Our first full day in Scandinavia began with what, for me at least, was always going to be the day’s biggest challenge: picking up the hire car and remembering that everyone else was driving on the wrong side of the road.
Our car for the next few days is an Audi A3, grey and reassuringly Teutonic. I eased it out of Copenhagen Airport with Mark beside me providing invaluable navigational assistance, including periodically pointing out which side was left and offering helpful advice about how roundabouts work when you are approaching them from entirely the wrong direction.
Almost immediately, we took the wrong exit from a roundabout and found ourselves heading straight back towards the terminal, into the delightfully named “Kiss and Fly” departure lane. Fortunately, there doesn’t appear to be a ridiculous dropping-off charge at Danish airports, unlike the increasingly eye-watering charges back in the UK, so our accidental tour of airport departures cost us nothing more than a few minutes and a certain amount of amusement.
And then came one of those journeys that is a destination in itself: across the Øresund Bridge from Denmark to Sweden. It really is an extraordinary piece of engineering. The scale of it, the sweep of the bridge and the huge expanse of water on either side make crossing it feel properly momentous. Yesterday we arrived in Scandinavia; today, driving ourselves from one country to another, the road trip really began.
Once across, we navigated our way through the suburbs of Malmö in search of a viewpoint from which we could look back at the bridge. This involved rather more suburban exploration than perhaps strictly necessary, but it was worth it. Malmö also immediately began delivering some wonderfully bold architecture, which was to become something of a theme for the day.
There was, of course, one essential pilgrimage. We headed to Malmö Arena to pay homage to Eurovision, which has been held there twice. Nearby was another architectural treat, the rather splendid Hyllie water tower, looking for all the world as though someone had balanced an enormous flying saucer on top of a concrete column. Sweden, we were beginning to discover, does water towers rather well.
Back behind the wheel, we headed south, choosing to hug the coast towards Trelleborg rather than simply charging down the main road. There we found a café in yet another water tower and stopped for coffee and, importantly, our first cinnamon buns of the holiday. It seemed a significant moment. You can’t really claim to be travelling properly in Sweden until cinnamon buns have entered the story.
We wandered through Trelleborg afterwards and found its lovely Stadsparken, where a collection of tiny bronze people caught our attention. Some appeared to be playing skittles; others were simply sitting, embracing or getting on with whatever tiny bronze people do in a Swedish park. I have subsequently discovered that they are Små varelser – “Small Creatures” – by Ralf Borselius. The faceless figures were installed in 2009 and are indeed intended to be resting, hugging and playing games.
Then onwards again, following the coast to Smygehuk, the southernmost point of Sweden. We stopped at the lighthouse and, naturally, climbed it. There is something about spotting a tower with steps in it that makes Mark apparently incapable of remaining at ground level. The reward was a wonderful view across the flat landscape and out towards the Baltic.
By late afternoon we were heading towards Ystad and passed two structures which had puzzled us earlier. From a distance, their enormous flat tops had looked almost like illuminated helipads suspended in the sky. Mystery solved: they are the Tvillingvattentornen, Ystad’s twin water towers, built in 1965 and now one of the city’s most distinctive landmarks.
Our home for the night proved delightful: a B&B in a farmhouse, with our room tucked away in an outhouse. After settling in, we drove into Ystad for an evening wander.
What a lovely place. It was remarkably quiet, with streets of half-timbered houses that at times felt almost too picturesque to be real. Among them is the wonderful old Latin School beside St Mary’s Church, built around 1500 and one of the oldest surviving school buildings in Sweden. It remained in use as a school until 1841.
Dinner was at Grändens Mat and was excellent. We started with prawns and scallops, then Mark had pluma with broccolini, potatoes, tomato, shallots, jalapeño and almond pesto, tarragon mayonnaise and chives. I had grilled char with honey-roasted cabbage, padrón peppers, pommes allumettes, browned soy hollandaise and jalapeño and almond vinaigrette. Both were seriously good.
Our final cultural discovery of the day came not from medieval architecture, Scandinavian engineering or public art, but from a Swedish supermarket.We thought we might buy a bottle of wine. There appeared to be wine. There was beer and cider too. But closer inspection revealed that everything contained remarkably little alcohol. Where, we wondered, was the actual wine?
It turns out that Sweden has an answer to this, and it is called Systembolaget. Anything above 3.5% alcohol for ordinary retail purchase is sold through the state-owned chain rather than the supermarket. Systembolaget describes its role explicitly as selling alcohol without a profit motive and without encouraging customers to buy more than they intended.So our innocent attempt to buy a bottle of wine to take back to the farmhouse turned instead into a lesson in Swedish social policy.
No wine, then. But after a day involving a spectacular bridge, a Eurovision pilgrimage, several memorable water towers, cinnamon buns, tiny bronze people, a lighthouse, a beautiful medieval town and an excellent dinner, I don’t think we could really complain.
And tomorrow there is a lot more Sweden to discover.
