FLASHBACK #18: European Adventure (Part 1) - Sweden, Denmark, Germany

Towards the end of July, 2002, Bree and I took a trip. It wasn't just any old trip. Over a period of 14 days, we drove 7,000 kilometres around the following countries in Europe: Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Lichtenstein, Switzerland, France, Monaco and Italy. It was midday on Friday, 19th July, when I left work early and headed straight to Helsinki. We packed as much as we could into Bree's teeny weeny sports car and visited some friends of his in Turku before boarding the cruise ship that would transport us to Stockholm overnight.

During the sumptuous onboard buffet dinner onboard Silja Opera, there were two memorable experiences. One was when, while dishing up our food at the buffet line, a Swedish woman approached me, enquiring about my Cochlear Implant. She held her two year old son in her arms who was also wearing a bionic ear. We briefly compared experiences and I gave her some advice before Bree and I continued around the other buffet tables laden with delicious dishes. As we returned to our table, we started gossiping like couples do. Bree told me that the woman next to us was Russian and, after a while talking about Russians generally, the Russian woman took the opportunity to inform us that she was an English teacher. Yikes! Thank god we hadn't discussed anything too sensitive!



We docked the next morning at 7am and retrieved the car from the car deck. The streets of Stockholm were deserted on this sunny Saturday morning and, as we drove through the city which Bree had lived in for a year, I saw some similarities between Helsinki and Stockholm. So, we were in Sweden, the land that gave us ABBA, Volvo, Saab and Ikea. We made the most of the day in Stockholm, wandering around Gamla Stan (the old town) with the royal palaces and government nearby, and visiting the Vasa Museum, housing the restored wreckage of what was once considered to the mightiest warship in the world. In 1628, the Vasa's maiden voyage ended in tragedy, sinking just minutes after it's launch. The wreckage was recovered in 1961, after 333 years on the seabed.

We left Stockholm just after lunch, bound for Copenhagen some 600kms away! By 6pm, we were on the ferry, leaving Helsinborg on Sweden's west coast and cruising towards Helsingors on Denmark's east coast. After the short crossing, we were back in the car and on our way to Copenhagen. Birthplace of Hans Christian Anderrson, we had just enough time for a quick dinner in Copenhagen's Latin Quarter before tracking down an effigy of Anderrson's creation, The Little Mermaid. She sits there, alone, in Copenhagen's bay, away from the crowds, admired by passers-by!

Back in the car at 9.30pm, we navigated our way out of the largest city of the Nordic Countries. We eventually found the E20 and headed to Odense, 150kms to the west. In the meantime, I dozed off, but Bree woke me up as we crossed the huge bridge, known as the Great Belt Bridge. The largest project in Danish History, the bridge stretches nearly 7kms and, as we cruised 250m above the sea, the last remnants of sunlight left the horizon.

By midnight, we were at the German border. Our passports were not requested and we proceeded along the E45, bound for Hamburg. 150kms later, we came to a hotel just outside Hamburg. We decided to stay there overnight, finally getting into bed after 3am. I was amazed at how much had been seen and done on the first full day of our trip - we had seen Sweden and Denmark and were now in Germany! We had left Denmark, a country famous for its Lego, and were now in a country famous for mass car production, beer and autobahns. And it would be these very autobahns that would take us a long way very quickly the next day!