Malmö Calling

You have already had a postcard from Malmö, but here is a town that deserves more than a single-postcard mention. This city was our first Swedish stop on our Interrailing adventure: home in England via Belgium, Germany, Denmark to Sweden and back again entirely by train. Inexplicably, to add further international spice, our journey from Copenhagen was on a Polish train that had no intentions of travelling to or from Poland during its journey. Disappointingly, though we crossed the iconic  Öresund Bridge, we had not a single view of its 16 mile over-sea span from Copenhagen to Malmö.

Malmö however was far from a disappointment. Like many Swedish cities, it’s designed to be walkable and bike-friendly. The station was near the hotel, near the harbour, near to so many explorable corners. In fact I’ll show the postcard I sent again. It just showcases the city as I want to remember it: an exciting blend of old and new.

An evening stroll took us past part of the university campus …

… and to the main square, Stortorget. So much to see here! Its 16th century Town Hall and Kockska Huset, the Mayor’s house. The statue of Charles X Gustav who annexed Denmark to Sweden. The old Apothecary. I can’t show everything from the city in this one post, but I hope they will get their five minutes of fame at some point. Instead, I’ll show you a couple of scenes as night fell (eventually – this WAS midsummer in Sweden!)

We were up bright and early in the morning, looking forward to meeting Ann-Christine, of Leya fame, who’s set this week’s Lens-Artists Challenge: Adventure. And what a treat it was! She’d travelled an hour from her home to meet us, and Malcolm and I relished our time with her. We strolled down streets old and new, well-tended parks and inviting cemeteries, and of course enjoyed Fika, the most important Swedish tradition demanding we relax over coffee, cake and lots of conversation. We had an outdoor table at a park cafe in the sunshine and would happily have spent even longer talking.

I’ve had to limit the images I show, but I’ll single out some shoes. ‘Shoes on a bridge‘ is a permanent public art installation on Davidshallsbron (Davidshall Bridge), created by Swedish artist Åsa Maria Bengtsson. It features 29 pairs of bronze shoes honoring famous artists, entertainers, and cultural figures who left their mark on the city. Besides that I feature reflections on pedestrianised Södergatan; a (to me) unknown building which took my eye; and Sweden’s oldest fortified building, Malmö Castle. And of course, you can guess the last one.

Reflections on one of the city's main streets: Södergatan
Shoes on a Bridge
How shaming: I've quite forgotten what this buildig is. But it was wort a shot.
Malmö castle: a Renaissance building and Sweden's oldest fortress.
Malcolm and Ann-Christine enjoy the park where we stopped for Fika

And that was Malmö. It deserved far more time than we gave it. We’ll HAVE to go back, especially if we could meet Ann-Christine again. But the city had one more surprise for us. As we waited for our trains – the two of us for Gothenburg, Ann-Christine for her home -we saw displayed and always in motion on the station wall alongside which our train would arrive, images we could expect to our onward journey.

A Swedish Stroll

Our last evening in Kalmar. Malcolm decided on relaxing at the hotel, but mindful that the next two days woud be entirely seated on trains, I felt a walk was in order.

It starts very near our hotel. Kalmar’s Old Water Tower was built between 1897 and 1900 and operated until 1972. It was converted into 11 private apartments in the 1980s. The majestic brick exterior remains a central navigational sight, while I’m left wondering whether circular furniture is required.

I’m actually on Kvarnholmen (the city center island), which is surrounded by the sea (the Baltic/Kalmar Strait) and the town moat. So I decide to walk as far as I please on my side of the moat and waterways, and come back as far as possible on the other side. There’s nothing better than strolling along a path that’s vaguely urban – though tree-lined and traffic free – with more open views over the water, and little islands vying to be Bempton Cliff Marks III, IV, V etc. owing to being extremely noisy with bird life.

Eventually, I come to a waterway so broad it seems like a lake. I’m at the desirable suburb of Varvsholmen, and who wouldn’t want to live there with views like this, including the sight of the almost 4 mile long bridge connecting Kalmar to the island of Öland? This was once the longest bridge in Europe. We really should have gone to Öland , but … next time.

And then I pick out a route home by crossing a much more workaday bridge to find a different path. I know when I’m getting back into the home-zone, because …

But I’m done with surprises yet. Here’s the Cultural Centre, with its library, art gallery, theatre, creative spaces – all closed that Sunday evening, but still offering me two pieces I could find out little about, but still enjoyed.

And then onwards, past the white and almost homely looking prison, and over the little wooden bridge to the town walls, the water tower, and the hotel, for our last night in Sweden.

For Jo’s Monday Walk.

Monumental Madness

Figures in the built environment, That’s what Sue of Words Visual fame would like to see us produce images of this week for Monochrome Madness. She’s big on street photography, is Sue, and good at capturing a telling shot of a peopled urban street. But Leanne in her own post has gone down a different route, and as imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, so shall I.

I’m going with Monumental Statuary, and beginning on Greenwich Peninsula, with Damien Hirst’s Demon with Bowl.

Then I’m staying in London, and going to St. Pancras Station, to a statue I love to hate, finding it unutterably cheesy: Paul Day’s The Meeting Place.

Here are some details, including one of the vignettes at the bottom: lookers on.

St. Pancras Station is next to King’s Cross Station. Let’s catch the train to Leeds, and the ongoing bus to Harewood House to view Jacob Epstein’s Adam, naked as God had intended.

My featured photo is a few years old. ‘Around the Corner‘ was a literary trail designed in 2020. Scattered near Peter’s Hill (just south of the cathedral), these gold-lettered plinths read: What, are, you, going, to, meet, if, you, turn, this, corner? and is a quote from Virginia Woolf’s novel, Jacob’s Room. And I managed to introduce a small person into the shot, thus perhaps satisfying Sue with a spot of traditional street photography.

Is it a Castle? Is it a Palace?

We wanted to break our journey from Stockholm back to England. Kalmar seemed the perfect spot. It’s a coastal town, and a busy one. But at its heart is a quiet community, featuring a Proper Castle.

Back in the 1180s, there were nuisance pirates. So a fortified watchtower was needed. Here, the castle began. It was strategically – and ideally -placed near Denmark.

It was here that the Kalmar Union took place in 1397, a treaty signed at the castle that unified Denmark, Norway, and Sweden under a single monarch. Scandinavia’s history has long been intertwined in different ways over the centuries. Then in the 16th century King Gustav Vasa and his sons upgraded the medieval stronghold into a spectacular Renaissance palace.

That didn’t stop it being a defensive castle though. There were sieges throughout much of the first half of 17th century, though they petered out when national borders moved further south. Kalmar Castle’s strategic days were over. By the late 1600s it was used first as a prison and then – the shame! – a granary. It had to wait until the 19th and 20th centuries to be restored to glory, and recognised as a National Treasure.

Midsummer meant that opening hours were fairly restricted, and we didn’t see inside. But we enjoyed the outside, and even some internal courtyards.

It was almost as much fun to watch the seabirds. One small island nearby was so very noisy with seaside birdlife that I promptly named it Bempton Cliffs, though there wasn’t a cliff in sight. Herons seemed omnipresent – and successful fisherfolk they were too.

One extra bit of history, noticed by us and a black headed gull, near the castle.

This is a memorial to Kalmar Nyckel‘s first voyage to America in 1638, taking (in 4 voyages) the first Swedish colonists to America. I assumed that Kalmar Nyckel was a man. Silly me. It was a ship. Since 1963, Kalmar has been twinned with Wilmington, Delaware, the site of the New Sweden colony.

And finally, for the Instagram generation, here’s the castle again. A view through one of the helpful ‘frames’ which surrounded the castle.

I’ve probably not done with Stockholm yet. I’m jumping around our holiday as the fancy takes me.

Pottering in the Park

All my posts about Sweden seem to feature The Great Outdoors. That’s where we often wanted to be. I’m going to show you some of Gothenburg’s parks. They were a wonder. Immaculately maintained, beautifully planted. A refreshing mix of formal, informal, and wild-as-Nature-intended. Just like the parks in the other cities we visited: Stockholm, Kalmar, Malmö. Money shortages mean that many of Britain’s parks are shabbier than they used to be – even Harrogate’s former Jewel-in-the-Crown, Valley Gardens. So seeing such cared-for open spaces in Sweden was a treat and a revelation.

Because they were so near our hotel, we spent time in the Botanical Gardens, open every day, all year round, around the clock. But we barely scratched the surface. We went to Slottsskogen. But we only saw a tiny part of the whole (though we rather liked the maze). And on our last day, because it was right next to the station, we had a little time in Trädgårdsföreningen (The Garden Society of Gothenburg) one of the best preserved 19th century parks in Europe. Every one of these offered us open spaces; enticingly planted flower beds; water – both moving and still; palm houses; magnificent vistas. We didn’t get to explore any of them adequately, much less their wilder parts. Here’s a collage of pictures from all three parks. But please note the robot-mower which I spotted one evening in the Botanical Gardens,, moving methodically up and down an expanse of lawn, keeping it neat and tidy. When it had done what it had to do, it chuntered off and put itself to bed in its little hut.

A Quick Overnight in Hamburg

I am leaving colourful Sweden today (I’ll be back in later posts), in order to whisk to our last overnight stop abroad on this holiday: Hamburg. We arrived later than planned (more rail-travel misadventures to come) so explored the city not at all – this time.

Hamburg suffered catastrophic devastation during WWII, most notably during a relentless series of Allied air raids in July 1943 codenamed Operation Gomorrah. The bombing campaign caused a massive firestorm that killed over 35,000 civilians, destroyed more than 60% of the city’s housing, and left nearly a million people homeless. This sombre state of affair indicates why, though Hamburg is a city with apparently lots to offer, we didn’t see it at its best. We were so near to the centre which was first destroyed, then hastily put back together in many cases. These views were taken from the roof-top terrace of our station-handy hotel.

For Leanne’s Monochrome Madness: a theme-free week.

The Joy of Archipelagos

Among the pleasures of our stays in Gothenburg and Stockholm were the joys of exploring the archipelagos which are such an instrinsic part of life there. Our first experience of them was in Gothenburg. On our second day there we caught the tram to Saltholmen ferry terminal, and then a ferry to – where? Styrsö? Donsö? Vrångö? Or some of the many other islands forming the Southern Archipelago? Did it even matter? Island hopping is easy by inter-connecting ferry. What a delight to stand on deck, the breeze on our faces, the sea and sky an uninterrupted blue. We island-spotted. Some barely qualified, they were so tiny.

Some were inhabited … just about.

But we were aiming for ones with inhabitants as well as wilder spaces. Gothenburg’s Southern islands are vehicle-free, so on landing we noticed employees – electricians in this case – going on their rounds with company vehicles. Bicycles.

It was on one island – Donsö – that we had our lunch. It turned out to be our only properly Swedish meal, as local cooking seems hard to come by in the city.

A simple but perfect meal of herring, new potatoes and cheeses, tastily garnished.

We were after the natural world though, so headed further south for Vrångö and its nature reserve.

There was something special about strolling along the coastline, always having the sea in sight, but always other islands too, of different shapes and sizes.

We had similar experiences exploring Stockholm’s Archipelago. One day we settled on setting foot only on one – more distant – island, Vaxholme, which has a BIG town of 6,000 inhabitants. Its municipality includes 64 further islands, bringing its total population to some 11,000.

We wondered what it would be like to live there year round, including dark and rather cold winter, and decided we’d opt, as many do, for having our summers there before heading back to the Big City for the rest of the year.

We’d arrived in time for fika, that typical Swedish tradition where you take time out of your day to pause and enjoy coffee and a snack. Look! Here was somewhere with a large terrace on the waterside, great coffee, and a range of cakes so temping that it was incredibly hard to choose. Near us was one very unfortunate couple. As they sat down, their cakes and coffee on the table, down swooped a kittiwake who made off with one whole slice of cake. All we had to deal with were sparrows, hoping for crumbs.

We did like the idea of being buried on Vaxholme though. Swedish cemetries are a delight, being mainly in expansive parkland where it’s quite usual to come for a family stroll. We wandered round for quite a while before searching out some wilder walking.

And here’s how we commuted there and back.

Grand days out, our Archipelago adventures.

Six Degrees of Separation: from Yesteryear to Prophet Song.

On the first Saturday of every month, a book is chosen as a starting point and linked to six other books to form a chain. Readers and bloggers are invited to join in by creating their own ‘chain’ leading from the selected book.

Kate:  Books are my Favourite and Best

This month’s starter book, Yesteryear, by  Caro Claire Burke attracts me not at all. Here’s what Google’s AI Overview has to say about it: ‘Yesteryear is a darkly satirical thriller about Natalie Heller Mills, a high-profile ‘tradwife’ influencer who glorifies a romanticised, 19th century farm life. Behind her curated, cottagecore Instagram feed lie hidden modern appliances, paid nannies, and a crumbling, fame-obsessed marriage.’ 

I thought I’d run away immediately to a group of women whose young lives could hardly be more different from our own Instagram-able days. The Eights, by Joanna Miller, follows the fortunes of 4 young women admitted to Oxford University in the very year – 1920 – in which they would be able to study towards a degree, a possibility until then denied to female students. They face petty and strict rules about their day-to-day lives, prejudice and family difficulties. This is their story.

Two women , in Almost Life by Kiran Millwood Hargrave show how women’s possibilities change during the twentieth century. English (bi-sexual) Erica comes across French (lesbian) Laure one summer morning in 1978, on the steps of Sacré Coeur when Erica smiles at Laure after spotting they’re reading the same book. They become lovers then part – often. Erica is in her mid 30s as the story reaches its climax, and the social change that characterises both French and British society between the 70s and the very early 2000s is subtly yet vividly made a living part of the narrative.

In Vaseem Khan‘s Edge of Darkness, another female is treading new paths for women. We’re in just-post-partition India, and Persis Wadia is India’s first female detective. She faces the same kind of prejudice and condescension faced by the Oxford students. Persis is determined, principled and awkward. She thinks outside the box, but has very little support, with the possible exception of her new second-in-command. Solving the murder of a prominent politican isn’t something you should leave in the hands of a mere woman. Or is it? This is the sixth book In which Persis is Our Heroine, and I’ve loved every single one of them.

We’ll stay on the Indian sub-continent, but change the mood completely, and look at a real door-stopper: High: A Journey across the Himalayas, through Pakistan, India, Bhutan, Nepal and China: by Erika Fatland (translated by Kari Dickson). Erika Fatland is a Norwegian anthropologist. She’s undertaken here quite a journey: the one outlined in the title of her book. She observes the sights and sounds of – often very remote -cities, towns and villages on her travels, describing her meetings with locals. These can be the inhabitants of these communities, or religious leaders, nuns, bureaucrats, countryside rangers – even a king: even the dispossessed. In particular, women’s lives are still on the whole greatly impacted by tradition and custom. A big chunk of a book, this is nevertheless highly readable and accessible, and engagingly translated.

Travel in unfamiliar places always brings challenges of one kind or another. None more so than when you are deliberately abandoned on a deserted and inhospitable island in the South Pacific. This was the fate, in the early 18th century, of Alexander Selkirk. His misadvenures have already been imagined by Daniel Defoe, in Robinson Crusoe. Now Francesca de Tores has done it again, in Castaway. I’m reading it now. And it’s no swashbuckling adventure, I can tell you. Think rats, mosquitos, and not a single mod con, 18th century style, to help you along. (For ‘mod con’, read eating or drinking vessel, knife, axe, change of clothing, blanket ….).  Over time, Selkirk’s back story is trickled into the story. Our task as readers is to observe this man reveal himself as he comes to understand himself better.

Paul Lynch greatly enjoyed Francesca de Tores‘ previous book, Saltblood, and as I got a lot from reading his Prophet Song, I’ll end my chain with it. It was one of my winning reads of 2024.  It’s set in Ireland in the near future, after a fascist government has been elected to power. Long breathless paragraphs, light on punctuation, drive the story on as everyday wife, mother and daughter Eilish ‘s decision making and relationship with her children and family gradually becomes increasingly erratic, as the government increases its stranglehold on everyday life, as violence and the impossibility of everyday living increases. It’s a deeply uncomfortable read. Perhaps even more so now than when I first read it.

One way or another, I’ve wandered pretty far from the starting point this month. What will happen next month, I wonder, when our starting point is a book already on my TBR list:  Maggie O’Farrell‘s Land?



Last on the Card

The last photo I took on my phone in June was a few days ago. * I was driving from my village – through which a main road passes – just as three families of Greylag Geese decided to wander across. Greylags moved (seasonally) into our village about three years ago – we have three village ponds. They have no predators, no sense of social responsibilty, but lots of babies. And to be fair, they’re pretty good parents. I counted the birds as they crossed the road. Forty of them. And we have far more than three goose families living here. The longer-term residents: mallards and moorhens are not impressed. Moorhens contrive to survive, but mallards no longer expect to bring their babies through to maturity here. We’re all rather right-wing about them. ‘Immigrant geese not welcome here! Go back where you came from!’ we protest, as we scrape from our shoes yet another layer of the goose droppings which so liberally encrust our pavements.

‘ *Officer, I know I mustn’t use my phone when driving. But my engine’s off, and I’ve been here 5 minutes already. And may be here another five too’.

For Brian’s Last on the Card

Bright As Can Be

I set this week’s challenge for Leanne’s Monochrome Madness. I must be mad (as required for Monochrome Madness …). What I’m asking for are photos of subjects you’d normally choose to shoot in colour exactly because of their vibrant colours. Can you make them as arresting in black and white?

My header photo was taken only about ten days ago in the Nordic Museum in Stockholm. This exhibit was bemusing and distorting us with confusing mirrors and colours. I was suffused in rich blues. As you can’t see here. But does it matter? I was surprised to discover that it didn’t, much.

A couple of months ago, I met Sarah of Travel with Me fame in London, and we amused ourselves with our cameras near the Gasholder development. Some pavement art caught our eye, and our own black shadows contrasted with the rich rainbow tones of the illustrated bottles. As you can’t see here. But it seems to work anyway.

Summer near the sea in England can mean to me clumps of sunshine-yellow gorsebushes on the cliffs near Staithes. Blue sea below, blue(ish) sky above (it IS England after all). So does this work in black and white? Not for me. Another shot might have done, but not this one.

Then there’s the brightly lit-in-multi-colours tunnel near Granary Wharf in Leeds. It’s striking enough in simple black and white, but … in the original,the coloured lights lend a greater vibrancy to the shot.

Let’s go back to Sweden, where we started. When I show my (colour) photos from one of the ferry boats we spent so much time on, ‘Wow! The sea. The sky. They’re so blue!’ is the immediate comment. So what if they’re not …

So what can you come up with? I think three of these images stand up quite well to being in monochrome, one doesn’t, and one just about holds its own. But you can look at the originals below, and make your own mind up. And then please join in! Link your post back to mine, and to Leanne at Monochrome Madness here..

And by the way, you don’t have to include any colour photos you might have used as your starting point. That was an optional extra I imposed on myself.