Sweden: Maps Special

This post ties together my series about my recent holidayy in Sweden, displaying lots of maps and functioning as an illustrated index.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to this post which ties together my series of posts about my recent (July 29 to August 13) holiday in Sweden and functions as a sort of illustrated index to the series. Please note that barring the two Lulea maps which are public display maps as I did obtain a map of that town every map you see photographed here is available free of charge (great news for a cartophile such as myself).

THE MAPS

Maintaining chronological order for these maps we start with…

STOCKHOLM ARCHIPELAGO

This map relates to the start of the holiday, the period of July 29th to 31st, which is covered in this post:

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On Monday August 1st I set off on the second part of my trip, where I was travelling solo, my first stop being…

KRISTINEHAMN

This small town was significant for me as being the southern terminal of Inlandsbanan. It sits close a famous lake (bodies of water are never far distant wherever you are in Sweden) and is an attractive place in its own right.

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Kristinehamn features in two posts in this series:

Preparing for Inlandsbanan – Stockholm to Kristinehamn and

Kristinehamn to Mora

Before continuing our local maps we come to…

INLANDSBANAN

I spent two days soaking up this fabulous railway experience, coverage of which ran to eight posts in the course of this series, which led to me to create a page for easy access to the whole sub=series. I have three pictures of this large double-sided map:

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The two sides of the map juxtaposed – the southern part of the route is on the left as you look, the northern on the right (a side by side view works better than one on top of the other for a long thin country).
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A closer view of the southern part of the route
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A closer view of the northern part of the route.

Those who followed this series will recall that my first day of travel along Inlandsbanan took me to…

OSTERSUND

I covered the section of the journey from Mora to Ostersund in two posts, using the meal stop at Asarna as a natural break point:

Inlandsbanan 2: Mora to Asarna and

Inlandsbanan 3: Asarna to Ostersund

The Ostersund map, shown below, was provided to Inlandsbanan passengers by our host for that part of the journey, Emma, who had been equipped with a block of such maps from which she peeled off individual copies:

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Osttersund in its region.
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The close up of central Ostersund.

The next place I was able too obtain a map was…

ARVIDSJAUR

This town is fairly close to the arctic cirle. The post in which Arvidsjaur features was the seventh in my Inlandsbanan subseries, meaning that by the time I got to this location all the following had happened:

Inlandsbanan 4: Ostersund to Ulriksfors

Inlandsbanan 5: Ulriksfors to Vilhelmina

Inlandsbanan 6: The Meal at Vilhelmina Norra

Inlandsbanan 7: Vilhelmina Norra to the Edge of the Arctic Circle

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Not very long after this came the end of the Inlandsbanan journey at…

GALLIVARE

As with the Osttersund map this one was provided for passengers by our train host, in this case Andreas, although unlike the Ostersund map it was large enough to warrant being folded, and hence could not be transported in the way that one was…

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The post to which the above pictures relate was the last in my Inlandsbanan subseries:

Inlandsbanan 8: Tis Better to Travel Hopefully Than to Arrive

My next port of call was…

LULEA

An attractive town that sits at the northern end of the Gulf of Bothnia, Lulea was the only place I visited for any length of time that I did not get a take home map of, but I have two good pictures of public display maps:

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My stay in Lulea accounted for four blog posts:

Transition Point – Lulea

Exploring Lulea -The Morning

Exploring Lulea: Icebreakers and Mythology

Exploring Lulea: The Other Side of the Tracks

From Lulea I caught on overnight train to…

UPPSALA

The map of Uppsala tthat ii was equipped with at the tourist information office had details of various attractions printed on the back…

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Both sides of the map
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Close up of the Map
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Close up of the list of attractions.

Uppsala provided me with six blog posts worth of material – anyone who is up for a little challenge is invited to work out how many of the attractions listed above get mentioned in the course of the series of posts:

Arriving in Uppsala

Uppsala University Museum

Uppsala – A Bit More Exploring Before Checking In

Sunday in Uppsala – The Botanic Gardens and Carolina Rediviva

Uppsala: The Linnaeus Museum

Uppsala to Malmo

As the title of the last post listed above suggests, my next port of call was…

MALMO

The map of Malmo, provided by the STF Hostel in which I stayed for two nights, was A3 sized (twice as big as the Uppsala map), but had only advertising on the reverse, hence me not bothering to photograph that side…

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Malmo featured in three posts in this series:

Uppsala to Malmo

Exploring Malmo

Malmo to Gothenburg

As with the Uppsala series, the title of the final post featuring Malmo gives a clue as to my next port of call…

GOTHENBURG

The Gothenburg map, provided by the tourist information office, has useful information on both sides…

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As well as both sides of the map, I include a close-up of the diagram of the local public transport network

I stayed only the one night in Gothenburg, en route back to Stockholm for the last two nights of my stay in Sweden, which explains why this very impressive city only features in two posts:

Malmo to Gothenburg

Gothenburg to Stockholm

Having started in the Stockholm Archipelago  we have come almost full circle, as we head to…

STOCKHOLM

The map of Stockholm, which I obtained at Stockholm Central station, is a large folding map, with much of value on both sides.

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The city of Stockholm features in three posts in this series:

Gamla Stan

Kungstragarden

Departure Time

In spite of the title of the last post shown above this post is not quite done yet, because being the keen student of public transport systems that I am I could not ignore one of the most remarkable I have yet encountered…

TUNNELBANA

The heading above contains the colours of the three lines that make up Tunnelbana, with the blue line given an extra letter over the others because of its cave-like appearance. Here is a diagram of the Tunnelbana system:

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Tunnelbana has a whole long post to itself, and also provided my response to one of Maria Jansson’s photographic challenges:

MJP Weekly Challenge – Frames

Tunnelbana

I hope that you enjoyed this ‘maps special’ and that some of you will find it useful as a means of accessing my series of posts about Sweden. For those who have enjoyed the maps, i draw your attention to a blog that is dedicated to maps.

 

 

 

 

Inlandsbanan 7: Vilhelmina Norra to the Edge of the Arctic Circle

The latest installment in my series about my recent holiday in Sweden. We are still travelling north on Inlandsbanan and this post takes us to the arctic circle.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the next installment in this series of posts about my recent holiday in Sweden. In this post we are back on the move, heading north along Inlandsbanan.

THE JOURNEY

Very soon after leaving Vilhelmina Norra behind us we made a brief stop at Storuman.

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After Storuman there was again a period of taking pictures through the window of a moving train.

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Shortly after I had taken the picture above we arrived at Sorsele, which is significant as…

THE STATION WHERE INLANDSBANAN TRAINS MEET

Yes, it is at an otherwise insignificant dot on the map called Sorsele that the northbound Ostersund-Galiivare service overlaps with the southbound Gallivare-Ostersund service. Sorsele is also home to the Inlandsbanan Museum, although I chose not to go inside. Thus I have many photographs of this location that is so important in the workings of Inlandsbanan…

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My first shot of the two Inlandsbanan trains together at the platform

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A wonderful signboard, one of many here.

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The external view of the Inlandsbanan museum.

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A disused platform.
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The guard about to indicate the departure of the southbound service.
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Where personal meets professional – as someone who images auction items and has an interest in railwayana I particularly wanted to get a close-up of the Inlandsbanan cap badge.
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Outside cooking – probably a rare pleasure in this part of the world!

After a brief move we including the lake below we arrived at Slagnas

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After leaving Slagnas there was a reasonably long period of forward travel…

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We then had a stop for long enough to stretch our legs at…

ARVIDSJAUR

I was able to take a few pictures here before we moved on.

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Moving forward again, I was still taking pictures through the train window…

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I reckon this must be the lower terminal of a cable car route.

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What looks like a black raindrop in the picture above is actually a mark on the window that got into more than one of my photos! It was very soon after this picture was taken that we arrived at…

THE ARCTIC CIRCLE

This was not the first occasion I had been into the arctic – on my only previous visit to Nordic lands in 1994 I had gone by train from Helsinki to Narvik in Norway, with a brief bus ride from Haparanda to Boden in the middle,, and after a night in Narvik had caught a bus to Tromso before then travelling by boat to the most northerly town in mainland Europe, Hammerfest. However in those days I had no camera, and also the point at which we reached the arctic circle was not announced. Here are the shots i took from inside the train before I knew that there would actually be a stop:

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I end this post with pictures taken out in the open at the arctic circle:

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The train at the arctic circle.

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A fellow passenger was kind enough to take the picture from which I extracted this image of myself standing in front of the arctic circle sign.