A Not Entirely Unexpected Journey: Scandinavia: Of Danes, Swedes & Norwegians.

Let us tell you the tale of the time we spent in the land of ice and snow, the land of eternal sunshine, the land of trolls, vikings and unicorns. It is a tale wrought with intrigue, hardship, romance, friends and foes alike. It is a tale told mainly through photography, and it begins in the city of Malmo, Sweden, a stones throw away from the shining Danish capital of Copenhagen. Though we did not explore much of Malmo, opting instead for daytrips to Copenhagen and Ystad, we are very much grateful to Marcus for his hospitality (Norwegian salmon, yes please) and tolerance to the destructive tendencies of Phoebe. Sorry about the oven.

We spent a very rainy morning in Copenhagen, but once the sun finally came out, so did the smiles. It seemed like a rather nice city, but one that we shall need to revisit to get a proper feel for it.

Hanging with the hipsters in Freetown Christiania. This is a little community who don't identify as being part of Denmark (even though it is part of Copenhagen); they manage to keep police out and have established their own rule system - no weapons or violence, but marijuana is legal and the beer is cheap. Seeing as they are still officially under the Danish legal system though, they try to keep it all a bit hush-hush, hence photos aren't allowed in most of Christiania. An interesting place!

Marcus leading the charge into the Baltic sea in Ystad. It was cold and smelt like fish.

The tale continues as we headed to Oslo, the geographical zenith of our Europe trip, and the capital of Norway. For a European city, Oslo felt pretty modern. A lot of the buildings were big and shiny, and those that weren't were surrounded by construction workers. The other rather noticeable thing about Oslo is how expensive it is. No amount of money saving initiatives could save us in this city, and we were rather happy that Phoebe's Swedish brother Emil was lovely enough to put us up in his apartment!

Emil gave us the grand tour of Oslo's new port.

Midnight in Oslo. The sun disappears for a few hours each night, but it never actually gets completely dark. When do the hedgehogs come out to play? :(

There are heaps of trolls in Norway, most of them are pretty friendly but you can never be sure.

We bought in to the whole tourist business and invested in an 'Oslo card', which meant we could get into as many museums as we wanted within 24 hours. And free public transport, which in Oslo includes boats. Oh, the novelty.

The viking ship museum was only for the most badass of badasses.

We got the feeling that the Norwegian Folk Museum was aimed at younger audiences than us - sadly we missed the "Meet the farm animals" and "Bake your own muffins" events they held earlier in the day. Got to see some delightful Norwegian folk dancing though.

The world's only steel ski jump, a short train ride out of Oslo. The record on this jump was 142 metres, which we thought wasn't too shabby.

It would have been rude not to visit the reptile museum.

All museumed out, we headed back into Sweden, to spend an evening with Emil's parents Eva and Leif in Karlstad. We spent most of the evening in a tiny lakeside hut, eating homemade moose sausages and joining in with Leif's Swedish folk band, both things we had never done before. When we say Swedish folk band, we're talking fiddles, mandolas and predominantly Swedish lyrics.

Our final chapter in the Scandinavian saga takes place in Stockholm. We had by far the best weather of our Scandinavian trip, which may have positively influenced our opinion of Stockholm, but we thought it was the funkiest and most enjoyable of the Scandinavian capitals. Lots of water (Stockholm is built on 14 islands), a nice mix of old and new, just the right amount of bustling, and a nice sprinkling of hipsters.

We were starting to wonder if it ever got warm in Scandinavia.

Stockholm prides themselves in being one of the only capital cities in which the harbour water is clean enough to swim in - not particularly impressive for a pair of kiwis, but still pretty cool.