The Cube: Sweden

Northern Europe: Sweden, Finland, Estonia & Norway - 3 weeks itinerary

October 01, 2023

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Northern Europe: Arctic Circle train from Abisko to Narvik

September 21, 2023

The only activity we booked successfully in Abisko with the guesthouse was a tour to Narvik and we planned to commute to Tromso from there instead of returning to Abisko. The booking was successful but the day before the trip we were told that it would be cancelled due to weather condition. According to the guesthouse staff, there would be road closure due to heavy wind so we were refunded. We were, however, told by the staff that commuting by train should not be an issue. This time, we learned and pre-booked our train tickets (SEK 280) on the Swedish train app. So Arctic Circle train happened.

The Arctic Circle Train is the scenic railway that runs through Swedish Lapland to the Narvik fjord in Norway. This legendary night train departs from Stockholm and crosses Sweden to Kiruna, a town in the heart of Lapland, famous for its iron ore mine, the largest in the world. From Kiruna, the Arctic Circle train goes to Abisko. We would've got on this part of the Arctic Circle train if we managed to get a ticket in Kiruna. Anyways, we were onboard from Abisko to Narvik, a port town in Norway. It felt like looking at black and white water colour paintings from the train.

The train ride was only about 1 hour 30 minutes, and sis went and got us coffee from the cafeteria. Train ride, breathtaking sceneries and coffee - great things in life.

We arrived in Narvik around 12:35pm. Our initial plan was to spend a couple of hours in Narvik before taking a later bus which would bring us to Tromsø before 8pm. It was a Sunday on our travel day and most of the shops in Norway were closed. We figured we may have enough time to get to the Narvik Cable Car, there are lockers to store bags in the train station but from memory it needed coins which was one of the reason we didn't leave it before decided not to linger in Narvik.

It was super windy on the day of our travel and we didn't want to risk of bus cancellation so we decided to just take the next available bus at 1:10pm to Tromsø. This round of bus commute takes more than 4 hours and the bus was almost full, so not the most comfortable travel. We paid for tickets on the bus to the driver, NOK 976. It is said that it is cheaper if you pre-buy a ticket. Another rookie mistake of not having enough snacks, we shared a last muesli bar till reaching Tromsø at 5:30pm.

On arriving in Tromsø, we found out that buses within the city does not take payment by credit card in the bus itself. We were cashless, the driver was willing to wait for us to download the Troms Billett to pay for the ticket but our sim card is in sis's phone which was flat. It would take us to long to navigate around this so we got off the bus to avoid holding it up. We walked to the nearest bright shop, dropped our bags and started our activities of swapping sim card, downloading the app, setting up payment and buying bus tickets. Information on bus tickets and fares are here. Another thing to note is that, buses in Tromsø would only stop if you flagged it down, else they don't.

Side note: Where should I go for a long weekend...

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Northern Europe

Northern Europe: Sweden - Short walks in Abisko in winter

September 17, 2023

Abisko is a small town in the Lapland region of northern Sweden. Abisko village is around the train station "Abisko Östra" and we stayed in Abisko Guesthouse which is a short walk away from this station as well. There is another train station - Abisko Turiststation about 2 kilometres west. There's a fairly large and well equipped hotel/hostel, STF Abisko Turiststation near this station.

I read that Abisko has a reputation of offering some of the best conditions in the world for northern lights watching where unique climate of the area keep the skies almost clear. I'm not sure how true this is but we did see the northern lights 2 out of 4 nights we were there. To be fair, we were tired out the evening we arrived and it was snowing. On our last night, we woke up and checked the live camera at Aurora Sky Station and there were no lights seen so we continued sleeping. I can't remember but there prob were some lights during the night. For some unknown reasons, we were perpetually sleeping and has been sleeping a lot during the trip.

We stayed for 4 nights but arrived in the evening and departed early to Narvik on the fourth day so effectively we had 3 days 4 nights. Most people would participate in some activities like dog sledding, ice fishing, snowshoe hike, visit the sami or reindeer, ice hotel, hiking and aurora hunting at night.

We obviously didn't learn from the train episode and didn't pre-book the dog sledding activity that we wanted to do. When we wanted to make a reservation, the next available date was after our departure. The place that offers dog sledding in Abisko also runs a hostel which isn't far from where we stayed, so we made an effort to walk over if there were any last minute slot but unfortunately none. We did walks around Abisko during our stay though, and meals preparation. There is a supermarket near the hostel to get food supply.

Abisko National Park

We walked to Abisko National Park and did part of the shorter walks but the main reason was we wanted to see the frozen waterfalls. The frozen waterfalls are at the Abisko Canyon, quite close to the start of the trails. It is part of the Canyon Trail (which is about 30 mins - 1 hour). The trail is marked on signs as a yellow hexagon with two black dots. The path takes you along the outer rim of the Abiskojakka Canyon (Abisko Canyon). There were people doing ice climbing here when we were there. My camera battery was flat after a couple of photographs here. I took some with my phone but hands went numb fairly quickly as I had to take off the gloves to use the phone.

I don't know which turn we took but we ended up part of the Shore Trail (green hexagons with 6 white dots) so we walked to see Lake Torneträsk.

Lake Torneträsk Pier

Not something listed down as any part of itinerary but this lake is about 10 minutes walk from the hostel and slightly away from any lightings. We waited for the northern lights for awhile here on our third night in Abisko. Northern lights made an appearance but not too obvious.

On our third day, sis pointed to a random place on the map and we walked there.

Side note: I must have issues recognising shapes,, if not, how else mirror cube is so hard

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Northern Europe

Northern Europe: Sweden - An overnight stay in Kiruna

September 14, 2023

By the time we arrived in Kiruna, it was evening time. Our plan was to get to Abisko so we didn't plan to do much in Kiruna. During planning, we found that there are 2 trains and 2 buses a day from Kiruna to Abisko, once in the morning and the other before 3pm. So we have some time to walkabout if take the later train.

That - was the plan. What happened was we decided to just go to Abisko in the morning, got a cab to bring us to the train station. We arrived to an empty station. There is no ticket sales at Kiruna station. We sat down inside the station, downloaded the SJ train app and tried to buy train tickets before the train arrived... and there were no tickets available for the day. I managed to call the customer service and went as far as asking if we can buy tickets if we are willing to stand all the way to Abisko. I think I gave the poor staff a shock because there was a long pause till I asked, "not possible?".

Next plan was to get take a bus to Abisko. We found out after our failed train plan was - there is no bus service in winter. No train, no bus and our last hope was to contact our accommodation in Abisko for a shuttle. After a few tries, leaving messages on the booking app and phone messages, we managed to get through to the guesthouse and got ourselves a seat on the shuttle later in the day.

Since we have checked out, we thought will run another errand, to check on the mobile service we got. We got a Telenor sim card when we were in Stockholm, despite being told that free EU roaming is included, we found out that there is no service when we were in Finland so was worried that it only worked in Sweden. We randomly got on a bus and asked to get off when we saw a shopping centre thinking that there would be a mobile shop that we can ask for help but none found.

From outside of our hostel

We ended up spending most of our time in the tourist information center in Kiruna as the shuttle will pick us up from there. Though we did see the Kiruna Church on our bus ride. The other place we went was a burger joint near the tourist info center. All we have seen in Kiruna was the hostel we stayed in, the train station, a random shopping centre, tourist information centre, bus stops, bus rides and a burger joint - a very unlike travel itinerary.

Empes special - Hamburger with cheese, bacon, cucumber mayonnaise, onion and mash, SEK 80

This was around noon, outside of Empes burger

Side note: I haven't had a burger for awhile...

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Finland

Northern Europe: From Rovaniemi to Kiruna via Pello

September 10, 2023

It was a travelling day for us. We requested the hotel front desk to organise a cab to bring us to the Rovaniemi bus station as public bus service hasn't start yet then, €30.10. The plan was to take the 10am bus to Pello, Finland (€22 per person), walked over to Pello, Sweden and continue on another bus ride (SEK 358 per person) to Kiruna. The stop on Pello (Finland) is Pellon Kirkko and the stop over at Sweden side is Pellohallen.

Please remember that there is an hour difference between Sweden and Finland, with Finland an hour ahead.

This is the Rovaniemi bus station that we went to get us to Pello, Finland. The 'platforms' were out in the open. There were 2 staffs in the station but they don't sell tickets, appears to be manning some parcels counters.

So we were on the look out for our bus, once a bus pulled into 'platform' 2, we walked out to the bus. Payment was to the bus driver via credit card. We told the bus driver that we wanted to cross over to Sweden at Pello and if he could let us know when to get off. He very kindly told us that he would drop us off at the bridge. We were the only 3 passengers in the bus, all the way from Rovaniemi to Pello.

View was great along the way but it was raining so not great for photos.

We were dropped off at the bridge and we walked over to Pellonhallen - which is a supermarket.

We arrived in Pello, Finland at about 11:30am (Finland time) and our nex bus wasn't till 12:45pm (Sweden time). The bus stop in Sweden side is across the road from a supermarket (ICA Pellohallen), and this is very important because there is a cafe area. We bought some food from the fridge and they heated it up for us, there were also coffee/tea on sale. It was a machine coffee but hot beverage in a heated supermarket in a small town when one is waiting for a bus is a luxury. Also there is a public toilet around the corner of the supermarket.

We initially stood outside the supermarket while waiting for the bus when it was close to the bus arrival time because it was warmer. The supermarket staffs were super kind and one of them came out to let us know that we needed to stand at the bus stop, else the bus will not stop.

See that sign on the left? That's the bus stop

By the time we arrived in Kiruna, it was evening at around 4:35pm. We stayed a night in Kiruna as there is no more transport to get to Abisko where we wanted to get to.

Side note: It felt like the winter views were black and white painting.