Up and Over the Gulf of Bothnia Part 1

Donna settles in for our overnight train trip from Stockholm to Luleå. 

So far for this trip, we have been staying at places for a few days at least, with the exception of our 2nd stay in London for 1 night after visiting Edinburgh. This stay was just for the logistics of travel and making connections to public transportation. Oh yea and we spent one really great night in Flåm, which was enough. 

So now we are doing a series of short stays traveling up and over The Gulf of Bothnia. Why?  Well the plan started out with us going half way up and then taking a ferry across to Finland, but we couldn't really figure that out so we decided to go all the way over. 

Reat assured, No AI was used in the making of this approximated route map. In fact not much Actual Intelligence was used. 

We checked out of our hotel in Stockholm on Friday at around noon and headed over to Kvornen for a late lunch. We had seen that the Rick Steves tour that was staying in our hotel was eating here so we thought we would give it a try. It was really good. 

Aftee lunch we made our way back to the hotel to pick up our baggage and then headed on to Stockholm Central Station. 

Need a tattoo?  I actually think this is the tattoo place that one of our friends recommended. If I were going to get a tattoo, this would probably be the place. 

We passed on the all you can eat shrimp and taco archipelago cruise. I know I have a few friends that this would appeal to. It's probably a lot of fun. 

We got to Stockholm Central Station way early because that's how we roll. I took some photos of the station and we bought some water and pastries and canned coffee for the trip. 

On our trip we have noticed there are a lot of helpers helping travelers. They make things very clear and have been great. 

Our night train arriving. 

We have an assigned cabin and our ticket was very clear as to which car to enter. It was all very smooth. 

It's pretty clear we are on the correct train. 

Traveling light is essential. We were pretty light but we could have been lighter. 

Donna found our cabin and I made her pose for this photo just for all you readers. It captures the moment of excitement when you do something entirely new. 

We got settled and then the train quietly and smoothly left the station. We barely noticed when we started moving. 

3 small boxes of water are provided. Bring more because the tap water isn't drinking water on the train. 

We sat in our private room and watched Sweden go by. 

We were too excited to not eat crappy train food so I bought us some crappy train food. 

Then we put on comfy soft pants and continued to watch Sweden go by. 

Soon it began to get dark and it was time for bed. Just kidding!  We never saw the sun set or the sun rise. We are heading towards the Arctic Circle and the land of the midnight sun. 

The excitement of the top bunk was infectious. 

When we woke up we were at one of the last few station stops. We drank our canned coffee and ate our pastries. Our train arrived in Luleå at around 7am, about half and hour late. 

It was a very short walk to our hotel. We checked our bags in at the hotel and we were told we could check in early at around noon. This was good news because Luleå is pretty small compared to the cities we have visited so far on this trip. 

Downtown Luleå was pretty deserted at 8am on a Saturday. Nothing opened until at least 10am. 

We did some really nice walks along the waterfront. 

I got eaten by a giant crane. 

I did my best "here's Johnny" impersonation on our walk. 

We also reported a bunch of birds on ebird, which doesn't get much use in these parts. 

Sauna anyone?

The playground design here in Sweden goes to 11. 

We saw a casual F-Bomb on advertising here in downtown Luleå. Swearing in another language just doesn't seem as bad I guess. A tour guide at the Viking Museum dropped a casual F-Bomb too. 

At 10am the local Burger joint opened. Lunch was quite good and this place seemed like a central gathering point for the community throughout the day. 

We checked in to our hotel around noon and watched YouTube and relaxed the rest of the day. I got to see pinball friends playing on both streams we watched. Donna also watched a new show that we found on the road. The Dog House!  It's on of the few English TV shows they were showing regularly in Sweden and Norway. They have a few clip shows on YouTube if you want to check it out. 

https://youtube.com/@thedoghousetvofficial?si=PlLwMZZ0KEWeuqr0

It's a cute reality show where a dog rescue team pairs dogs with potential dog owners. 

The next morning we got up with the sun. Just kidding!  This morning's sunrise was at 2:26am. 

We ate breakfast and then packed. Our Bus leaves Luleå at 1:15pm bound for Haparanda arriving at 3:30pm. Haparanda is one of 2 paired cities, the other being Tornio on the Swedish Finish border right at the top of The Gulf of Bothnia. 

When our bus arrived 15 minutes late, we put our bags in the under storage and found seats together luckily. It was a bit of a mad scramble for seats much like Greyhound. 

Once again my stereotype of Europeans being fancy and Americans being crass and gross unraveled before my eyes. 

It turns out there are gross people everywhere. 

The ride was scenic and I have to say, you can see better on buses than you can on trains. I would not have guessed this before our trip. I am going to say I like riding busses better. 

It was an easy ride, for me. Donna got a little car sick, but survived. 

The check-in process at the hotel we are staying in is odd. They texted me and said if I was arriving after 2pm, I would need to use self check-in. They gave me a code for the door and our key was waiting for us in a welcome packet. Maybe everyone goes home early on Sundays. 

We got in, dropped off our luggage, and made a beeline for our dinner reservations. The place we were eating dinner closes at 5pm and we arrived in Haparanda at 3:30. We walked for about 15 minutes and arrived with plenty of time to eat. 

Yep!  Swedish Meatballs at IKEA in Sweden!  Why not?

This sign welcomes you to the northern most IKEA. 

Both of our dishes were great and probably the cheapest meal we have had since entering Scandinavia. 

After dinner we walked across the Swedish / Finish border. 

Donna is in Sweden and I'm in Finland!  

Then we walked through a park that crosses the border via this cool pedestrian bridge. At the center point the color of the bridge changes to reflect the colors of countries flags. 

We turned around on a long pedestrian bridge in Finland and headed back towards our hotel for our last night in Sweden. 

A cool Mini Golf course near the border.  It even has a model of the hotel we are staying in. 

I can't get enough of the fart jokes!  

This pyramid represents one of the locations that arc measurements were made to figure out the circumference of the world in the 1800s. 

Cool bus stop 

Some run-on words

After our walk we headed back to the hotel. Now we are trying to figure out how to get to Kemi tomorrow. This was the only part of the trip that was unclear to us. Kemi is about 25 miles from Tornio. I am sure we will figure it out.