In 21 Hours to the Midnight Sun
By Lothar. Filed in Sweden |
We tried to make a train reservation on Saturday, June 11th. The main train station in Stockholm, the capital of Sweden, can not process international train reservations on Saturday or Sunday. So much for spontaneous weekend trips.
Last week in Germany, we had booked a sleeper compartment for 2 persons on the Connex train from Stockholm to Boden.
We had dinner in Stockholm prior to boarding our night train at 21:27 on Sunday, June12th.
The compartments were tiny and we were glad to be in first class, so we did not have to share the cabin with other passengers. The quality of sleep on the train was only fair : lots of curves and sliding in the direction of our feet in the left-hand turns, in the opposite direction in right-hand turns !
Sweden is about 1000 miles south to north and we saw mostly trees : birches, Scots pines and Norwegian spruce. Hours and hours of trees.
We arrived in Boden at noontime and the connecting train for Narvik, Norway was waiting for us at the next track. This train trip was for 6 hours and the entire train consisted of only 3 coaches. The coaches were at least 50 years old. Lots of wood paneling and we felt like we were on the old Orient Express. We crossed the Arctic Circle, south of Gællivare, and had traveled from the Equator to the Arctic region during the last 4 weeks. It is unusually warm here and we are able to be in short sleeves or t-shirt. It had snowed here only 2 weeks ago !
The train made several stops in small towns ( there are no big towns this far north). The conductor and most of the passengers got off the train at these stations in order to take a walk or buy something to drink. We were tanning in the sun and had an ice cream from the station’s kiosk. The people traveling with dogs would walk their pets at these stops and eventually everybody boarded the train and the journey continued. This was train travel, the Swedish way.
The scenery was breath-taking. The train climbed up into the mountains and we traveled from Kiruna, Sweden to Riksgraensen, the border between Sweden and Norway. In Norway it was 35 miles downhill to the harbor town of Narvik. The sun was shining and the journey took us along a big fjord with lots of waterfalls.The mountains are still snow-covered and the rivers offer great white-water conditions.
There was no border check between Sweden and Norway, but I had to find an ATM to obtain Norwegian Krone. The train station in Narvik was deserted. No tourist info, no train ticket window, no ATM, no taxis or busses.
We walked into town and found ” Breidablikk Gjestehus” ( Broadview Guesthouse). The panoramic view from our room is priceless ( no Mastercard accepted here) : the colorful wooden townhouses of Narvik, the Rombakfjord and snow-covered mountains on the other shore of the fjord. A great place to experience the Midnight Sun !