We’re spending tonight in Riga, Latvia which is a stopover on our Air Baltic flight to St Petersburg. All Air Baltic flights hub through Riga, so we picked the flight with the longest time between landing here and taking off for St Petersburg to give us a chance to explore another central European city. We’re staying in a hotel in Old Riga. Greg has already been out for a walk to check out the local sights by night. We’ll do more walking and exploring tomorrow.

Before I get distracted by more sights and experiences, I thought I’d write down  few observations about our travels in Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Finland. It was all great, and I would love to re-visit any or all of these countries in the future We found all the ‘locals’ we talked to wherever we went to be universally friendly, helpful and nearly everyone speaks excellent English. Prices of most things in Sweden, Denmark and Finland were around the same as at home, with the exception of fuel which cost more everywhere. In Norway, everything was expensive. We had read about it before we left, and I think I was secretly hoping it wouldn’t be as bad as people claimed …. but it was. Everything just cost a lot of money. Getting a $165 parking fine didn’t help much either. We were very glad that we were able to spend most of our time in Norway camping and self-catering.

The economies of all 4 countries seem to be in good shape, with little or no foreign debt, limited exposure to the GFC, and Finland and Norway have both covered their future age pension commitments … I’m not sure about Sweden and Denmark.

People in Scandinvian countries seem have children earlier than they do at home. We saw lots of young parents out and about with babies and toddlers. Good, secure, well-paid work, generous parenting payments and parenting leave probably go a long way to bringing the average age down – this is just our observations, I haven’t gone hunting around for any statistics.

Summer is short. Very short. When we left Stockholm 4 weeks ago, everything was green and lush. Yesterday we went to Uppsala for the day and lots of the fields are now golden with grain crops, flowers have started going to seed and some of the trees have started turning yellow. Berries, currants and chanterelle mushrooms are the hot seasonal sellers in markets everywhere at the moment. In Finland there were also lots of peas in their pods, but I looked for them in Stockholm and didn’t find any. Must be a Finnish thing.

And I have to mention one last thing, even thought it’s not really relevant to anything else much, I just want to remember it – at the apartment complex we stayed at in Helsinki, the area around the car park and near the 4-storey building had been landscaped with white- and red currant bushes which all had almost-ripe fruit on them. I don’t know if anyone picked them to eat or preserve, but every time I walked past one, I would pick a handful to eat!

The dry fields around Uppsala

Viking burial mounds at Uppsala dating back to 600AD

We wanted to swim in the pool, but there wasn’t one, and we were going to have a haircut, but there wasn’t time, we just had time to walk out on the back deck, and it was time to get down to the car and drive off. Total cruise time 20 minutes.

We had arrived in Helsingborg Sweden.

View of Helsingor from Cruise Ship (ferry)

Greg enjoying the 1st class deck on the Cruise Ship.

We then headed up north towards Gothenburg. We got supplies for crossing into Norway. All our reading says Sweden is much cheaper than Norway, so we stocked up to make sure. We continued north until we are about 200km south of Oslo, but still in Sweden. We found another nice campsite in the forest.

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We had ridden past Christiania on our way to Noma yesterday. It’s a hippy commune located on an abandoned 41 hectare military camp, with lots of DIY houses, a small marketplace selling everything from rainbow clothes & jewellery to hashish and dope (no photos please!). The houses range from converted shipping containers to modern timber dwellings and lots of the army buildings have been repurposed as cafes and apartment blocks. I thought there would be more evidence of self-sufficiency, but apart from one wind generator and a lovely raised-bed vegie garden, it all seemed to be kinda suburban, with electricity meters and people bringing their shopping home from the local supermarket. The commune is spread across a couple of canals, with grassy areas for people to sit, and that was lovely, like a little haven in the middle of the busy city.

We found an ice cream shop and had scoop in a waffle cone for morning tea – chocolate for Greg, hazelnut for me … *waves* to our neighbour Hazel!

Next on our list was Nyhavn, a very touristy area along a canal lined with yachts in the water, and restaurants on the waterfront. Hans Christian Anderson lived in several places along this canal. We didn’t bother about going to see the Little Mermaid because we haven’t heard or read anything that has been positive. Everyone reckons she’s too small, overrated and not worth the effort. However we did wander along to Amalienborg Slot, the royal palace where one of Australia’s most famous exports, Princess Mary, lives with her family and other members of the Danish royal family.

By then we’d seen and done as much as we wanted to, so we found a sandwich shop and had lunch. Around $15 for 2 huge filled bread rolls and a small open sandwich with egg, tomato and pieces of some kind of fish.

Eating Waffle cone ice cream in Copenhagen

A bike lane in Copenhagen. A kerb separates the bike lane from the road.

Judy outside a fellow Australians home in Copenhagen, hoping for an invite in from … Princess Mary

the lounge in our apartment in Copenhagen

We got to Copenhagen yesterday in the early afternoon. We had booked another apartment with airbnb and met the owners daughter at the apartment in Valby, about 3 km from the centre of Copenhagen. After checking out the shops in the local areas we headed into central Copenhagen. The next day Thursday we walked into the city and hired a cargo bike, and Judy volunteered to be the cargo. It was a nice day (about 19C) and we rode all round the centre of Copenhagen, visiting the closed because of renovations Noma restaurant (number one Michelin restaurant). The number of people riding in Copenhagen has to be seen to be believed. There are more people riding on just a few streets of Copenhagen then there is in all of Adelaide.

There is no Lycra, no cleats, no road racing bikes, no helmets, and no drop down handlebars. Ordinary people wearing ordinary clothes and ordinary shoes riding around. It is one of the safest places to ride a bicycle in the world. Adelaide South Australia is not as safe to ride in, and we have compulsory helmet laws. Bikes have baskets, carriers and more, so things can be carried on the bikes like shopping, and cargo bikes abound for carrying children around.  There are great bike paths along side the road, mostly with a raised curb separating the bike path from the road.

Bikes in double level bike racks at a railway station near our apartment

The cargo bike outside our apartment. Notice the rows and rows of bikes that are parked outside every apartment building

Judy outside the closed for renovation noma restaurant

Steak for lunch in Copenhagen, all the way from the Coorong in South Australia