Copenhagen & Sweden pt1

Copenhagen

The bridge across to the island on which Copenhagen lays cost £45 to traverse - 'robbing bastards', as my old man would say.

We managed to find a good place to plonk the van for the following couple of nights - just north of the city of Copenhagen, right on the coast, with a massive deer park adjacent.

After a little stroll along the coast line, we headed into deer territory, which as it turned out, doubled up as a golf course. Great use of space if you ask me. Why take up loads of room having your deer parks and your golf courses separate when you can just combine the two? Maybe the same could be done with aviaries and airports. You'd just have to get around the problem of the planes getting stuck in the net.

I took one of the hundreds of golf balls that were lying around on the practice range. It had a picture of a deer on it. Great use of space if you ask me. Why take up loads of room having your pictures of deer and your golf balls separate when you can etc etc.

Anyway, the ball now has pride of place at the bottom of the glove box.

The deer were amazing - authentic Disney-style ones with white spots on their backs and black and white arses. They allowed us to get up really close to them as they frolicked on the edge of the woods. Unfortunately there were a couple of plain brown, non-Disney ones present but we tried not to let that ruin the moment.

Later I drew a burger onto a stone wall with a piece of charcoal, which must have worked on Rach subliminally as an hour later we were eating - you guessed it - charcoal.

The city of Copenhagen was the best we'd been to so far. It's a sign of how much we loved it that we walked 28,000 steps that day - easily the most we've walked in a single day. There's so much going on. The famous street running parallel to the canal with the colourful vibrant facades is a joy. We checked out the Church of Saviours, which had the most brilliant, huge wooden organ above the entrance. It was a work of art, carved with such incredible detail. It was pouring out some really eerie, discordant tones, which I loved but Rach found creepy.

We also visited the King's Gardens, the cemetery (which was probably my favourite place) and the botanical gardens, which were immaculate, before going for a steak at MASH steakhouse - a VERY expensive treat. Sat next to us as we ate were a few guys who Rach said sounded like 'bigwigs'. I wasn't sure. Their conversation seemed to concern iPads and technology in some kind of detail, so it was possible. To be honest I was too busy thinking about my steak because I'm a bigpig.

Sweden

£85 to cross the bridge connecting Denmark and Sweden, which would probably make the old man chew his tongue off with rage.

It was day 76 and we had entered our 8th country. It was starting to turn rrrrather chilly. Rach was making sure I knew this by regularly bringing her frosty nose to my attention. We were in a campsite for the next couple of days, so we could get the electric blanket out and the mini-heater on.

We had a stroll on the beach nearby, the first proper beach since Spain. We marveled at the many weird and wonderful flavours of Pringles on offer in the campsite shop, made even more amazing by the fact there was no bread or milk. Strictly ridiculous luxuries only, apparently.

From now on we were going to bypass the cities and any major stops until Trondheim, in Norway. We wanted to get up north as quickly as possible, before the weather got much worse. We'd do the fjords, and the cities of Norway and Sweden on the way back down.

The couple of stops we did do on the way up through Sweden were great. The first had us sleeping next to a lake, with wind turbines rising up from behind a line of trees right beside us. They make a weird, low humming noise up close.

The second stop blew our minds. It was like a scene from Lord of the Rings - Hobbiton, not Mordor. After arriving and taking it all in, we thought we'd carry on up the road to a sunny area, so that the solar panels could absorb the last bit of sunshine, as the area we'd found was in the shade. Every little bit of sun counts living like this. For a second we were worried that the spot may get taken if we left, but there were so few cars coming up the little road, we were sure it'd be fine - we'd only be gone for half an hour.

When we got back to the spot it was, of course, taken. Two girls wearing pink onesies were setting up as we drove slowly past. They had big smiles on their faces. I was fuming.

Five minutes up the road we found a place which was just as good. The van was sat under a canopy of trees, surrounded by perfect woodland. The half moon in the sky was reflected in a perfectly still lake below, which lapped the rocks sat right underneath our back doors. The whole area was the kind of place you'd expect to see Bambi hopping through, on the way to play 18 holes.

I made a fire which we enjoyed for a while with a beer before jumping back into the van to get away from the mosquitoes. They seem to get bigger the further north we go. These ones had biceps.

In the morning the place was even more spectacular. Blue skies, birds singing, sunlight glistening on the water. Utter paradise. I got one of the chairs out to sit by the lake. The sun was warm. After about five minutes Rach said we had to go because she was 'desperate'. What could I do? You just can't overrule someone who's 'desperate'.

About 30 minutes later we were in IKEA. Remarkable.

Recommended park up in Copenhagen:

http://park4night.com/lieu/39920/