it has saloon doors – as possible and went for breakfast. I’m resigned to a certain amount of confusion from everyone at the breakfast buffet so my trick is to go straight for a hot drink, and while I’m making it and carrying it slowly back to my table I can assess what else is happening. And today, what was happening was a waffle press. Everything else paled into insignificance next to the glory of the little crane mounted pump of batter hanging over the iron. I didn’t go straight there – there were bread rolls and pate to gorge on first and also I wanted to watch how others did it first. I still got it wrong and half-baked batter went everywhere, obviously including in my belly, but it was awesome nonetheless. Back to the room, fill in the Interrail pass – it isn’t valid unless you keep a precise diary of your trips and luckily I noticed the times on my reservations were slightly different to the ones on my itinerary. Since December the route between Hamburg and Copenhagen has changed – good catch.
I’d forgotten that I’d be travelling through Germany in carnival season. I hated this the first time round, partly because I wasn’t expecting it and partly because its like the whole country is on a British stag/hen do in Talinn. Fancy dress, morning drinking, no inhibitions, not a fan. Luckily all the festival goers in Munster were headed in the opposite direction but it was still a bit close for comfort.
The train to Hamburg was packed and I had to move a guy to get to my seat – in German, no fear – and I finished Murder on the Orient Express and started And Then There Were None. I know I should be absorbing the scenery but this part of Germany is indistinguishable from the views of France, Belgium, and to be honest, Kent, and my book was more interesting. Almost got off at the wrong station but I checked with a little old lady and she set me straight. And then I arrived at Hamburg and it later felt like I had moved in and could never leave. If I walked off one end of a platform I would just re-appear at the other end of the same platform. Man in Seat 61 had warned me that even though its a 5 hour journey, its still just a local shuttle train with no catering so I grabbed some sandwiches and Haribo from a Spar and found my track. I checked the handy diagram telling me to stand in Section E, which I did. When the train was announced I stood up ready. I watched it approach. I watched it pass, at speed, and I watched as it vanished into the distance. OK, no need to panic, maybe that wasn’t the train, maybe mine is delayed. 16 minutes later and the next train for this platform is for Cuxhaven and there is no announcement for a delayed train. I’m reluctant to leave the platform in case it does come so I find a conductor to check I was in the right place and he said yes, but in hindsight, he wasn’t local, he departed on a train, so what would he know? I gave up and went in search of an information desk. This was not a conversation I could manage in German and I barely managed it in English, I just couldn’t convey my experience of the train not stopping. Very frustrating but my greater worry was that there would only be one train to Copenhagen that day. Not so, two more trains – a long one with a change in two hours and a short one direct in four hours. She printed the schedule and I bowed out of the conversation as gracefully as I could while remaining calm. Messing up was going to happen eventually, better that it happen at a station as busy as Hamburg rather than some out of the way equivalent of Castle Cary. It took a few laps of the station to find a departure listing but it pointed me to track 6 and I was so highly strung all I could do was go straight there and sit expectantly for the first 20 minutes with the rucksack still on, even though there was over an hour still to go before the train departed. Love anxiety. Just love it. The train arrived and stopped in the expected place – what the hell went wrong the last time – and I got a window table seat with space for the bag and settled in with Soldier Island. I didn’t mean to go straight to my favourites but I feel the need for familiarity.
The train was boarded by customs police before we crossed the Danish border, then there was a papers check at the border complete with very excitable sniffer dogs who just seemed very keen to meet so many new foreign friends. Passport handed to the man with a gun, non-threatening smile offered, passport retrieved, sigh of relief, no, I am not accidentally an international terrorist or mass murderer. Close call. I finished my book before the change at Fredericia – that’s what I’m talking about, a book a day, that’s my totally unhealthy and unreasonable target for this holiday – which was good because on boarding the train for Copenhagen I was legally adopted by a very chatty and slightly tipsy Danish couple who thought I was a superhero for travelling alone and, amongst other things, that the queen of England is a snake. I faked being asleep for a lot of the time but bless them, they even ‘woke me up’ when we were 20 minutes away from the station and shook my hand as I got off.
5 minute walk to the Absolon, where I would face my first test of the language barrier in Denmark. Me: Hallo! Talon du Engelsk? Him: I’m sorry? Her: I understood, he doesn’t speak Danish. Me: *dies a little bit inside*
The language barrier wasn’t the only fly in the ointment. Apparently, Tailor Made Rail haven’t paid my bill, so in the morning I’ll have to give them a call. Not-Danish-Guy was very helpful, they had upgraded me to a double room, he showed me how to use the lift…this place definitely deserves to be described as a ’boutique’. Everything is lime and teal velour and mood lighting and Ikea crockery. It’s nice. Not quite comfortable but very…extra. The bathroom is very. There are four pumps named Swish, Glow, Flow and Chill containing shampoo, conditioner, hand-wash and body lotion. I feel very decadent using them, it’s all a bit Hunger Games. I drew the line at the trendy under-bed lighting, spent five minutes crawling around pulling wires out until it went away. I’ve turned off the radiators and opened all the windows but I know I’ll be too hot and wake up with not a single available, unclogged airway.
Update: I was right
Update: Lyn, if you’re reading this, none of the people I talked to were That Special Someone. Unless you count the sniffer dog. We could have been great together.
Day #4
I have to keep looking back at the previous day because I have no clue what date or day it is. So this is the first proper day, which means, most importantly, that I didn’t feel rushed over breakfast. I have come to two realisations about the continental breakfast (this is a holiday for realisations). 1 – no-one knows what they’re doing or the right way to eat because nowhere in the world outside hotels does the continental breakfast exist. 2 – it is the most satisfying when approached like sushi. You put a small amount of X on your plate, sit down and enjoy it, then put a small amount of Y on your plate, and so on. Having said there’s no wrong way, I absolutely believe that the people who pile everything on a single plate in one trip are monsters. Your eggs are in your fruit salad, you sociopath, what are you doing? On the subject of eggs, theres something different about these. They are the colour of orange juice for a start but the mouth-feel is sort of velvety and they are so rich yet also tasteless. They taste of – fat. It’s the only word I have. I needed a mouthful of orange after every bite. Today I am doubling up on the meat products in compensation. Which are also 50% lard. There were pancakes but no waffles. Sad face. They did have a propelling cheese-slice and I was amazed at how much cheese got eaten in a morning ad that no-one lost a finger.
Safety in Denmark seems to be a given. The traffic is utterly obedient and so are pedestrians. I haven’t seen a single person sneak across when nothing was coming. There are huge stretches of canal with no railings and presumably the response to someone falling in would be ‘What did you expect? You went too close.’
I had a plan for the day but because I know myself and how fragile my social anxiety can be I also recognised I may have to be content just to enjoy being in Copenhagen. The first thing was to get a Danish cache. There is a kind of traffic island with a memorial to – I think a cattle market – but I did a full circuit and couldn’t spot it so moved on. There were only so many places it could be and I also felt super conspicuous feeling up a landmark. I don’t know how the Danish feel about their cattle markets, they might be a sore subject.
Tivoli Gardens is the #1 on pretty much every Copenhagen To Do List but its essentially an amusement park, and what use is that to me? But there was a virtual cache outside and all you had to do was take a selfie – I remembered make-up this morning so actually not a bad pic. Too many crowds to log it straight away so on to the next one. The street I was on opened out into a huge plaza with some alarming public statuary – apparently battle crocs are a thing in Denmark. Found caches #2 and #3 near the Hans Christian Andersen statue, posed for a more rushed and less flattering selfie and consulted the map.
I was trying to bimble my way to the section of canal where the boat tours depart and had accidentally discovered Storget, the longest, and busiest, shopping street in the world. Completely pointless to anyone but tourists and Lego collectors. Found the dock where it looked like a crowd was being organised by a stressed tour guide – checking myself I realised there was no way I knew any less or would mess up any more than those idiots so I joined the queue and got my ticket. Half an hour’s wait sat beside the canal in the winter sun was not a problem, could have stayed there much longer. The boat loaded up and I chose a seat outside though in hindsight I should have gone to the back for a forward facing seat. Never mind, I saw just fine. Another safety thing that made me smile – there was no safety announcement for a start, but the first mate did say we’d be going under some very low bridges and we must stay seated. Except she only said it in English, even though there were 11 languages on the audio-guide. She wasn’t kidding about the bridges – it wasn’t quite like the Blue Lagoon at Capri but it was close, they were only an inch or two above my head. We saw a lot of buildings – Christiansborg, Amalienborg, the opera house etc but for me being on the water was the best part. I got quite bit of canal spray in my hair and I was twisted around a lot but the gentle thrumming of the engine, the rocking of the waves, the occasional cormorant sunning itself -and the smell, by which I mean almost no smell at all, just fresh air and water. If I had a week here I’d be tempted to give a day to just puttering about on the canals. Next time maybe.
I finally found a cache to sign after I got off the boat, took a bit of feeling around in my very unsubtle way but I found it. My next stop was going to be the Glyptotek, a public art gallery of a private collection with a lot of sculpture which I was definitely in the mood for. I went via another potential cache along the same stretch of canal but I think the local building work must have dislodged it. Got a phone call from the rail company letting me know my booking had been sorted – when I checked in they said the company’s payment had been declined, bit of a worry – and after cycle dodging for a bit ended up at the plaza. By this time I really needed a comfort break so I got a coffee in Starbucks to use theirs but it all seemed like a bit of a hassle – people were emerging looking confused and I did not have enough spoons for an unsettling toilet moment so I went straight to the museum.
Later…I’m getting out of sync but I spent an hour at the Glyptotek and I’m feeling like exploring it a little. I had lingered too long eyeing up the loos in Starbucks so I only had 2 hours before closing. To be honest I didn’t know what I was going in for I just knew it was something I needed. Not disappointed. Well, I would have liked to grab a gallery stool and spend time with each of the pieces I liked but that could have taken all day. I took bad photos of the best so I could mull later on. i.e. now. I didn’t make it as far as the paintings, the hour I was in there was just for sculpture. I’ve probably said it before but I find myself drawn more and more to the tactility and sensuality of sculpture but I find I am also incredibly picky. It’s not enough to show a body or bodies, it’s not enough to be by Rodin. It has to be believable. I have to be able to see the effort of the pose on the human body. They have a version of The Kiss and it reminded me of all the reasons I dislike it. Apart from it being rather brutal – to me this and Klimt’s The Kiss occupy the same distasteful space. The men are grasping, taking, the women are either resisting or simply there. To be grasped and taken.
The ones by Rodin I am drawn to are where they appear unfinished – the Danaid at Paris and the 3 Sirens today – the unfinished marble is like the sea foaming around them, exerting some otherworldly pull because they seem to be struggling to free each other. But even this one doesn’t truly reflect the struggle in the women’s bodies. There were several by a sculptor called Stephan Sinding that were not only arresting but challenging to look at.
The Captive Mother shows a woman with her hands tied behind her back straining to breast feed her infant son. It is difficult to look at but beautiful at the same time. Her hands clench into claws with the effort of leaning, the flesh of her stomach puckers, her neck strains, possibly in pain and her son pulls her breast towards him oblivious of the discomfort she is in. There’s something a little grotesque in his supine, demanding pose.
In direct contrast to this is The Oldest of the Line also by Sinding. Its in oak and maple, where the grain of the wood supplies the pattern on the woman’s robe. She reminds me of Margarethe de Geer by Rembrandt – ancient, erect, not to be messed with. I don’t know what her stance is in relation to but she seems to have planted herself against some adversary, physical or psychological and she will not budge. Or maybe she’s just allowing herself to enjoy feeling the sun on her face before she gets back to her work. There was another that I didn’t particularly like but I had to admire because looking at it made me tired. Its called Barbarian Mother, and shows a woman struggling to hold up her dead son. The mother herself looks like a man with breasts: the hands arms and face are all too masculine but the interplay of the two bodies and their interplay with gravity is very realistic. He is a complete dead weight hanging awkwardly against her braced leg, the force of which makes her foot splay out. The belt around his chest cuts in, and the skin gathers under his arms where the is pulling on it. The veins and muscles stand out on her arms. There is no grief, she seems wholly intent on her task.
After I’d done a circuit of the French, Roman and grudgingly the Egyptian – its all too symbolic and lacking in personal identity to get excited about – I sat for a while in the palm house in the middle of the museum. There was a lot of green, some fountains, more sculpture – exactly what I needed. The whole experience felt like a deep breath in and out. I sometimes worry that spending time in an art gallery isn’t really experiencing this new city I’ve travelled three days to get to but it is very much what I want and gives me pleasure. Its one of the few places I can be completely open to whatever comes next and am afforded the luxury of taking my time to understand what a piece is saying or means to me. There is simply no other place in the world where those two things combine for me. Its the closest to safe and to peace I can get while not being alone in a room. Its nice to have come to that realisation, maybe I can be more proactive and consciously use gallery trips as self-care when I need it.
I was very, very tired and frankly sore so I took a breather on a handy bench near the train station and watched Danish rush hour for a while and since I didn’t fancy going out for dinner I went into the station hoping the 7/11 would have something I could take back to the hotel. No. But I did find a place that sold ‘Thai’ food like a salad bar so I dined on Thai red curry, rice, potato salad and spring rolls. Sounds wrong but it hit the spot. Also bought some insoles. These boots are so thin, I don’t know how I didn’t notice when I bought them. Gave myself an hour lying on the bed staring into space and then headed back down to the bar. It felt way too early to commit to the room, but also all the feelings I’d carried away from the museum needed dealing with.
Update: aside from the museum, the high point of yesterday was giving directions to some tourists looking for Tivoli
Update: the German couple next to me just got busted for making a packed lunch out of their breakfast and now they’re having to eat everything they made in one go.
Day #5:
I finally started writing notes though the day so I’d be able to remember all the stupid things I’d done. It worked – I did a lot of stupid things and now I remember them perfectly. Maybe not stupid. Silly. And possibly felonious.
Started with a long, leisurely breakfast writing and people watching – which I should be more subtle about, I have a tendency to forget that when I can see someone, they can see me and I come off as a creepy weirdo. My average breakfast time is 1-1.5 hours, god knows what the wait staff thinks about me. I realised that I have not had a Danish pastry while in Daneland so I forced down a cinnamon thing and an apple thing and went off to pack. I waited until the last moment to check out but even then had an hour before the train. When I changed train at Frankfurt – or was it Cologne, its all a blur – I bashed my finger and shattered my fingernail. It held together so far but now it needed some attention so I bought some nail clippers, something I hadn’t thought to bring. Brought tweezers, but they were for caching. You know, the important stuff. I had a 5+ hour train ride ahead to I also stopped at a 7/11 for snacks, leaving 20 minutes to get to the right platform. I needed Stor 26, which was helpfully signposted, and even more helpfully had an extra sign saying ’15 mins’. Shit. I think the Danes love a bit of drama because there were little white arrows all the way on the floor, then every hundred metres or so a blue plaque with a time update. You have been walking for an hour, but there’s still 15 minutes to go. The first one made my heart sink and my anxiety rise, then after a minute it changed to 10 minutes and I started to relax. No more than 2 minutes and it changed to 5. So not only do they love drama, they enjoy fucking with tourists. A girl and I arrived at the lift to the upper platform and clearly recognised a fellow panicker. We shared a joke about getting lost together (No, Lyn, still not happening) and enjoyed the mad martial music in the lift in companionable silence.
The train was already at the platform so I and a hundred other hardy souls waited in the increasingly heavy sleet while the train crew cleaned/watched us and laughed. Silly thing #1 (actually number #2 because for the second day in a row I put a tea-bag into a tea pot meant for leaves) when I got to my seat, all the tray tables had adverts on them and mine was for a TV station, but they’d used a still from Kenneth Brannagh’s Murder on the Orient Express. Spooky. Took a pic. Had a private giggle.
There was some problem with the train we were supposed to be on so we’d have to change at Malmö. At least it would break up a very long journey. We kept the same carriage and seat numbers, but sadly Kenneth was no longer keeping me company. Sad. I forgot silly thing #3: I took a film as we crossed The Bridge into Sweden – its a bit blurry and rainy but I was not fully prepared for being on a bridge and not being able to see either shore.
It took a while for everyone to settle at Malmö because the wagons were incorrectly numbered – I was fine but almost everyone else was involved in some weird logic puzzle of bags, seats and languages, and watching it all I realised that just as when I was in Prague, I fall back on German unconsciously when I don’t know the Danish or can’t think fast enough. Its interesting that in a spontaneous moment my brain doesn’t reach for an English word.
So I’m looking ahead to 4.5 hours of scenery, and in all honesty I was not prepared for a) what that scenery would be like and b) how it would affect me. I think I was expecting wide open spaces, and no doubt they’re out there but what I saw was a series of fir plantations punctuated by lakes, solitary red houses or farmsteads and the occasional town. You could paint it with three colours: a stripe of grey for the sky, a stripe of green for the trees, and stripe of brown for the scrub and another of grey for the various boulders, walls and roads closer to the train. I know to most people that will sound endlessly drab and monotonous but it felt very familiar and comforting. It was as if I could take a 5 hour train ride across Dartmoor. I checked: Sweden is more than 400,000 square miles, or 1,233 times the size of Dartmoor. That’s what Sweden is to me now. Its Dartmoor, but one that has no meaningful boundaries or borders. Its a whole world of Dartmoor. You can’t imagine how beautiful and calming a thought that is, and how peaceful I felt watching the endless trees and cottages pass. For a start it was physically relaxing – nothing that required effort like a too bright sky, nothing that jarred the attention, the landscape just presented itself quietly for my perusal. But the constancy and familiarity combined with the length of time meant eventually I had thought all the conscious thoughts I needed to and once they had floated away deeper, more personal or distant thoughts drifted to the surface. Most importantly, even though this trip was to celebrate my 5 year anniversary, only now, 5 days in had I the mental bandwidth to remember that fact or to assess how I felt about that. I didn’t need to assess, the feeling came from nowhere like a lightening bolt and suddenly I was crying. Don’t worry, they were happy tears. I was overwhelmed by happiness that I had given myself the opportunity to experience this. Being here on this train trundling through Sweden, looking at what to me was a beautiful panorama, I felt so grateful, lucky, joyful to have lived to be here.
With 2 hours to go and no snacks left I took the difficult but logical decision to start eating the passengers. I would start with the snotty German woman who refused to get out of the reserved seat she was in. That happy thought, and finishing The Mysterious Affair at Styles carried me though to Stockholm. I passed a CO-OP and thought I’d stock-up for the hotel so I grabbed a sandwich, crisps and biscuits and queued for the check-out. It was self-service which I thought would be safe. I scanned, I packed, used my card but at no point didn’t give any of those ‘you’re done’ bingly-bongs and after poking it for a bit I took my card and groceries and left as nonchalantly as possible, vowing never to go back in case they arrest me for shoplifting as I am 98% sure I did not actually pay.
Inevitably walked the wrong way out of the station, doubled back and found the Nordic Light Hotel. These places are getting swankier by the day. All glass front, huge lobby, I’m frankly amazed they let me through the front door. When I got to my room the lights were on and the TV greeted me by name. Swanky and super creepy. I fought back by spreading my dirty laundry on every surface. That’ll show ’em. Watched a bit of Swedish TV then discovered it had Chromecast so spent the rest of the nigh watching NCIS via my tablet and getting more food on the bed than in my mouth. Good times.
Update: You know who else are monsters? The people going for the savory salad option at breakfast. Lettuce is not a morning food, put that down!
Update: Finally saw someone else wearing hotel slippers. I feel vindicated.
Update: I’m calling it, it’s time to move onto the new journal!
Day #6
New Journal Day! This isn’t the christening moment, I already wrote a bunch of artistic wank in the back.
Even with the thermostat turned down the room was too warm and the duvet too light so not a good night’s sleep. Came down for breakfast at about 7.30 and it was already a little busy, do these people have nothing better to do on a Sunday morning? My breakfast has become fairly routine – meat and bread course, cooked course (substituted for a cereal course in the event of velvety eggs) and cake course. Today for the cooked course I was treated to mini saveloys and herby potatoes- perfect way to protect against the cold! The only problem with my well-laid breakfast plan is I have to be careful where to sit so I’m not constantly pushing past people at the neighbouring tables to get my courses. I moved once because the chair was uncomfortable and then got blocked in. There’s a science to successful holiday refuelling.
Apart from watching how many weirdos had salad with their breakfast it was otherwise uneventful. I decided to risk a single layer and went in search of somewhere to change my utterly useless euros. Reception pointed me to the train station, which I could have thought of if Id given it half a second’s thought. Moron. Vasagaten in the daylight felt a bit less intimidating and actually the central station is a lovely building. I entertained myself with a joke I was moving the automatic revolving door by the power of my mind. Like I said, moron, and furnished myself with 700 krowns. The exchange rate between pounds, euros and kronor is where I swear most of my budget will go. I tried for a couple of caches on my way to the National Museum – couldn’t find the first and the second was an earthcache I wasn’t really in the mood for – Kat, if you’re reading this, yes, that sometimes happens.
The third was right by the water where I found a huge flotilla of birds at a municipal feeding station. I wonder if that stops them bothering people for food? I saw some mute swans, tufted ducks and coots, since I know you were about to ask. It took me a while to find the cache – I was expecting to to be magnetic but then I saw a little green thread in amongst some chunky rope leading to the water – I gave it a gentle pull and there it was! My first in Sweden.
I had accidentally found the tourist boat dock so I took a timetable and continued on, finding one more before going into the museum. First stop, loo. Second stop, lockers. They don’t use coins, they let you chose a pin and I imagine the CCTV footage of thousands of tourists trying to figure this out, myself included, is hilarious. I’ve written up the art elsewhere but its worth remembering the gallery seats – finally braved taking one after doing a discrete load-bearing test in a quiet corner, which allowed me to annoy many people by sitting in the way of every decent painting. I also found a bust of Cate Blanchett done in the French Revolution style.
From Norland by Peder Balke 
The Last Ray of Sunshine by Julia Beck 
Winter Moonlight by Gustaf Fjaestad 
Norwegian Mountain Landscape by Johan Christian Dahl
Next up, boat trip! I had an hour to wait but I didn’t really want to rush fitting something else in so I bought a hot-dog and sat in the winter sun watching the birds. No-one can say I haven’t taken the time to relax on this trip. Some times I chose it, others its forced on me, but time has definitely been on my side. I was afraid we’d be using one of the enclose tourist boats moored along the quay but with about half an hour to go a steamer drifted up with the whole top deck open – that’s where I needed to be. I was right at the back of the queue but fortunately most of the passengers ahead of me were cowards and sat indoors so there was plenty of space up top. There was a bin of travel blankets for our knees – and in some cases shoulders and heads – and yet again I got stuck with a couple addicted to taking selfies every five seconds but they kind of blurred into the background after a while. Even after an hour I was never so cold I was uncomfortable, and the mild breeze and gentle rocking was very pleasant. I would have been happy to go around again but that hour cost about £25. Stupid expensive lovely Sweden.
One of the weird things about travelling to new places is I’m never entirely sure I’ve found the main bit, the centre. I’d walked from the central station via a lot of heavy roads and waterways but Stockholm is the capital, I hadn’t seen anything that looked like London or Paris, or even Copenhagen. On the boat they’d pointed out Gamla Stan, the old town, so when I got off, even though I was pretty tired I headed that way at least so I could say I’d been there. It was what you’d imagine, a lot of little streets and squares. I had delayed getting a Copenhagen souvenir and then I forgot so this time I pounced on the first place I found in case there weren’t any more. I needn’t have worried, every other store sold comedy viking crap. What I also found was a cute little bistro called Ruby’s advertising late lunches and despite the hotdog I was hungry and determined not to be afraid to go in wherever I liked the look of, so I got a table and ordered meatballs, mash, lingonberry and pickled cucumber. It wasn’t until after I ordered I realised I’d ordered Swedish meatballs in Sweden. And also that I would be paying 10x what I would have paid at Ikea. Totally worth it to be sat there, reading my book, eating a meal like a real girl. (I’ve moved onto The Secret Adversary). Also I lingonberried myself but I think I got away with it.
Bimbled back across multiple bridges, a couple more caches and the actual main shopping strip Stockholm has inspired me to start a new collection – public clocks. There have been some lovely and truly awful examples just today. It was still only 6-ish and I knew that despite the pep from the lunchtime coffee I wouldn’t want to go out again, so I popped into the train station, made use of their expensive facilities- £1 to pee, I wanted to throw all my remaining notes at the guy and flounce off – and risked arrest by returning to the Co-op. I realised I also hasn’t had a cinnamon roll in Sweden so I got a bag and some sea-salt chocolate and managed to actually pay this time. So, yes, I owe them £8 from my first trip.
While I was in the station I had a thought that not only are they often lovely places architecturally – and Stockholm’s definitely is – but they are at once places of total chaos and confusion but also safety and refuge. The one thing I remember learning early in my pre-smartphone travelling days is don’t stand in public places looking at a map, you’re just painting a target on yourself. But railway stations are a place where its safe, even expected to not know where you’re going or what you’re doing. Big stations have everything you need – toilets, supermarket, foreign exchange, tourist information – and more than once I’ve resorted to returning to the train station even though I wasn’t travelling because it was safe and easy, and so busy you just blend into the background. Everyone’s in the way, everyone’s in a rush, and the lone, confused traveller is practically invisible. I haven’t forgiven Hamburg for its platform treachery but apart from that, yay railway stations!
Day #7
Today has already been full and thanks to the overnight train the last 36 hours are blurring into a mush. Let me try to dredge my memory for what happened yesterday. Oh yes, I remember. Pain. That’s not fair, it didn’t start with pain but it did middle and end there.
Thanks to the heavy meat diet and an ill-advised Imodium I did not have room for all three breakfast courses but it still took me until 10am to get up and out. The Nordic Light kindly let me stow the rucksack until my train at 6pm so that was something. I thought I would do the Royal Palace and some caching with my part day which got off to a reasonable start, found a couple then met a young girl also looking for one at the King’s Garden. We scrabbled around in the leaf mulch for 10 minutes but never found it. I found the next one though – Swedish cachers really love their flat magnetic plates.
Just before going into the palace I stopped on a bridge to mull. When I first arrived in Stockholm, all those hours ago, it had felt very busy and trendy and not really for me but in the daytime it was completely different. For a start it was really hard to get my head around it being an archipelago, rather than a city with a very twisty river. Every bridge leads from one island to another, and as well as each island having its own distinct identity, it also means the city can never get overbuilt or overcrowded – you can’t build on the water so there are these permanent wide open spaces giving you room to breathe. There’s something about the light here. I don’t know whether its because the sun never really gets high here, or its reflecting off a lot of very old, creamy architecture but the light is never harsh, its warm, not golden but mellow and comfortable. That combined with all the water reminded me of St. Ives. I have enjoyed walking around the city in the same way I enjoyed Madrid and Amsterdam. Its not that there’s a different pace of life, but life is simple and orderly. Even at rush hour, everything just works. I could see myself living here, possibly with a little red lodge somewhere out in the country for weekends. By a lake. And by nothing else.
There was a queue for the palace and some annoying kids and a lot of stairs and by the time I’d looked through the rooms dedicated to all the different medals the Swedish royal family had either invented or been awarded I was done. I sat on a bench with some older ladies and checked out. Its day 7 – I have been on the go for a week an not only am I physically exhausted which could be overcome, I am emotionally, spiritually spent as well. That’s harder to deal with or put to one side. It doesn’t matter that a large amount of my time has been spent sitting on trains, I’m still worrying how much time til we arrive, have I memorised the route to the hotel or the next site, will they understand me, will I understand them, can I afford to just stop or am I storing up guilt for later that I didn’t do enough, see enough. Not even sleep helps because I’m in strange beds and still worried about cramping up. My bucket is empty and I have no way of filling it.
Obviously sitting in an exhausted funk inside Sweden’s Buckingham Palace for the rest of the day was not an option so I trudged on, sometimes faster, sometimes slower, sometimes actually paying attention to my surroundings and wanting to edit their signs – its a tapestry, not a quilt – and after many grand and impressive rooms and partaking of the delights of many benches, I gave up. I couldn’t be bothered to go looking for the treasury, though I’m sure it would have been awesome to see their crown jewels, I just wanted food and rest. I wandered back towards Gamla Stan as there was a super-easy virtual cache I wanted to get an on the way came across Cafe Schweizer which looked cute and welcoming, so I sat at a corner table eating fish soup reading the latest Agatha and trying to will some energy back into myself, semi-successfully. After that I found a few more caches, had the world’s worst hot chocolate – and in all honesty I am underwhelmed by cinnamon rolls, the Flour Station at Borough Market does infinitely better ones – and started back for the hotel and the grudging reunion with the rucksack.
So I had 2 hours to wait for the train and Man in Seat 61 had reassured me it would arrive 40 minutes early so there would be plenty of time to board leisurely. As it happens, it arrived 20 minutes late – long enough for me to notice that every single other passenger on the track had better arctic footwear than me, including the 2 year-olds – and it was chaos. I found my cabin and was immediately thankful to Emily for booking out the entire cabin for me, it would have been a nightmare with even one other person in there. After 10 minutes investigating the amenities and pushing all the buttons I shut my door and settled in for the end of The Secret Adversary.
Sadly it was already dark so I had no view for the first six hours. I woke up at midnight and with my lights off I could just see a little flurry of snow on the ground. By 3.30am this had become a permafrost when we stopped at Bastutrask. Somewhere in the middle of those two I got a strange, uneasy feeling about all the snow. There was just so much of it, and I felt very much unequal to the challenge of navigating it, for all my preparations.
Update: as if to bear this out, my mountain view has been obliterated in about 30 seconds by increasingly heavy snow.
Update: More than 1% of my caches are now in Sweden.
Update: I fish-souped myself.
Update: I am inside the Arctic Circle!
Day #8
It took me longer to get going this morning due to a combination of tiredness, disappointment, bad sleep and a cracking headache, so this journal comes to you at the practically-afternoon time of 11am instead of the respectable morning-o’clock of 7.30am. Managed to get some sleep on the train but still woke at 6.30am which meant four hours until we arrive. Just like the train up to Stockholm, this was actually fine. Four hours on a train at home would be a strain but the weather was clear and there were either little pine plantations or snowy hills all the way. Very beautiful and at no point did it get boring, I was just happy to stare out of the window for most of the journey.
Most. I read a bit of Murder on the Links and breakfasted on my legally purchased curry sandwich, and then suddenly, half an hour early we were there. Hustle off the train carrying the hat, scarf, gloves etc to find that I couldn’t even see my breath in front of my face while I was stood on the platform, and I didn’t need my spikes because the snow was so fresh, but I was glad of my stick and the rucksack was easier to heft about with the arctic coat actually on me rather than in the bag. The Guesthouse was a five minute walk from the station and when I arrived, despite having a check-in time of 3pm, they said my apartment would be ready in about half an hour. I left the rucksack in the bunkhouse and ventured out for supplies. Abisko has exactly one shop, a wholesaler weirdly specialising in large meat and pic-n-mix. I stocked up on breakfast foodstuffs and hot chocolate mix and staggered back. I got my room key, which also permits me access to a Mr Benn style dressing up room full of waterproofs, woolly socks and crash helmets. Its nice to have space to myself, actual furniture, kitchen, crockery etc but I think I would have preferred a room at the lodge. After the last few places this feels like a bit of a come down: there are bunk beds. I’m such a snob.
My south-east facing window gives me a beautiful view of the two mountains nearby, they look like a giant has scooped out their middle. I caught up on my journal, sorted my gear and tried to shake off the feeling that I was still on the train – my whole body kept unconsciously swaying making me feeling a little nauseated. All the way up here I still hadn’t seen any signs of life beyond a magpie and a swarm of sparrows. Having relaxed and settled in I wanted to try for Abisko’s lone cache, which turned out to be right next to the supermarket, so I got all togged up again to go have a look. The clue was ‘behind the information sign’ which at home, or here during summer, would have made it a quick and easy find, and to be fair I did find it really quickly. I just couldn’t get to it. The information sign was behind a huge snowdrift at the side of the road so although I could see it hanging down the back, my lame attempts to reach it lead to me sinking up to my knees in the fresh snow. So in the face of confusion and scorn from my audience of women in cars in the supermarket car park waiting while their husbands do their shopping, I gave up and went back. I didn’t have to go for the aurora tour until 7.45 so I stripped down to my thermals – otherwise I wouldn’t feel the benefit when I went back outside – and slobbed about for the afternoon. By which I mean watching NCIS and drinking my body weight in cocoa.
The Activities in Abisko lodge was ‘5 minutes walk from the guesthouse’ so I left 15 minutes early and arrived on time. There was a frenetic 10 minutes while everyone got into overalls and mittens – I’d already had to start stripping off layers form heat exhaustion – and then came the humiliation. We were to be towed in a sleigh by a snowmobile to a dark skies site but you had to climb up into the sleigh, about 2 feet off the ground, but my little legs just couldn’t do it. Cecelia the guide was very sweet and immediately went to fetch a step stool, couldn’t find it and came back with a painters ladder. Problem solved for now, but we couldn’t bring the ladder with us so we’d have to figure something else out for when we got there. Joy. The sleigh did not feel like it was long for this world, every time the snowmobile turned the sleigh sort of shifted at the hinges, making a lot of scary creaking noises and shuddering. The trip was fun though, almost immediately we could see a sky full of stars and it was exhilarating being in the wilderness at night. It only took 10 minutes to get to the site at which point I essentially launched myself off the sleigh in a wild and ungainly fashion. It was almost completely dark, we could only see the bare outline of each other which was a bit disconcerting. There was some could cover with a very feint green tinge to it to the north so me and another couple with a tripod set up in that direction. I freely admit that I am no photographer, and had the aurora shown itself, I would have been mightily pissed at my camera that it wouldn’t shoot in the dark, but they didn’t, so it was moot. After what felt like an eternity looking at the sky, getting warm in the yurt, drinking lingon-berry and listening to Cecelia’s explanation of the aurora, we called it a night. A very kind American named Rick made me a step stool from a plastic crate filled with snow, and then allowed me to use him as a ladder to get down again, and that was that. I trudged home, got into bed and tried not to think about how disappointing it was to come all this way and not see the thing I came for. The miserable feeling was compounded in the early morning by getting cramp, not being able to sit up in bed and ending up spending the rest of the night on the sofa. Abisko should have been the highlight of my anniversary holiday blowout and it keeps letting me down and fighting back. I would really like for something to go right.
Day #9
Alright. Back on the horse. Or sleigh. I got a solid 3 hours sleep on the couch despite the glaring sunlight coming through the one window with no curtains or blinds, so yay me. Not so yay was getting an email saying the trip to the Sami village to poke reindeer had been cancelled. I think I’d wanted to see reindeer more than the aurora so I was pretty low for most of the morning. Lot of time spent gazing at the view or watching other people get ready for activities. There was a couple getting lessons in snowmobile driving in the car park and it occurred to me that in all our layers and mittens we look like Lego figures!
My activity for the day was dog-sledding and I was bundled up and waiting by the pick-up 10 minutes early. 1.30 came, no sign. 1.40 and I’m feeling a bit stupid just standing there. Just as I’m giving the company a call my transfer arrived. I did not need another disappointment. We were driven up to the same place as last night then walked a bit further…we could already hear the dogs getting excited. There were 8 of us and two husky teams. We were instructed how to sit on the sled – toes turned in, not out- and we were assigned seats, I got to sit at the back, which once I relaxed was very comfy. Each team had ten dogs in pairs, one of which was getting quite rowdy and our guide had to dominate it several times before we could leave. And then suddenly we were moving, much faster than I expected to begin with, though once we hit the trail proper we slowed to a normal jogging speed – I know it was jogging speed because our guide had to run behind for quite a lot of the time. When I asked him about it he said this team of dogs hadn’t quite gelled yet as a pack so he would occasionally help them out by running.
The scenery was incredible. It was obviously a well-worn trail but apart from trail markers there were no signs of life. Just the mountains and the sky. I would have liked to film some of it was we went but as I discovered last night, I can’t operate my phone while wearing even one pair of gloves, let alone three and even though I am getting better at pressing the screen with my nose, we were bumping around too much for even that. Apparently our trek went 6 miles out – not necessarily in a straight line – then we stopped at a tepee where we gathered around an open fire, drank tea from wooden cups and ate toasted cinnamon rolls while the guides answered our questions about the dogs. We had some time to take pictures and pet the dogs, so I came away with a lot of dog hair on me – they were so daft and docile, as soon as I approached they gave me a lick and closed their eyes and let me give them scritches. After maybe half an hour it was time to go. The dogs knew before we did and got really excited again – there was a lot of yellow snow when they got up! The trip seemed faster, I would have liked to keep going for much longer. One of the guides said the dogs could easily do several hundred miles in a day but that they get easily bored so they combat the psychological fatigue by taking them off-trail as often as possible. When we got back two lovely Italians helped me dismount – not quite as humiliating as the other night but not far off – and we were done. The guide dropped me back at the guesthouse where I took some time to mull the experience over before going for some more supplies since I’d be in all day tomorrow and settle in for the evening. Very relaxing, just like a normal holiday.
Day #10
Hump day. Over half way through. All downhill from here. It was a weird day in that for a long time nothing happened. As my reindeer experience had been cancelled, I decided not to crowbar in another activity and just relax for a day. Which it turns out I really needed. Slumming about in my thermals occasionally taking bad pictures of the mountains from my window whenever the light changed. Then about 4pm I remembered the guesthouse had a laundry and that I’d worn pretty much everything I’d brought at least twice so I went down to talk to Klas in reception. I thought he’d give me a token but he just said I could leave it with him and he’d have the cleaner do it. Good job I didn’t leave any pants in there. God knows what kind of doll clothes I’ll get back.
More importantly he said there was a 90% chance of aurora tonight given how clear the skies had been all day. He had a space left on a photography tour and I couldn’t resist so after wrestling with a pair of size 46 snow boots I was meeting Jesus and four other intrepid photographers for a night out on the frozen lake. We had a quick lesson on settings in a porta-cabin where one Aussie made herself generally insufferable going on about infinity settings and how she didn’t think we’d be going by snowmobile, she thought she’d booked a minibus. She did not stop making a nuisance of herself all night but she drew some of the fire from me and my inability to mount the sleigh again. Not as bad as before, I just needed a hand up. So there’s the five of us in an open sleigh that felt like it was made from Lego, clutching our cameras and tripods and desperately trying not to lean in the curves and tipping the whole thing over. I did feel very anxious once we got onto the lake. Jesus said it was frozen at least a meter thick but that didn’t stop me from tip-toeing around for the first half hour.
We’d gone out to the middle of he lake, far enough not to be affected by the town lights, but not so far we couldn’t still see them. I took a few shots of the moon to get used to the camera and then Jesus pointed to the north and told us it was starting. I, in my naivete, was expecting the big green ribbons you see in the photos, so I was a bit disappointed when Jesus pointed to an only slightly less dark patch of big dark sky. I didn’t want to seem ungrateful so I pointed in its general direction and took a shot. The exposure was 15 seconds, and it took closer 20 for the image to show on the screen. I don’t recall the noise I made but it was somewhere between a squeal and a scream but there on the screen was a light green slice across the sky.
I hadn’t really understood that the camera could see more than my eyes and that I would have to do a certain amount on trust. I would just look at any slightly lighter patch and shoot. After a while we got better at spotting them and though they never showed green to the naked eye, we could see the shapes and their movement. After a while Jesus cracked open a thermos of lingon-berry and he regaled us with his best aurora shoots, including one amazing one just a week ago. The photo he showed us had the whole sky lit up. We did a bit more then we elected to move to a different site closer to the town for a different view, by which time most of us were either freezing or seizing up from standing still for so long.
We started back a little reluctantly, then Jesus stopped the snowmobile because he’d found arctic fox tacks, no more than 100m behind where we’d been stood – we’d all been looking at the aurora and he’d been looking at us! However, we paid for the diversion because he couldn’t get the snowmobile going again and we all had to dismount and help. The snowmobile can only go on snow and we’d driven onto uncovered ice, which made me clench all the way back to the dry land. We dropped off our stuff at the porta-cabin and I minced back to the apartment to gaze longingly at my 70 slightly blurry, eerily similar photos of green clouds. Awesome!
Day #11
I thought I was catching up late the other day but today’s report comes at the wholly unsociable time of 10pm. I’ve just changed from the plebeian dormitory section of the train to the getting a whole cabin with a bed, sink and amusing tiny ladder to myself section of train. But more of that tomorrow. I must for the moment confine myself to today. What happened? Its all blurring into one and I’ve gotten out of the habit of making notes on my phone while I’m perpetually wearing three pairs of gloves. I had a 9.30 start for the Ice Hotel which in all honesty was something I booked as a way of filling a day rather than having a burning yearning to go. It seemed to be what people did so I did it. Spoilers: I needn’t have bothered. I dropped my laundry with Klas, chatted about the aurora and since my train home wouldn’t be until 5pm and check-out was at 11am I thought I should book something to keep me occupied for the day. The fjords tour was cancelled but there was moose spotting – how could I resist? After a few minutes my bus turned up filled with 2 Aussie lads and a single family of 14 Indians. And they were chatty. It was an hour and a half to the hotel and they kept up a constant hum of blah the whole way there. I was able to zone out as we drove for a lot of the way along Lake Tornotrask, all 70km of it frozen and not a cloud in the sky. It was endlessly beautiful and it never occurred to me to read or do anything but soak in the view.
I wasn’t especially impressed with the organisation of the trip and I wasn’t the only one. When I got on the bus two vouchers had been thrust at me, one for entry and one for lunch. It wasn’t long before it became clear I and the Aussies were the only ones – none of the Indians got theirs, leading them to converging on me several times while I walked around the hotel – I swear it was the coat, I will never be anonymous wearing that damned thing – and asking where I had got my ticket. They got in eventually but it took them an hour of arguing and phone calls. The driver hadn’t explained it was a self-guided expedition and when we got back on board, he tried to pretend he wasn’t the one who had picked us all up. Shoddy.
Back to me. I didn’t really know what to expect so I made a bee-line for the perky young person in a corporate poncho and asked how to tackle it. There are two buildings, one with 20+ rooms and one with 30+. Each room has an artistic theme, and should be treated like a museum, making your way from exhibit to exhibit. So far so good. I went through some double doors covered in reindeer skins with antler handles which lead into a long dingy hallway with a sort of runway of ice blocks and a lot of workmen’s tools – I think the hotel takes a lot of upkeep, especially with tourists constantly touching and stroking the ice. I count myself among them, it was almost impossible not to.
So, onto the rooms. From the hall, corridors radiated out with a doorway every 10 metres or so, with a plaque giving the room number – technically this is a functioning hotel – the theme and the artists’ name. You go past a curtain which doesn’t even reach the floor and you are presented with a room a few metres square – bit bigger than a Travelodge room and some statue or carving on a given theme. So the first room had a massive sculpture of a tiger at the foot of the bed. One had leaves carved into the walls and ceiling. One had a headboard made of hands with eyeballs in the palms. While the carvings were impressive, none of them spoke to a luxurious and restful night’s sleep, and god help you if you’re a snorer or you’re feeling a bit frisky because thanks to the curtains, everyone in the whole place can hear everyone else. Basically, all style, no substance.
Leaving the first building I remembered there was a cache nearby. Sadly it turned out not to be big enough for the farting cow trackable I’d brought from home but in the absence of the one at Abisko, at least this one was inside the arctic circle. I sat on a raised terrace overlooking another frozen lake enjoying the winter sun for a while, dutifully traipsed around the second building but my heart wasn’t in it. The whole place felt pointless and creepy. I spent 5 minutes in the inevitable gift shop feeling the ludicrously soft reindeer skin mittens retailing for around £120 then went in search of lunch. I had been worried that if lunch was being served in a restaurant I would stick out like a sore thumb in all my ridiculous winter gear but of course everyone here is wearing ridiculous winter gear so they had a changing room for you to disrobe before going into the dining room. Next worry, would I be force fed rollmops? No, no I would not. The restaurant was along the lines of an all-you-can-eat buffet but in a sensible, Swedish sort of way. Two soups, onion and lentil, then schnitzel and steamed fish with various wholesome vegetable accompaniments, a smorgasbord of salmon, meats, salads, two desserts, rhubarb crumble and carrot cake and as much tea, coffee, lingon-berry and breads as you can shake a stick at. So that’s what I did until the bus arrived, took a leisurely and wholesome lunch in very pleasant surroundings and tried not to think about how much the day had cost.
The trip home was just as chatty and beautiful and also allowed me, as we drove in past the supermarket to note some fresh footprints leading all the way to the cache. Mind made up, as soon as I’d divested myself of unnecessary paraphernalia I went out again. I took both sticks though they weren’t as much help as I thought they’d be, as they just sank deep into the drift giving no support whatsoever. I very carefully stepped in the existing footprints and with a bit of light flailing I made it. Log signed, and it was also big enough for the farting cow. Hallelujah, because I had kept hold of that gassy thing far too long. Happy trails little buddy! Now, I had to get out. First few steps were OK, then, almost inevitably, I lost my footing and went down. It wasn’t pretty. It was Del Boy leaning on the bar. No waving, just poll-axed into the snow drift. Soft landing, not so bad, but how to get back up again? Fortunately I’d got into some pretty stupid situations on Dartmoor, particularly around bogs, so remembering back, I laid both my sticks flat on the snow and used them as a small and only vaguely secure raft to lean on. Again, not pretty, but I got on my feet and out of the drift in a few minutes. God knows what I looked like to the supermarket customers, as all this was in full view of the car park.
I needed something other than cocoa to drink so I availed myself of the supermarket’s prime produce and while I was paying I met with a Belgian girl from last night. She was also staying at the guesthouse so we walked back together discussing our various expeditions and what we thought of the facilities (Lyn, still no). Spent the rest of the evening not packing and also not sleeping – I tossed and turned all night in the bunk, woke at what I assumed was early but at least morning to find it wasn’t even midnight. Decamped to the sofa again and dozed off about 2pm. Looking forward to a real bed again.
Day #12
I’m calling today Jurassic Park day – no tourists were eaten but ‘two no-shows and one sick triceratops’ sums it up nicely. Crappy night’s sleep. Woke up stiff and annoyed and in no mood to pack. I breakfasted on the remaining cinnamon rolls, gurksalad and ham slices, washed down with as much cocoa as I could drink, feeling really guilty for throwing it away: I left the cuppa soups and salt for the next guests. Even though the apartment had been both too hot and too cold, uncomfortable and reminiscent of the bunk house from my childhood holidays on Dartmoor, it had also been home, a place to rest, and had an amazing view that never got old so I was sad to go.
I left my rucksack in the bag room and met my guide for moose spotting – Jesus! We were also joined by a Japanese girl who was hitching with us to the Ice Hotel and the rest of the van was taken us by half a dozen chatty Spaniards – its my time to be surrounded by very chatty peoples. Jesus spent most of the drive chatting with them in Spanish but he very sweetly included me in the conversation where he could and the Spaniards chatted a bit too. Given that we left at 10am and got back at 3.30pm we did remarkably little moose spotting. Our first stop was a Sami-owned farmstead where they bred horses and lead pony treks. The ponies were those very stocky, fluffy type that can withstand the winters, like giant Shetlands. But the local wild moose population had learned that there was plenty of food for the horses so they would sneak into the corral and mingle with them. When we arrived there were more than a dozen moose just hanging out with the horses. They’d lost their antlers for the winter so they looked like gangling, teenage horses who hadn’t grown into their limbs yet. We didn’t get too close because even though they were relaxed and feeding, they had some younger ones with them.
However far away we were it wasn’t far enough for one resident who came and remonstrated with us for getting too close, and more importantly not asking before we came to look. Jesus later put this down to her being Sami – and therefore likely a terrible person – there seems to be a lot of animosity between the Sami and the Swedes. The Sami see themselves as privileged and protectors of the landscape and wildlife at all costs. Swedes see them as arrogant, secretive and abusing their rights as indigenous people. For example, if you have a dog that is not on a leash near reindeer, the Sami have a legal right to shoot your dog, and apparently they exercise this right regularly. The Sami do not like people coming to their villages or near the reindeer, unlike Norwegian Sami who are known for being more friendly and welcoming. Obviously I’m seeing all this through Jesus’ internalised racism picked up from local Swedes. Its a shame I didn’t get to experience them for myself.
Anyway, we left, suitably chastened, and moved onto a frozen lake at Holmajarvi where the Spaniards frolicked in the snow and I stood and laughed. They were a cute bunch and it was like they’d never seen snow before. On the way back we stopped a couple of times when we saw moose through the trees, and we even got a couple of bonus reindeer mooching about. We picked up the Japanese girl from the Ice Hotel and headed for home. My rough night caught up with me and I fell asleep and I’m pretty sure I was snoring since I woke up with a big comedy snort and everyone was carefully looking in some other direction. Klas came out to say goodbye when we were dropped off, hoping I would come back in the summer. Its not outside the realm of possibility, but not to the guesthouse.
I had an hour to wait for the train, fought my way on, realised with the help of the conductor I was in the wrong wagon and decamped to a normal seating area filled with lots of very quiet Nepalese (wild stab in the dark) and settled in for the 4+ hours to Boden where my sleeping car would be connected. I was worried I wouldn’t be able to get off, find the right car and get back on quickly enough but just like Brussels, fate was with me and my wagon was directly opposite as I stepped down. I settled in, had my tickets checked and optimistically made my bed. It’s currently 6.30am and I estimate I have had 9 hours sleep in the past 48. I arrive at Malmo at 3pm and I anticipate spending the first evening catching up as much as I can. I wonder if I can furnish myself with some Night Nurse?
Day #13
I’m so happy to have breakfast back but unhappy that through a combination of eating a large dinner and the guesthouse shrinking my jeans I may not be able to do it justice. I’ll do my best. I owe it to the huge blob of pate still sitting on my plate, judging me for having no stamina.
Yesterday was a travelling day, so very little happened. As mentioned, I woke feeling like I’d slept minus hours. Couldn’t stay in my berth so I staggered along to the bistro wagon, which I wish I’d done before. They didn’t have a huge selection but they did have tables and big picture windows. I got myself a fruit salad, fruity yoghurt and orange juice in an attempt to combat the severe heat exhaustion and dehydration from accidentally leaving the heating on all night. Swedes are a disgustingly healthy nation so even at 7am the place had a nice bustle to it. Back in my berth I carried on listening to Mrs Gaskell & Me until my phone unexpectedly switched itself off and wouldn’t come back on. I did all the things I could think of with no luck. If it didn’t come back on eventually I’d have to get myself a cheap one to tide me over – I just couldn’t go the last week of my holiday without the combined clock/calculator/GPS/notebook/map. Don’t really care about the phone function!
Changed at Stockholm to the train to Copenhagen – pronounced Sherpenhaan, which I find so lovely! – annoyed a bunch of people by trying to sit in the wrong place but settled in for the next 4 hours beautiful scenery…unless of course I’d been seated next to a pillar and had exactly 3 inches of view. Never mind, there was good wifi so between The Man in the Brown Suit, twitter and Elementary it flew by.
Walked out of the station, across a bridge and towards my hotel thinking to myself how great its been that all my hotels have been less than a 5 minute walk away, and its nobody’s fault that I have occasionally tripled that time by going in the wrong direction. The irony was not lost on me that I then had to turn around and retrace my steps because I’d gone in the wrong direction. All I can say is I am offering myself endless opportunities for humility and personal growth. The part of Malmo I’m in is old and pleasant, it has a German feel, lots of tall merchants’ houses with coloured facades and crennelated tops, but in no one single style. My hotel is on Stortorget, apparently the biggest square in the city, which tells me a lot about the city. Most of the centre is pedestrianised but with that common sense driving in other areas that makes walking around not a stressful experience. The hotel feels pretty grand, marble staircases, turrets, lots of mahogany but there’s also dirty grouting and peeling paintwork so I don’t feel too outclassed. Once I’d checked in I went straight back out again in the hope of finding a mobile phone shop before 4pm – its Sunday after all. No joy at the first two but they did suggest a place called Blue City where they sell second hand phones, which is where I’m headed this morning. Had a slow wander back through some very pleasant old streets and squares til I was back at Stortorget – hungry at an inconvenient time of day that only really allowed for a CO-OP or a fast food place. I walked past a Max and they had automatic ordering which decided me. Triple cheese burger with a halloumi patty, fries, mozzarella sticks and a soda. I don’t care its junk food, it was so good! And big. That was 14 hours ago and I’m still processing it.
Took a shower, did a bit of research into what there is to do in Malmo – turns out not that much but I’ve settled on the Malmohus Castle and gardens – and fell asleep somewhere between 7-8 which means that even with the couple of hours in the middle where I was wide awake, I still managed about 9 hours sleep. Really needed that.
Day #14
Two weeks on the road. How did I do this for 9? Well, I spent whole weeks in a single place and, back then, I had some knees. Good times.
As expected, the jeans got shrunk meaning I could only face one meat and two dessert courses at breakfast – but one of them was freshly made waffles so you can see why I made the extra effort. Sweden doesn’t open until 10am on the dot so I took a very slow wander towards Blue City, stopping for a guerrilla cache on the way. Malmo is really pretty, there are so many spaces for just sitting and being. I crossed a bridge which had been decorated with bronze casts of famous Swedish artists’ shoes, including Anita Ekberg’s stilettos. I felt a strong urge to put my foot in some of them but I wasn’t sure of that was the done thing. Not Ekberg’s, they were tiny. There was a pair of loafers belonging to an opera singer that would have fit.
The very understanding lady in Blue City helped me to a Swedishly priced Nokia and I repaired to a Wayne’s Coffee to set it up where Wayne (not the real Wayne, a franchised Wayne) mistook me for German and launched into a monologue about a documentary he’s been watching on Netflix about the Holocaust and about how he no idea 6m Jews were murdered. While the conversation was forgettable, it made me realise that when I speak English to a non-English speaker, my whole syntax changes. I must unconsciously be mirroring German because that’s what I’m most often mistaken for. Not by Germans. Obviously. Am I oversimplifying? Am I being a bit racist? Answers on a postcard.
Anyway, I’m back in the land of GPS and photography so I headed for the castle via a few caches I signally failed to find and a lovely park with yet more baffling Scandinavian statuary. A swan, on a pig, on a bear, surrounded by leaping deer, some of whom are buried up to their necks. Just…why?
The castle was undergoing some renovation so the gallery wasn’t open but there was an aquarium. I am a sucker for them so that was a pleasant half hour, including a Panther chameleon who came right to the front of the terrarium to say Hi. Then there was the inevitable natural history ‘stuff in jars’ section (oh, cylops cat fetus, how I miss you!), some dioramas of large mammals cunningly called Diorama Alley (and I can confirm from my personal experience that those were indeed moose) and the gift shop which while having many wooden puzzles of such exotic animals as *checks notes* sheep, signally failed to sell me a Malmo pin badge or fridge magnet.
Then it was across the courtyard to the castle proper where I learned all the ways criminals could be killed in Sweden through the ages, including being half buried and stoned, and being mounted flat on a wheel and spun past swords which cut off any bit of you that hangs over the edge. Good, clean family entertainment.
After the castle it was time for lunch so I risked the museum cafe which turned out to be more of a canteen. I got some goulash soup (in honour of happy times in Salzberg and Vienna), with a side salad, apple pie and lingonberry juice. So good. I didn’t really have anything planned for the afternoon except caching, though my success rate for Malmo is about 1 out of 4. The jeans and my melting knees were starting to impinge on my desire to remain outside so I went via a virtual and a traditional, which was pointed out to by a local who clearly knows as much about stealth as I do, back to the hotel. I stripped/peeled off the torture-pants and privately resolved to ‘forget to pack them’ for the trip to Hannover. It’ll be the baggy snow-pants for the rest of the hols.
I hit up Max again for tea, finished The Man in the Brown Suit and started The Secret of Chimneys. I’m a little sad my holiday reading won’t make it into double figures but there have been some distractions. Also I’m on the same percentage completed of Kennilworth since that day on the Tube. Sorry, Kat. I’ve let you down, I’ve let myself down, I’ve let Sir Walter Scott down.
Update: waffles and cream for breakfast are life.
Day #15
Its official: any travelling that involves Hamburg is cursed. I left the hotel (full of waffles) with plenty of time, I checked the departure board which told me my 10.33 train was due at 10.46 on track 2b. I went and found a seat on the platform and read my book. At 10.13 a train to Copenhagen pulled in but I had already written my specific train on my Interrail pass so I waited for my train. At 10.33 a train suspiciously advertising itself as bound for Copenhagen arrived, but it wasn’t my train, my train was delayed. As this train pulled away I took a closer look at the departure board. Ah, yes, I see the mistake. My train isn’t delayed until 10.46. It was local service number 1046. Shit. They’re fairly regular, but there wouldn’t be another on for 20 minutes, and I had only had 15 minutes grace to change trains at Copenhagen. It also meant the next train was the slower, local service and once again I would have to change at Fredericia. Will I ever learn? My Interrail pass means as long as there is a train, I can get on it, I just won’t have a seat reservation, so all it meant was arriving in Hannover 2 hours later than expected. No big deal. It also meant a more relaxed stopover at Copenhagen where I took advantage of the facilities, nabbed a virtual cache and stocked up at the 7/11.
It was dark when I arrived at Copenhagen last time so it was nice to see the countryside and more long distance bridges. When we got to Fredericia I only had 7 minutes to change, but, thank the travelling gods, the train to Hamburg was already in at the next track. I ended up in the same seat as before and for a while that was fine. I read the Secret of Chimneys, listened to some music, gazed out of the window. There was a family with four young girls, and then there was a couple with a dog in a handbag. The woman disappeared for most of the trip and after a while the guy started chatting with the girls. If it had been the usual ‘it’s ok to pat my dog’ nonsense it would have been fine but he was asking their names and where they lived and if they’re in school and telling them what beautiful hair they had, all in this sing-songy, falsetto voice. It was super-creepy but the parents seemed OK with it. That lasted for over an hour and even my headphones couldn’t drown it out. They got off the train with me at Hamburg and I privately hoped that when they die their little dog would eat the pair of them.
Something else I love about European trains – they don’t just tell you when your connecting service is leaving, but from which platform, so I could get straight off my train and head to Gleis 14 without opportunity to misread or misinterpret. This one left on time but lost 20 minutes along the way so I got to my hotel at about 8pm. I admit my exploratory button pressing was less enthusiastic and once I’d unearthed all available extra pillows I collapsed on the bed and stayed there. Despite waking up a few times I actually got some good, restful sleep finally, I think down to leaving the windows open.
I just checked my notes and I noticed two things while on the Hannover train. The first is that Danish pastries are far superior to Swedish cinnamon rolls. I’m sorry to criticise the Swedes on anything but their plumbing, but I feel like I’ve had plenty of options and while Danishes are light, fluffy, covered in sugar crystals and sticky vanilla or cinnamon, cinnamon rolls are dry and utilitarian. I am convinced the only time and place they are acceptable is toasted over an open fire inside a tepee after a 6 mile dog-sled ride. I will accept no rebuttals at this time.
The other thing I noticed is how inaccessible European trains are, in comparison to the stations and the general all-round efficiency displayed everywhere else. They all have 3 huge steps up from platform level to the train and as far as I can tell, only the local double-deckers have platform level boarding (though I checked and even these have a step down, so a no-go for unaccompanied wheelchair users) and I have seen no porters helping mums with buggies or people with mobility issues. Almost every day I have wondered if I would have done better to bring a wheelie case and apart from what would have been a ridiculous spectacle of trying to wheel it across the tundra at Abisko, its the trains that held me back. As hard as it is mounting the trains, or doing anything, with the rucksack on, it would have been 10 times worse with a suitcase. I just need to pack lighter next time. But I don’t understand how it isn’t an issue. Even the brand new ICE4 train to Hannover last night – why are they still building trains that people can’t get on?
I am also resolved to return to Hamburg to exorcise my travelling demon. It looks lovely, I just need to avoid February and October. Sadly there are no more queens in Germany – Sophia Dorothea of Celle has been withdrawn so my next royal journey will either be France or Portugal. I’m thinking of getting Tailor Made Rail to quote me for Lisbon and Madrid for my birthday. Only a week: that’s all the leave I have after this extravaganza but I feel like I should do any complicated travel before December and we pull up the drawbridge.
I am getting very excited for Caroline. This is the big finale to the whole trip. I was right to leave it til last. I haven’t done any proper research on the cathedral so I should probably do that before I get all the way out there.
Day #16
I know other stuff happened today but I’m so full of queen that I’m struggling to focus! That excited feeling didn’t really dissipate so everything had an exclamation mark after it in my head: real sausages for breakfast! Blinis! Tea candy! This last is coarse granulated sugar but for some reason is specially packaged. I realised today would be the first time I would be catching a train without the rucksack – liberty! Luxury! Added to this it was a triple-decker so I had a wonderful view of the vaguely farm/vaguely industrial belt between Hannover and Brunswick. Don’t care, I was upstairs on a train! Know who else was upstairs? The guy with the most rigorous skin care regime in Germany, that’s who. He spent at least 10 minutes with his shoes off and trousers rolled up to his knees moisturising his legs. Is he a leg model? Some kind of athlete? Has he misunderstood a public health report about coronavirus? We’ll never know.
Brunswick is not an attractive town. You’ve got the old bit, where all the old buildings have new chain stores in them, including a Woolworths and a C&A, both of which merited a photo, as did the mad statue of a bunch of cats playing on a plinth. I didn’t feel on quite such solid ground walking around: Brunswick has trams, cars, buses and dedicated cycle lanes and it was hard to work out which way to look and what to look for at any given moment. It was safe, just confusing.
This has been the most troublesome and public gather so far. The cathedral is a dull half hour walk from the train station via no caches but I had the 2001 Brit Award album to entertain me. The cathedral wasn’t what I was expecting, but I’m in deep Lutheran territory so I have no way of reading a church the way I would at home. I did a lap of the nave and chancel first to see if I could just happen upon here. I found some stairs to the crypt which was littered with wooden coffins but no signs to say who was who. I did happen upon Henry II’s daughter Matilda in one creepy, candle-lit sub-crypt (I’m here for queens so I should say Eleanor of Aquitaine’s daughter) but I couldn’t be sure where to look without some help so I bit the bullet and asked the nice lady at the help desk. Between my terrible German and her valiant English we worked out that Caroline was in the crypt, number 8. I went back down, but 1-7 were so big I couldn’t see her. There was a locked gate stopping you from actually approaching the tombs (Anne of Bohemia could have done with one of those). I could have left it there. I could have said, like Caroline of Ansbach, I may not have actually seen her tomb, but I have been in its space so that counts. Well, that might be fine for Eleanor of Provence (buried under a nursing home) but I’ve come a long way for this gather so I went back to Frau Help Desk – having googled ‘is it possible to enter the crypt’ (ist est moglich die gruft betreden if I remember right) – and pressed my suit. No, not without a tour guide. OK, how do I get one of those? I have come all the way from England just to see that tomb. Hmm, not sure. Frau Help Desk calls Herr Help Desk while I step politely away and try not to listen while trying to listen. The end result being she is given the key and permitted to escort me into the crypt. At least at Westminster there are so many people no-one really notices one weepy loon, but here she was watching me and of course as soon as I saw the little casket I started crying. Like, ugly crying. It was very small, covered in red velvet with a mock crown on the head and a plaque which I shall have to steal from google because there’s no way my misty and shaky photo came out. It wasn’t really feasible to take more than a moment and a photo so I said as big a thanks as I could and am now sat in the nave gathering my thoughts.
So, the time has come to render a view of Caroline of Brunswick. This is difficult, as she is the first queen I have researched who was so very stupid. Don’t get me wrong, they’ve all had their moments, but Caroline’s moments seemed to last her entire life. It’s interesting that 300 years earlier, Anne of Cleves came from the same austere, segregated court and showed herself to be proud, resilient and a survivor. Though as I wrote that I realise that is also what Caroline was, just in a very different way. I have’t managed to find much about her upbringing except that she was not educated, that she was kept away from male society and that she could barely write, employing a secretary to write for her. When she was drafted as a wife for George, George III having stipulated that his sons might only marry German princesses so it was really a matter of when not if, her behaviour to Lord Malmesbury, who had been tasked with escorting her to her new home, shows how much of a child she was, blurting out whatever was on her mind, signally failing to take on his increasingly heavy hints, even bringing an extracted tooth to show him as evidence of her bravery. She appeared to have no filter, no sense of decorum, or going by more than one witness, personal hygiene. Imagine how bad things must have been for an English peer to comment on a noble woman’s cleanliness.
She was not all bad. During the long journey to England from Brunswick they had to detour and ever start over because of the advancing French army under Napoleon and she never showed fear at the soldiers, but was afraid of losing Malmesbury. She may not have fully comprehended the danger she was in, thinking it inconceivable anything should happen to her, the centre of the universe. Despite Malmesbury trying to use the long journey to educate her, by the time she arrived in London she was no better, and stood in stark, wholly negative contrast to George’s current mistress, Lady Jersey. That George’s first instinct on meeting her was to demand drink and an interview with his mother, and hers was to say he was fatter than in his portrait pretty much seals the deal.
(There is a slight hiatus in my gather at this point as the cathedral is closing for lunch!)
Nonetheless she does her duty – twice if reports are to be believed – and regardless of their personal feelings, nine months later Charlotte Augusta is born. There isn’t much sense of the intervening period but the fact that Charlotte’s christening appears to be some kind of Rubicon for George is evident in his changing his will, leaving Caroline exactly one shilling and explicitly excluding her from the care and education of her own child. Given how Caroline would cling to the children around her later in life, this was either a terrible blow to an existing maternal desire, or the start of her obsession. Unfortunately she didn’t do herself any favours, using Charlotte as a prop in her endless PR battle to be loved by her people. It didn’t take long for George to make their separation formal, and Caroline removed herself to Blackheath where she made a general nuisance of herself, throwing parties at which she would conspicuously disappear with a favoured male guest for several hours, and confuse and alarm her country neighbours by her matchmaking and pretending to be pregnant. This last is absolutely bonkers – one of her friends was expecting and presumably not wanting to be left out she claims she is too. This is accompanied by the sudden arrival of William Austin, a bonny baby boy into her household, actually adopted from a local pauper family. For the Princess of Wales to suddenly have a baby is a serious threat to the monarchy and the Delicate Investigation begins, with all manner of tall tales about Caroline’s behaviour being slung about. Even after 11 years as part of the English royal family she remains totally tone deaf – how? She could be calculating and manipulative which requires some intelligence but she seemed utterly incapable off seeing beyond herself and her desires. Her taking in local children was about being seen to be charitable and having people required to love her. So was her use of Charlotte. When her mother fled the invading French, Caroline saw it as an opportunity to be received by the king and queen, and in giving up her house to her mother, hoped to be closer to the court, disappointed at only getting rooms at Kensington and not St. James. She just could not keep a lid on her need to be loved and noticed.
Eventually George III succumbed to porphyry and the Regency began. Another couple of years of increasingly fraught letters and avoidances follow until Caroline finally decides to go home. She’s given a pension, her pick of retinue and sets out for Brunswick, though as with a lot of Caroline’s ideas it doesn’t last and after a fortnight at her family court she is probably reminded of why she was happy to leave. And so begins a 5-6 year nomadic holiday, arriving and departing when she pleases, being received as the Princess of Wales with none of the attendant responsibilities and engaging in whatever extra-marital affairs fall in her lap. She was absolutely at her own leisure, free to do whatever ridiculous or scandalous thing popped into her head like wearing trousers or riding into Nazareth on a donkey: making friends with Napoleon’s brother, or inventing the Order of St. Caroline and making her lover, Pergami, the Grand Master. Did she think she would be left alone? Did she think she could consort with kings and popes and for her behaviour to a) not be known and b) not have consequences?
On the subject of Pergami, despite her vehement denials I think it highly likely they were lovers, though there are witnesses on both sides. I think Caroline’s denials were from a childish desire not to get in trouble and a distaste at being questioned. I think Pergami used her, and I think she knew it. I think she saw him as attractive and willing to create this ersatz family with her and William Austin, and that was enough. As far as the Milan Commission and Caroline’s ‘trial’ goes, I feel like I want to say as little as possible because in every biography I’ve read it has been placed at the centre of her life instead of what must have been a difficult few months near the end of it. But it is also possibly where she shines: that courage, regardless of where it came from or whether it was realistic, that had shown itself as she was transported through Germany and Holland came back. I have to admire her sheer bloody-mindedness in the face of overwhelming odds, almost complete ostracisation by her class and the growing understanding even by her dense brain that she was being used by the men around her. It must have been exhausting. I find it strange that more isn’t known about those months when England seemed to be literally on the brink of revolution and a group of unscrupulous men saw Caroline as the figurehead, as the victim of a corrupt aristocracy to be pitied and rallied around. There were public demonstrations, riots, newspaper printers were torched, as were quite a few peers’ homes. She didn’t attend the House of Lords every day of her trial, but she did attend, and heard members of the House ask the most personal, prying questions of friends and servants, knowing it would be repeated verbatim in the newspapers. I think the painting by George Hayter more than any of the romantic portraits captures the best of Caroline’s character: determined, unflinching, refusing to back down as damning evidence is given against her. That was her crowning triumph, and albeit through luck and the political powder keg the government was sitting on, she came through. Despite all the evidence and two votes against her, it was just too dangerous to find her guilty. She had won against her class, against George, against the traitors in her own household.
If only she could have ridden out the last few waves. Whether through greed, impatience or stupidity – or a combination of all three – she gave away her advantage and accepted the £50k pension from the government, meaning she had no bargaining power left. She was humiliated at George’s coronation, being literally barred from entering Westminster Cathedral on George’s orders and forced to ride away to cries from the crowd of ‘go back to Pergami’. Within days she was diagnosed with what was probably bowel cancer and made a dignified end to an undignified life, speaking with fondness at the end of her children, both biological and adopted, but not a word of Pergami. Per her wishes her coffin was transported back to Brunswick where it rests in the cathedral crypt.
This is the first time I have come close to disliking a queen. I disagree with almost all her choices and motives and my overall impression of her is Lydia from Pride and Prejudice. But she never gave up. When she felt herself wronged, she complained. When she saw an opportunity to make her lot better, she took it. She looked for pleasure and avoided pain. She was independent and not afraid to change her mind or direction if it became expedient. She was not afraid to do the difficult thing and she fought for the love she so desperately needed. She was impetuous, poorly educated, narcissistic and too trusting of her own limited charms but she was also a thorn in the side of her ridiculous husband for their whole married life and if for nothing else I can love and admire her for that. Caroline of Brunswick, Queen of England, I honour you.
I’ve covered the cathedral, though I forgot to say that Frau Helpdesk gave me a copy of a German biography of Caroline before she threw me out – I put 10 euros in the collection pot which may have been insulting as I think she meant for me to have it. Around the corner I found Cafe Zeit where I ordered some tea and a weird sausage and egg soup to continue mulling. While I was there a lady came and asked if I was writing a book at which point all my German failed me, I stammered something about the cathedral and she nodded and smiled at me as though I was mentally deficient. I got a second cup of tea, purely because I’ve been dying to use ‘noch ein’ since my last time in Germany, and set off for the train station. I did go via a shoe shop to get some better insoles: they were having a closing down sale so after I carefully counted out the 5.95, the cashier took 50c and gave me back the rest. Bargain!
I forgot to mention that while I was gathering my thoughts in the cathedral a chap was hoovering the alter and tomb of Henry the Lion. You don’t see that at Westminster Abbey.
Most of the way back was just streets but I took a detour through a park close to the station and was rewarded with the most exotic wildlife so far, mooses notwithstanding. Red squirrels, rabbits and what I have since identified as Fieldfares. I think. The German bird watching site did not have excellent photos, but its the closest I could get. Still haven’t identified the black and white cormorant-type bird I saw at Malmohus. Or I have and it actually is one of the incredibly rare species normally only found in Africa or Australia. Could go either way.
I bought a fridge magnet at the station, once again enjoyed the futuristic facilities this time accompanied by weird Logan’s Run/Stranger Things instrumentals on a loop, and ascended to the platform (literally, stairs can fuck off at this point) where my train was already waiting. 45 minutes of The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and I was ‘home’. Changed up my final 200sek, hit up Burger King and staggered back to the hotel where true to form fell asleep about 8pm and woke about 5am.
Day #17
This morning I must confront the sobering fact that I have now completed all the tasks I set myself, there are no more layovers, and every step I take when I leave the hotel will be towards home, where I will arrive around 6pm tomorrow night. I’m exhausted. I would like to stop wearing the same five t-shirts and three jumpers. I feel that anything I see will just run off my brain, as though I am numb to new sites and cities. I’m in Hannover, the seat of an entire British royal dynasty. Meh. I’m staying in Brussels tonight, a completely new country. And I will mark this by finding the closest geocache to my hotel and then retreating to bed. I’m not bored, I’m just full and despite my feelings of sadness, I am ready to go home.
Today is the day I put a hex on Thalys and all their works. I spent breakfast (apart from eating) watching my fellow travellers. Because I take so long over my meal – no doubt being cursed by the serving staff from Stockholm to Brussels – I see the quiet, the rush and then the quiet again. The rush is fun to watch because people feel compelled to make quick decisions about the most important meal of the day, and I’m convinced this is where most of the salad goes. It’s like panic buying when there’s snow: we need water but it’s all gone so we’ll buy air freshener and rat poison instead. The other thing is how they sit. You have a table for four at which one person is sat. In England a person would eat off the floor rather than join someone else’s table but if forced, would sit diagonally across from them and ignore them for the whole meal. Not so in Hannover. Given the option of three possible seats, guy #2 takes the seat next to guy #1. They have no elbow room, and they’re facing a wall-length mirror so they can’t just stare ahead pretending the other isn’t there. I made sure none of my paraphernalia crossed the halfway line of my table but clearly I was giving off ‘don’t sit with me’ pheromones and was spared polite multi-lingual banter. The hotel had a rubbish sweet course so I filled the gaps with blinis and raspberry jam.
My train wasn’t until 12.31 and I didn’t have to check out until 12pm so rather than rushing round Hannover with the SUV on my back I lounged in my room readying The Big Four. I got myself to the right platform and there was a weird thing on the departures board, with two trains departing at the same time on the same track. The train plan suggested that it was two trains which would split so I stood in the right section, the train arrived and all the carriages were labelled for Dusseldorf. I didn’t see how there could be another train at the same time but this time instead of erring on the side of caution, I threw caution to the wind and got on. To be completely frank, I got on, chickened out and got off, then castigated myself for being a chicken and got back on. There was another backpacker and a couple of yummy mummies also looking confused at the lack of Cologne signs so I figured I wasn’t missing something in translation. I checked with the conductor and he said I was on the right train but would have to change at Hamm. I had found Schrodinger’s Train: both going, and at the same time, not going to Cologne. He gave his reply in German and while I caught most of it from context the backpacker, let’s call her Helga, translated for me, and said she would wait for me and show me where to go. We chatted for a bit about our various trips and the pros and cons of the Deutschbahn – all cons from Helga’s point of view – while we cluttered up the vestibule as there were precious few seats. At Hamm pretty much everyone was changing so it was a bit of a bun fight but Helga was watching out for me and we found our connection – literally the train pulling in on the next track. I hope she enjoys her stay with her boyfriend.
At Cologne I had plenty of time between trains so I risked ducking out of the station to get a virtual cache by the cathedral and found a gift shop for a German pin on my way back. I also found a lift that may have had the capacity to travel in 2 dimensions, or I may have just been a bit dim. Got a slice of pizza in honour of my first time connecting through 3 weeks ago and went up to the platform. The train was delayed but eventually arrived and it shows just how many people either didn’t listen or couldn’t understand the announcement because the whole platform mobilised to find their right coach but the train had actually broken down and was terminating there. I tried to get on and a friendly beatnik explained what was happening but otherwise there were 200 people plus luggage just stalled waiting for instructions. After several tanoys, none of which mentioned Brussels, I checked online for the next train – 45 minutes from the same track – and settled down to wait. I was confident in the almighty power of my Interrail pass and oh how wrong I was. The next train was a Thalys and I’m pretty sure I took one of those out of Brussels on Day 2. Me and most of the cancelled trains’ passengers got on. I stored my stuff, I found a seat but couldn’t tell if it was reserved without the reservee turning up with their ticket. After 5 minutes the conductor came straight to me and asked had I joined at Cologne and did I have a reservation. Apparently Thalys is a private company, does not wholly subscribe to the Interrail system, the upshot of which was I would have to pay 25 euros for my seat. That was annoying but I got it. What was more infuriating was I was queued with some very chatty African ladies and a couple of camp-as-chips Americans waiting to pull into Brussels, and I mentioned that I’d been charged extra. They had also had ICE reservations, missed the broken train but had not been charged for their seat. That is the only ticket or receipt I have kept from the whole journey and a strongly worded missive will be winging its way to Thalys when I get home.
Inevitably on such a popular train, confusion over seats happened, leading to me having to move once and almost twice. In a lovely, luxurious move I didn’t even have to exit the station to check in to my hotel – it’s really nice, I’m being outclassed by the carpet. Though the toilet is rubbish, its exactly 2 inches wider than I am. I will be stealing the nice lavender and peppermint toiletries in retribution. I was determined to get a cache while I was here and get that Belgium souvenir badge but as with a lot of train stations particularly in big cities, its a rough area. A lot of lingering and loitering, and lot of rough looking hotels, not somewhere you want to spend a lot of time after dark. I found the GZ but not the cache and my disappointment was outweighed by so obviously being a tourist I may as well have a target on my back so I went back to the station, got a Quick burger, (not as superior to the Max but far and away better than Burger King) and went back to the room. I’d already finished The Big Four – in one day, that’s what I’m talking about – so set up The Mystery of the Blue Train and fell asleep watching NCIS on Chromecast.
Day #18
It isn’t quite over but I only have one short train journey to get me back home so it…
Later, in Exeter Ikea.
Well, that didn’t work, I was writing on the train and soon as it pulled away my writing turned into spider-dipped-in-ink. Not as sturdy as the overnight Swedish trains, eh GWR? So, lets try that again. Breakfast was interesting. Actual waitress service, as opposed to them trying to clear your plate while you’re still eating. No pate, so points deducted but they won them back by supplying breakfast gherkins. I assume as a palate cleanser. Apparently they couldn’t be bothered to go to the trouble of juicing the oranges and had opted to just pulp the whole fruit, the first mouthful of which blew my face off. We were also offered mushrooms, hash browns and real comb honey, though the shrooms were nothing to write home about (which ironically I realise I just did). Also waffles (pre-made) but no cream? Only a variety of yoghurts in increasing thickness. As I was sat polishing off the dessert course I felt a sudden craving for home. Driving. Playing Skyrim. Wearing pants I hadn’t scrubbed in a hotel sink. The simple things. Once again I chose to fully abuse the late check-out time, leisurely packing, reading, cursing the tiny toilet and then headed for the Euro-star, which was all of 20 feet from the hotel lobby. If you always stayed at railway hotels I wonder how far around the world you could get without seeing any of it?
Inevitably got frisked at security – note to terrorists if as a woman you set off the alarm they assume it’s your bra wire – hide a small flexible knife in there, they’ll just let you through. Brussels’ departure is a lot less chaotic than London, though its a bit weird you have to walk through duty-free to get from the lounge to the trains. When I was talking to Helga I said that the Euro-star was my least favourite part of any holiday and I stand by that. It’s rushed and cramped, expensive and uncomfortable. And, and this is no fault of Euro-star but still, I was sat near four Dutch guys playing a very loud card game and telling what sounded like hilarious jokes to the enjoyment and edification of the entire carriage. I made them wait while I put my rucksack on when we arrived which I’m sure made them re-think their life choices. My feet touched down on British soil (concrete) at 14.04 local time and I was struck again with the obvious and idiotic thought that despite being in London I was surrounded by Flemish, French, German, Japanese conversations. As though everyone would start speaking English once we’d crossed the channel. The trip to Paddington was uneventful apart from getting on the wrong train – for old time’s sake – and adopting a young girl and her Nan who had also taken the wrong train. The girl was quite chatty so I told her where I’d been and what I’d done in the last 3 weeks, and quietly enjoyed the wide-eyed look of wonder I got! In exchange they told me how they were coming home early from Edinburgh, escaping a domestic violence situation. I apparently just have one of those faces that people want to tell things to. I got them to Paddington – via a chat with another lady who stupidly commented on the size of my rucksack and told me she wouldn’t want to see the aurora because it looks creepy: well, they didn’t make them for you!
After my detour I only had an hour at Paddington so I made sure all my photos were moved over, read a bit and managed to stay in my seat until the train was announced instead of prowling around under the departures board like a caged animal for 30 minutes. See, I’m growing as a person. This time I had a single seat, and I was worried that the couple of lads opposite might get a bit larey but they were unconscious within minutes of pulling away. Two things I noticed immediately – unlike all other tea I’ve drunk on the trip, my complimentary cup on the train took all of a minute to achieve appropriate strength, and while the landscape was similar to Belgium, Denmark and Sweden, there were animals in the fields again which was very comforting.
There were no cabs to be had when I arrived so I directed an Italian girl into town, popped into Mind to pee, and caught the bus home. It made me smile that I had to walk the last quarter of a mile to my door. Part of me is of course sorry to be home because all the tasks and responsibilities I left are waiting for me like I never left. But I’m also glad to be home. There’s only so much novelty my brain can absorb, it needs time now to process, to organise and to reminisce. I want to talk about it, answer questions, allow the experience to inform my decisions. Become a part of me. No matter how tired I was, how many mistakes I made, opportunities I missed, bad nights sleep I had, it is over now, it is set in stone. It has become an Event, a whole with a beginning and end and it will now always be how I marked those five years. It’s a part of my story. It’s a happy memory I can recall and be proud of and allow to infect me with that happiness again when I need it.
Anglica Regina 
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