Oslo is barely a couple of hours from the Swedish border and like most others in the Schengen zone one crosses it almost without noticing.

On the advice of our friend, Gil,  our first stop in Sweden was Stromstad, a cozy little seaside town often frequented by Norwegians chasing cheap(er) Swedish alcohol and a weekend away. This was indeed one such weekend since a public holiday in Norway had pumped up the volume of Norwegian reveller’s who also traditionally  flock to Stromstad on this particular day for a “car show” of sorts – every imaginable type was on display with visible bias to larger, older US vehicles. Lots of music, lots of drinking, you know the drill – welcome to Sweden !

Moving south towards Gothenburg there was one more recommendation from Gil ( another good one ), scenic Marstrand. Famed for its fort and picturesque homes Marstrand provided us a very relaxing stopover en route to Gothenburg.

Not sure where we got the notion that Gothenburg was worth visiting – perhaps it was simply the fact that it laid directly on our route south to Helsingborg, the jumping off point for Denmark. Perhaps it was the fact that we’d already visited, and very much enjoyed, Stockholm on our last trip to Sweden, and didn’t really want to head substantially east to visit Stockholm again when we had not yet been to Gothenburg. Whatever it was, Gothenburg was definitely a little bit of a letdown. With hindsight, we probably would have been wise to drive east to Stockholm, revisit it, and then drive south to Helsingborg –  but we didn’t. The rest of the trip south towards Helsingborg was definitely worthwhile, giving a very real, close up of rural Sweden, highlighted by  our farm camping experience in Tvaaker.

Helsingborg, on the Swedish side of Oresund strait, is the closest point to Helsingor ( of “Hamlet” fame ) on the Danish side and is a popular entry point to Denmark. Yes, one can now drive further south in Sweden (to Malmo) and take the Oresund bridge more or less directly to Copenhagen, but it involves more driving, goes somewhat out of our way, and is quite expensive. The ferry for us just made more sense ( we still had one VERY expensive Danish bridge ahead but more on that later !).

Helsingor ( a city also known for its shipbuilding past ) will forever be associated with Hamlet ( Shakespeare having chosen Helsingor castle as the setting for perhaps his most famous play – Elsinore, of course, is simply the anglicized version of ‘Helsingor’ ). Much is made of this naturally but the castle is quite impressive in its own right, above and beyond the Shakespearean connection.

Barely an hour south of Helsingor is beautiful Copenhagen. The weather gods provided us an awesome day to wander around and explore its charms and the Copenhagen marina offered us a great camping  stopover. Not for the first time did a marina make for a great defacto campground, offering campers all the same things that “yachties” require. Not surprisingly the marina at Kastrup (near Copenhagen airport) was packed with RV’ers like ourselves.

In addition to visiting several of Denmark’s popular attractions ( Little Mermaid,  Nyhavn waterfront and the Amelianborg palace ) we had a “job” to do ( of sorts ) in Copenhagen – to VOTE in the Canadian election. Sadly, despite our considerable efforts, much forward planning and arranging that our voter registration documents be forwarded to the embassy in Copenhagen, they did not arrive in time for us to cast our vote. It can’t be said that we didn’t try, and I must add that the system in Canada for voting from abroad is inordinately complicated and extremely slow. Fortunately, as it turned out, our two votes would not have changed the outcome in our riding.

On this visit to the country we took the opportunity to explore a little more of Western Denmark before heading south into Germany. Odense was the  major city on our route so we made a stop there. Typical of Denmark the city is beautifully maintained and has some interesting historic architecture and, of course, is the hometown of perhaps that most famous of Danes, Hans Christian Andersen. Getting there involved crossing the 2nd of Denmark’s two massive bridges, the Great Belt Bridge. An impressive piece of engineering, indeed, with a very impressive price tag for those crossing it – we paid 635 Danish Kronor or $136 Canadian ( almost $100 USD )…..just to cross a bridge !! We thought Norway was expensive – Denmark is next level. 

Denmark was certainly nice, but we were definitely happy to move on to Germany which would position us for the final 5 weeks of our Schengen time in Europe – more on that in the next edition !

Till next week….