Grenen, the northernmost tip of Jutland just North of the town of Skagen, Denmark.

This is where the North Sea and the Baltic Sea meet. Because their densities differ, they can’t merge which is what creates this distinct line. When I visited a couple of years ago, you could see the waves as the seas hit each other. Tourists gathered around and paddled in the waters [apparently too dangerous to swim due to the currents] of this phenomenon. It was one of the quietest moments of my life. I just stood and reflected, forgetting the noise of the people and instead, concentrated on the sounds of nature. It was like one of those moments in a movie when everything clicks in to place and you have dramatic heartfelt music playing in the background. 

Gibraltar Airport

Border between Belgium and The Netherlands

260km traffic jam in China

Bivouac community on a New York rooftop. Such a cool idea.

See the story here

This was the second time I was visiting Stockholm and I was so excited. It had been 2 years. Even though the previous time I had visited I had only stayed for 3 nights/4 days, I absolutely loved it. Could see myself living there, weaving in and out of cafes, mooching around the shops, working for a fashion house. That dream is still embedded in my head, and even in my heart. One day. But to visit again meant that I could see more of the city and because I already had a sense of what it was like to be a Stockholmian after staying with a random guy I met on a train, I was ready to explore again. 

The hostel I stayed in was new: I was in a room of 9 other guys, there were no pots or pans and the electricity kept going on and off anyway. There was internet but we were in what seemed to be a concrete basement so could never connect. I can’t even remember what the showers were like. But I survived and met some cool people. 

Being there reminded me how much I loved the place and how much my body was telling me to live there. Alas, it wasn’t meant to be at that time. But I had a good time nonetheless.

Energetic blues band.

A bit of that Swedish wit.

View over to Djurgården and the Nordiksmuseet (Nordic museum)

King Knut

We got to watch Efterklang for free at some random music festival.

Tourist haven Gamla Stan (The Old Town)

I urge to all to visit Stockholm more than any other place.

x

I wanted to come to this town because I’d read about a couple of museums about the old textile industry there. I’m so glad I went as the museums were very interesting and the town was nice enough.

But I lost my purse there.

I don’t know how I dropped it, I reckon it fell out of my bag when I was taking my jacket out. But all I know is that I had spent probably about half an hour in the supermarket choosing what to buy then not being able to buy it because I didn’t have my purse. Then panicking, checked the railway station to realise that I had money in my locker but the key for the locker was in my purse. I started texting my mum to cancel my cards and my boyfriend to wire me money. I went to the police station and waited for over an hour. I had told them my names and while I was sat there crying silently to myself, a police woman came over, asked me my name and told me someone had just handed in a purse with the description I had given her.

It was my purse, with everything still in it. If it was Britain, there would be nothing. But in Scandinavia, the rule is that finders keepers. So because I had about 700kr in my purse, the girl who found my purse got 10% at 70kr. If I hadn’t collected it, after a month or something, the girl would’ve got all of the contents of my purse, and the purse itself. 70kr was about £10. I couldn’t believe it. 

I was soooo relieved. After that I think the food I bought, the museums I visited and the trip to Stockholm was that much sweeter. 

Thank you to the girl who saved me.

I still have the purse :)

Here are some photos of Norrköping:

Another reason apart from the museums why I wanted to visit Norrköping is because there was a park of 220 cacti. This was the bloody park. I was expecting proper mexican cacti. Bloody nora.

A mill.

Things in the mill museums.

It was really cool seeing the traditional fabric weaving and jacquard methods.

Go visit Norrköping. I’ll be going back to that area of Sweden for sure.

I’m a bit late with these this-time-last-year travel blogs, purely and simply because I have been going mental applying for part-time jobs so that I can actually survive whilst I do my masters. 

So a not-quite-this-time-last-year look back at my time in Malmö.

I had wanted to visit Malmö for a couple of years but didn’t plan to stay there for a long while. And I’m glad I did only stay for one night.

Although it is very pretty in the main centre and the park is lovely, and there are shops to wander round, and the ladies in the pharmacy were really helpful getting me calamine lotion for my bloody mosquito bites, it was just a bit too everyday. I think I would go back again but have a bit more of a purpose. Or go when it wouldn’t be so windy and rainy so I could appreciate the turning torso and the view across to the Øresund and Denmark. That is, instead of getting lost in the rain and having to get a bus back to the hostel, which obviously isn’t so ‘adventurous’ and consequently spend the evening sitting in the lounge drinking hot chocolate and reading. 

I only took 17 photos while I was in the city and only then took that many because I felt I had to.

But please do take a look:

The Town Centre

The most disturbing and ugly water feature ever. This was in a fairground.

The Øresund Bridge across to Copenhagen.

Sculptures of cats were found all over the city.

Finishing up my Danish adventure last summer in Skagen was a good thing to do. I had gotten bogged down by the cities, the rain and the industry. Although I am at heart a city girl, or at least a town girl, it’s so lovely to go to the beach and chill out.

Skagen is a town at the tip of Denmark on the Jutland island. 

It is a port town and pretty small but there was always things going on. It was bustling, though I’m not sure whether with tourists or the Danes on holiday. It also seemed to be a bit of a stag do town as well but one sight I saw at the lonesome pub.

Other towns were close by and I rented a bike for 24 hours {overnight} so I could visit them. First off I went down the road from my campsite to Grenen which is the actual tip of Denmark. It is here that the waters of the North Sea and the Baltic Sea meet. 

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And so it rained here too.

My main reasons for coming here were a) Because I would’ve then been to a city on each Danish island (Zealand - Copenhagen, Funen - Odense and Jutland - Århus) and also b) The Aros art gallery where there was supposedly a sculpture of a giant boy.

It’s true, there was.

I was really bored by Århus. It didn’t have as many old features as Copenhagen and Odense had, but not much charm. It was just a usual town. It did however have a viking museum IN A BANK. You have to go in to the bank and down the stairs in the bank to get in to the basement. Granted, they’ve done this because the basement was actually a viking village, but it is a little disconcerting.

I think I enjoyed my time in the hostel more, just reading and drinking tea as opposed to going out in the rain and exploring places I felt like I could see anywhere. I only stayed in Århus for an evening before heading off to Skagen, the topmost town in Denmark.

S x

I liked Odense. It was quaint. Small. Again, the mix of old and new. It seemed like a town in England with it’s high street shops and little cafes, an art gallery, a park. Underneath it all was the history of the place. No Anglo-Saxons as we find in a vast number of English towns, but the history of Hans Christian Andersen - his house, his school, his stories. 

After my day out in Odense meandering the shops and the art gallery, enjoying the warm sunshine, I decided to go on a tour of the town with a night watchman. It was free as the night watchman is actually a job, you know, he still goes around the street singing songs and checking that all is well. I was the only English person amongst Danes so the night watchmen told his stories in Danish while I just listened to the tone of his voice and his gestures, and then as we walked, he kindly told me the stories in English. There were stories of happenings in the town, old folklore… things I can’t remember now but along with the stories he sang Danish folk songs. Almost like lullabies. They were haunting and beautiful. I felt slightly awkward in that I was intruding on a Danish tradition, but was so humbled at the fact that I was involved in it and was welcomed in to the tradition by way of translation and other normal conversation. We walked down the cobbled streets with coloured houses on either side. We walked past the lampposts shaped by sculptures of little children with a little boy called Tom sat in a flower perched on top. Coming to the end of the tour, around Midnight (though the sky was in twilight because of the summertime) we went in to a church where everyone, but me, commenced to sing Danish hymns and enjoy mass. Again, I felt utterly awkward as if I shouldn’t be there. I was baptised Catholic but haven’t been to church in a long while for a mass. It was unusual nonetheless, unexpected, but was made worse for the fact I couldn’t understand a thing. Even so, it was an interesting experience, something which I was welcomed in to and probably will never do again and probably something not many other British people have done. 

The watchman.

H.C Andersen’s house.

H.C Andersen’s school.

S x

Oh no, not another travel post.

Yes, I am aware that this isn’t a travel blog.

There should be post-travel blogs for those people that don’t want to waste time whilst travelling writing up what they’ve done and instead like to be nostalgic and remember it all a year later.

That being said, this time last year I was just leaving Copenhagen for Odense, the birth town of Hans Christian Andersen.

Entering København.

It rained pretty much the whole 3 days I was there, looked really bleak and just like another city. But it also wasn’t just like another city. Beneath the greyness there was charm. Modernism entwined with the old. Buildings from ages gone by i.e. Tivoli contrast against the high street shops which house themselves in buildings donned with gargoyles. 

The town hall.

Everyone is so effortlessly dressed. Chic is an understatement. Bikes are a necessity not a luxury and baskets aren’t just for girls. 

You see the boats at Nyhavn and the restaurants all lit up with fairy lights and you think “what a picturesque place”, you laugh at the tourists on the canal tour and then you walk a little further and walk to the end, look out over the vast water and spot industry on the other side. 

I revisited Copenhagen in February 2011. It rained again, but it was expected. Bitterly cold, the Danish wrapped up in oversize sheepskin and wool coats. Donned ear muffs. Equestrian boots. And saddled up on their bikes because it was still a necessity, a way of life to do so. 

I would’ve been to afraid of slipping on the bits of ice that were still around so would’ve walked cautiously taking twice as long as I would in summer to get anyway and 4 times as long as the Danes on the bike. But then, that’s why I’m English, not Danish. Inefficiency is our way of life. 

Copenhagen February 6th 2011.

Visiting Copenhagen for a third time is on the list. There’s still so much to look at, experience. So many coffee shops to just sit outside at and watch the world go by. I feel that the charm it has after you’ve been there 3 days grows and grows the more time you spend there. I feel like there could be a place for me there, it could be home. I just need to explore the area more, explore the other towns in Zealand. Denmark is such an easy and quick country to get around that within a week I had visited 4 towns/cities. But a week is not enough to thoroughly contemplate what Danish life is all about. I have some idea. But perhaps that’s just my Britishness coming out, you know, when we think we know everything when we really don’t? 

Posts about Odense, Århus and Skagen will follow.

S x

I’m a bit delayed with my timing here, possibly because I’m reading The Time Traveller’s Wife, but also because I’ve only just gotten back from WOMAD festival/volunteer work this week and had chance to chill out. But this morning I found out that I’ve been accepted on both of the MA courses I applied for at London College of Fashion. OVERWHELMED. So, I’m going to write a little about my weekend in Munich last year just to get me over the butterflies that I’ve currently got, you know, take my mind of the life changing decision I have to make.

Coffee time first.

Ok, I’m back. After 20 minutes spent talking to the boyfriend and forgetting I made a coffee.

Munich… My boyfriend was part of this organisation called IAESTE whilst he was living in Switzerland, who frequently went on trips. The Munich weekend was one of these trips, something like €30 to sleep on a floor in an Olympic site building, free drinks, food and 2 days of activities. It was a really fun weekend and I got to see Munich in a different light to how I would’ve if I’d gone as a solitary backpacker.

Photos after the break.

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Cursing the two people who went swimming because I hadn’t brought my bathing suit to Zürich thinking it was going to be a terribly rainy day.

Fail. Relative to the above. But not to the below, because unlike a fool, I had taken my anorak and when the heavens opened in to heavy, yet humid raindrops, I was prepared.

These are some of the best tiles I saw. These astrology tiles were on a house in Baden.

Scenic train from Brig to Bern.

A Bernese bear in a Bernese bear pit.

Please do reblog photos but tell the world that they are the photography of Steph Steele.

x

There’s lots of photos now, so I have put a break in for your use half way through, just to break it up. Though it would be lovely if you carried on looking.

Tourist steamers on Lake Luzern.

I had seen these clowns 3 times over the course of the day and I eventually caught a photo of them. 

It looks sunny and warm, but the lake was not so. 

See, oldness and charm.

Religious mural bridge.

Now on to Basel. 

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