I knew my first and last days would be devoted to air travel. I figured it would take between 20 and 24 hours to make the trip from San Diego to Linkoping, my first stop, and from Stockholm to San Diego coming home. And so it did. It is much easier to fly on a weekday than on a weekend, and it is also nice to travel with the same airline and as few stops as possible. I stayed with American, via Chicago, the whole way, and for once had no luggage problems, plane delays, etc. The international travel was a breeze.
I had decided to use the X-press train, Sweden's 125 mph high-speed train, on the trip from Copenhagen to Stockholm, but it wasn't quite that simple. First, there was the matter of any additional payment (some $30) for the high-speed supplement and seat reservation(s). Second, the first part of the trip from Copenhagen to Katrinaholm would be by a fast inter-city train, but not an X-press train. The way it actually worked was that I got on the first train in Copenhagen and took it to Helsingborg where the entire train got on a ferry for the crossing to Sweden. Once across, and through passport control, we continued on to Katrinaholm; where we got off that train and waited a half-hour for the X-press train. Once on board that one we were off to Stockholm. I left Copenhagen at 0900 and arrived in Stockholm about 1600. It was a seven hour trip, a savings of about 2 hour over the regular speed train. Still, it was fun to experience the almost flying sensation of the X-press. However, it was a day mostly wasted on travel, although making the travel an experience itself helped.
In addition to the air travel, and the X-press train I also used a wide variety of other means of transportation during this trip: the inter-city trains, regular trains, and local trains; two types of ferries; cars; taxi, trams; buses; subways; and, of course, footpower. Travelling by foot, something one does rarely at home, becomes an adventure as well as a means of getting from point A to point B overseas.
Back to WDC VII
On to Linkoping
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Larry Peery (peery@ix.netcom.com) |
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