Anna’s Graduation 2014 – Page 5

Copenhagen is gorgeous

23 October 2014 by evo

Copenhagen is gorgeous! Everything is wonderfully designed — aesthetically and functionally.

The cycling infrastructure is completely integrated with plenty of space on separate cycle ways and dedicated traffic lights at larger intersections to ensure that everything flows well. Getting around was a pleasure.

And the apartments/parks/chairs/cafes/street lights were all beautiful. It all seems to be made with care and pride.

This is the first place I’ve truly felt I could live, although the Danish language is utterly incomprehensible.

We arrived in the evening, left our bags at the hotel and set about finding a place to eat. We walked about in the rain, first for a brief tour of the canal, which was calm and pretty, but empty due to the rain. After that we found (thanks google) restaurant called Riz Raz which had an awesome vegetarian buffet.

The next two days we hired bikes and rode all over town:
To the hipster streets full of run down places selling everything from 50s designer lamps, minimalist clean-designed so and so’s and vintage/op shop clothes (one where you could only swap clothes, not buy at all).

This street was amazing (https://goo.gl/maps/bQWpU) so much cool and beauty. Even if the cobble stone made for uncomfortable riding!

To the military parade ground where a marching band stopped traffic to set out to who knows where (…that was answered the day after we saw it: they march all the way across town every day as part of the changing of the guard ceremony).
To the alternative part of town which was dirty and fun where we ate in a shed full of street food vendors — I had Mexican from a guy who’d moved to Copenhagen from Mexico City 14 years ago.
To the port where you can see a huge wind farm off the coast and a statue of the little mermaid Hans-Christian-Anderson-style (not really that interesting, but there was a giant tour bus with ‘Mermaid Tour’ written on it which was full of people who did think it was interesting).
To restaurant Patepate with delicious food in the same way as Le Petit Deux in Newcastle (lovely little pieces of food in a restaurant which is the little sister of another larger restaurant).
To the interior design museum and the National Museum — both pleasant and interesting.

All in all a wonderful place.

Onto Copenhagen!

23 October 2014 by evo

The train from Stockholm to Copenhagen. A pleasant 5 hour trip and a quick shot of a foggy wind farm off the coast of somewhere.

Last few days in Stockholm

21 October 2014 by evo

The last couple of days in Stockholm consisted of us walking all over the place, drinking coffee, staying up late at fun bars and going to the town hall.

The prettiest cafe didn’t have a name, only an address. It’s the dark photo with the eucalypt on the table. The fish eyed photo is a buffet breakfast…all you can eat? Challenge accepted.

Anna and Hallam walking back from seeing Stephen Merchant is the grainy photo and the other two are from Stockholm city hall.

The hall is where the Nobel prize ceremony and dinner take place every year for all but the peace prize (peace prize ceremony is held in Oslo). The Stockholm hall is an odd building, eclectic in design and so full of surprises.

The room photographed is a meeting room for the local council. The ceiling was originally supposed to be plain and flat, but once the architect saw the exposed beams he decided to leave them exposed and paint it instead. I like the perfect Tetris on the walls.

Breakfast fisheye (all you can eat buffet)

Voxholm

19 October 2014 by evo

Voxholm — pretty and eerie in the cold, haunting part of autumn

Stocksund day trip

19 October 2014 by evo

Yesterday we spent most of the day doing the big loop you can seem on the map above. We headed north from Stockholm by train to Stocksund, then about 40 minutes by bus north-east to Vaxholm, the largest island in the Stockholm archipelago.

The day was blustery and cold, with enough sun to get our hopes up. Warm did not eventuate, and to compensate we sheltered in doors for sustenance.

Our sustenance of choice in this case was American diner style burgers and onion rings. Oddly tempting on a day like it was.

The visitor centre was closed by the time we arrived, but we managed to sneak in to get a map. Expecting some kind of bush walking or the like, we found the island was well covered by the town and the tourist map made odd choices for places of interest, for example the former military parade ground (read: a grassy field). So we attempted to bush walk anyway, mostly by walking just behind people’s houses or just off the road among the trees.

As we walked and lost our way the whole place grew increasingly eerie — washed out, grey and windswept. The only colour were the yellowing leaves, but something about them falling silently in an empty world of holiday houses and silent school playgrounds was haunting. It set a mood like The Name of The Rise before the snowfall crossed with Les Rivières Pourpres. And the mood swelled.

We criss-crossed the island and came back to where we started. While walking around to the ferry we came to the main tourist attraction: Vaxholm Fortress.

The fortress casts a strange figure from its own island, barely 100m from the shore of Voxholm. The shadowy reflection of its tall stone walls made it halfway across the water to us.

I had to run to catch the ferry back to Stockholm. And on the hour long ride home thought that though pretty, Vaxholm was also kind of creepy.