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:

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.

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:

dscn4878 — A closer view of the southern part of the route

dscn4879 — 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:

dscn4883 — 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

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…

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:

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…

dscn4892 — 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…

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…

dscn4896 — 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.

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:

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 8: Tis Better to Travel Hopefully Than to Arrive

The next installment in my series about Sweden, and the finale to the sub-series about the Inlandsbanan experience.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the latest installment in my series of posts about my recent holiday in Sweden, and the end of the sub-series of posts about my northward journey along Inlandsbanan.

THE JOURNEY

By this stage we were nearing the end of the journey from Ostersund to Gallivare, although there was still the second meal stop to come. In the brief period between restarting the trip from the edge of the arctic circle and arriving at Vaikijaur for the second meal stop we passed a place called Jokkmokk.

Vaikijaur was not especially memorable, although the food was excellent. Here are the pictures I took.

DSCN9312 — A side view of this quirky little building

DSCN9316 — The people who had produced our food.

We had no further significant stops before Gallivare although we did pass through a town called Porjus. The train pulled into the platform at Gallivare exactly as scheduled at 21:39. Here are the photos of the last part of the journey…

SLEEPLESS IN GALLIVARE

I had booked two nights at the Hotel Dundret i Centrum, planning then to take a morning train to Lulea on the Gulf of Bothnia and then an overnight train from Lulea to Uppsala, birthplace of Carolus Linnaeus also known as Carl Von Linne. However, while I located the establishment in question, there was no one at reception, and it turned out that to gain access my room I needed to make a call on a mobile phone (had booking.com mentioned this detail I would have booked somewhere else) and I had accidentally left mine at the flat in Stockholm where my cousin and his fiance live. I waited a few minutes in the very unimpressive communal seating area just in case but it was soon obvious that no one would show up.

While I could have sat there until the morning doing so would then involve having an argument over payment because there was no way I would pay for a night in which I had not access to my room, so I decided to cut my losses and headed back to the station to wait the night out. Before continuing this story here is the one photo I took in Gallivare (I knew the camera battery was low, and that I would not be able to charge it that night).

This sculpture is on the roundabout just opposite the station in Gallivare.

I did make a couple of attempts to get some sleep but they were unsuccessful. I was thankful that I had had the foresight to pack a long sleeved top just in case the Swedish summer weather was not quite as good as it might be, since while it does not get dark in Gallivare in August it does get quite nippy at night (as a cricket fan I would have said that the light was never even at its least good unplayable in). Had the sky been clear I might have had a glimpse of the famous midnight sun, but as it was solidly cloudy I was denied even that small pleasure.

At 6 o’clock I was able to get inside and think about my next move. Having ascertained that train tickets could be bought at the Pressbyran next to the station, which was now open, I paid for a ticket on 7:08 train to Lulea (the full price since I did not wish to burn a whole day’s travel for a shortish journey – btw train tickets are one of the few things that are not more expensive in Sweden than in GB – the Swedes don’t have the likes of Branson coining it from failing to provide proper train services), having decided that I would get back on track with my original plans by staying overnight in Lulea and catching the sleeper as intended the following day.

THE INLANDSBANAN EXPERIENCE

I rate this as one of the finest railway experiences I have ever had. I encountered some wonderfully scenic journeys in Scotland and on my first visit to Nordic lands many years ago. More recently I experienced some very scenic journeys in Australia, including Melbourne – Adelaide.

Although I, with my Colbeckian enthusiasm for all things railwayana thoroughly enjoyed all three legs of the Inlandsbanan journey and would recommend the experience to anyone I could also see merit in missing the Kristinehamn-Mora section and doing Mora-Ostersund and Ostersund-Gallivare having found some other route to Mora. If not constrained by budget I would recommend the onward trip from Gallivare to Narvik and some exploration in Norway as well. I also mention that there are places along the route where one could stay overnight if wanted to spend many days over making the journey, but with an inter-rail pass giving me eight days of travel and a desire to see as much of Sweden as I could encompass such was not on the table for me personally.

If anyone involved in the publication of the Rough Guide to Sweden happens to see this may I suggest that you think about turning my last eight blog posts into a chapter about Inlandsbanan since it is absurd that this incredible experience is not covered in your pages.

Inlandsbanan 2: Mora to Asarna

The next installment in my series of posts about my recent holiday in Sweden.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the latest post in my series about my recent holiday in Sweden. This post continues the northern journey along Inlandsbanan that started here.

INLANDSBANAN PROPER BEGINS

As those who read my previous post will be aware, although Kristinehamn to Mora is part of the official Inlandsbanan route it is not run by Inlandsbanan stock – for that you have to wait until Mora. Here is an Inlandsbanan train:

This makes it obvious why seat reservations made on the Inlandsbanan website give you a seat number but nor carriage number – there is only one carriage.

Inlandsbanan trains also feature a ‘train host’, who checks tickets, sells refreshments to those who buy them, takes food orders for the official food stops and provides information about noteworthy points along the route. For this journey, from Mora to Ostersund, of which I am currently covering the first part our train host was a young woman named Emma, and she did a magnificent job – she got a round of applause as we approached Ostersund.

Here are some pictures from the early part of the journey…

Just after I had taken the picture above we arrived at our first major landmark, a river that was considered impressive enough for the train to stop so that photographs could be taken more easily…

It was not long after this that food orders were taken for the official eating stop at Asarna Ski Centre…

DSCN8572 — My food order – 1 Moose burger.

Then it was back to taking pictures from a moving train for a bit…

We then had a station stop that was long enough for folk who were travelling on to get off and have a leg stretch…

DSCN8677 — This map was on the train. At the end of this series of posts I will put up a special post about maps.

DSCN8678 — The full Inlandsbanan timetable.

Then it was back to taking pictures through the window for a little bit…

Then we reached Asarna, where we had our scheduled food stop, and where this post ends (the moose burger and wedges made a very satisfactory meal by the way).

DSCN8725 — The first of three hexagonal display cases full of medals awarded for ski-ing feats.

DSCN8730 — A fine campanological display – I also have a close up of three bells in the middle of the display.

DSCN8735 — This shot of the train at rest makes it clear why only one of the two sets of doors opened for this stop!

DSCN8738 — Looking back at the bridge through whose metalwork I had earlier taken some shots (I have a zoomed in shot immediately following this one)

DSCN8747 — This will feature in more detail when I do my special post about maps.

Inlandsbanan 1: Kristinehamn to Mora

The start of the story of my journey along Inlandsbanan, a sub-series within my series of posts about my recent holiday in Sweden.

INTRODUCTION

Welcome to the start of the story of my journey along the Inlandsbanan, a sub-series within my series of posts about my recent holiday in Sweden.

ROUGH GUIDE TO SWEDEN FAILS

Before getting into the main meat of this post, a few brief comments about The Rough Guide to Sweden, with which I had been equipped. My relationship with this tome got off to poor start when my very first attempt to locate information, about the town of Trosa, where one of my fellow bloggers lives drew a complete blank. Thus I was already less than impressed when I scanned the index for information about Inlandsbanan to see what they made of it and for the second straight time drew a blank. Although subsequent visits to the pages of this book were less marked by failure, there was no real chance that the book would recover in my estimation and at best in reviewers terms it merits one star.

A BRIEF NOTE ON THE PHOTOGRAPHS

Many of the photographs you will see in this series of posts were taken through the windows of moving trains, and for both the second and third legs of the trip my seat was facing against the direction of travel. Therefore, remember when viewing these pictures that I was not able to capture by any means all of the things I wanted to.

THE JOURNEY

I was making two trips this day, first the subject of this post, and then after half an hour at Mora the journey onwards to Ostersund. The journey from Kristinehamn to Mora is part of the official Inlandsbanan route, but not run by Inlandsbanan stock – for this leg we travelled in an ordinary multi-carriage Sveriges Jarnvag train.

I settled into my very comfortable window seat (even second class on a Swedish train is quite luxurious to one used to British public transport) with my camera at the ready to take whatever pictures I could and other than my attempts to capture interesting sights the journey was uneventful until precisely at the scheduled time the train pulled into the platform at Mora to conclude its journey…

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