This was our third summer road-trip together, and it felt different. This time we wanted an escape. We planned our venture north, heading to Sweden, unchartered territory for both of us. Valentin’s end of school-year stress had built after a few months stacked up with piles of illegible essays to mark, so we craved open space and an open schedule.
That doesn’t mean to say there weren’t some delights on the way. We timed our travels so that we had an afternoon and evening in Copenhagen. I’d been before, so wasn’t desperate to linger there, and felt we could get the feel of the place in that time. The drive to Copenhagen was fascinating, over bridges that stretched longer and higher than any I’d ever driven across. The bridge was broken up by a couple of islands, the dark sea stretching away either side. The land was bright green, and the coastline populated with colourful houses and green trees. Not like crossing the Severn Bridge between Wales and the UK, where the harsh industrial landscape dominates. The drive through Denmark to this point had been easy. The roads weren’t busy, and the landscape began to roll and undulate more like the British countryside than the flatness of the Netherlands. The golden wheat-fields also reminded me of home, a crop not grown by the Dutch as the soil is too wet.
I was excited to arrive in Copenhagen and feel the familiarity. I’d spent a long weekend there with a group of friends, and we’d traipsed the length and breadth of the city, looking for landmarks such as the Church of Our Lady which is home to the original statue of the Christus and the Twelve Apostles. That time it had taken us many attempts to find it. The church was not a particularly beautiful one from the outside and was a bit further out from the main city attractions. When my friends and I finally found it open, the moment we entered and saw the remarkable statue with its gold surround, a beam of sunlight entered the room from the majestic door, hitting the curved gold backdrop, sending a rainbow of golden light across all that lay in front of the Christus.
Arriving in the city this time, I immediately recognized where we were, and knew exactly which way to go. Weaving our way through the busy crowds, the warm sun shining down, we made our way there and I recounted to Valentin the stories from my last visit. The rainbow was not there this time, but another wonder was. As we walked in the boom and melody of a church organ rang through, vibrating all the pews and lending majesty to the occasion.
We wandered further, out up to the Citadel, the old army barracks surrounded by a pentagon shaped moat with bastioned ramparts. This style of fortification is commonly seen in the Netherlands in old cities like Heusden. Our walk took us up along the waterfront promenade to the Little Mermaid statue. Rather than join the heckling throng attempting to get selfies with the statue in the background, we took in the beauty of the figure, sitting in solitude at the edge between the land and the water, watching and waiting as the warm evening sun began to descend.
The next day, after our fill of the delights of the Danish capital city, we took a short ferry ride into Sweden. Our departure point was Helsingor, a port known for Kronberg Castle, referenced in Shakespeare’s Hamlet. I’d visited the castle before with my friends, enjoying the banter with the actors that wandered the halls, and knew I would rather preserve that memory than risk diluting it, so this time it was a hasty trip round the exterior, whilst the sea-wind whipped our hair.
At first the landscape in Sweden didn’t seem to differ much to Denmark, then gradually the bright green deciduous trees made way for taller, darker fir trees. It was all nature. We drove past wooden houses and chalets, painted the colour of rust. The contours of the land grew deeper, and we finally had a view of dark green forest that extended to the horizon.
Reaching our destination, we found our host was cutting wood with industrial-scale equipment in a wooden garage. He came out, smiling and friendly dressed in his leather safety trousers and checked shirt and ear protectors. He spoke English with a musical lilt, that instantly reminded me of my Swedish best friend, which warmed my heart. He offered to drive us out to our home for the next few days, and we followed him along an undulating track, getting deeper and deeper into the forest and further away from the road and the handful of houses.
Our neighbours for the next few days were his cows, and a flighty pair of pied wagtails. The mother cows and their calves would look suspiciously at us, and even more so when I would greet them and converse as if they could understand me, a human.
The next two days were spent on various walks, and we didn’t see a single other soul whilst following the tracks and paths as we wound through the fir trees. Bright green mossy banks rippled up the hills, the sun striking and creating a dappled effect when it glanced in-between the conifers. This was a landscape with boulders, large rocks lying as if a giant had been playing with marbles and left them, scattered.
A painting I had seen came to me in a dream. Hanging in my Swedish friends’ house, it finally made sense to me. The same vertical fir trees, the moss, the tapestry of greens and browns, and to one side a hunter with a gun, camouflaged, still and silent. Now I understood the painting, being in the same forest, the patchwork of colours in front of me an identical match to the canvas.
My friends’ collection of Swedish trolls came to mind in the same dream. The magical landscape and sense of hidden creatures in the forest conjured up these mini beings with their big eyes and crazy hair. Sweden felt wild, remote, and somewhere that you could just be. I woke up thinking of my friend, and how I finally felt I knew her, after all these years, seeing the place she was from.
The lakes in the forest were wide and still. The water in streams ran with a reddish-brown tinge. Our first walk around a lake and the silent air was pierced by two cranes, stalking the water’s edge, calling out a distress cry as if they had lost their young. They faced opposite directions, and systematically worked their way along the lake-side. As we ventured deeper into the forest, climbing higher and higher on our trail, climbing over the many fallen trees, we could still hear their cry at times when the wind caught the sound.
On our last night, we climbed a nearby hill to watch the sunset from one of the wooden viewing platforms that populated the forest around our cabin. I’d come across this one earlier in the day, when I ventured out on my own following a morning of rain. I’d seen a large rock on a hill from the path I was on and fought my way through dense ferns to reach it. Getting closer I saw the viewing platform offered a better view, and as the skies darkened and thunder rumbled in the distance I stood atop, with the whole magnificent vista in front of me. Grey skies and endless green forest, I had a front-row seat to the looming rumblings and crashings. I excitedly led Valentin the same way that evening. The storm had cleared, and pink hued skies replaced the dark ones. I was hopeful we would finally get a sighting of a deer or moose, as I’d seen evidence of a large animal in the vicinity with some fresh droppings on the ground. We stood silently, drinking in the stillness, wondering what creatures were waking in the dense undergrowth as dusk crept in.
It must have been a long time since I had been in such a vast, unpopulated space. We loved our brief sojourn to Sweden and left sure that we would return.
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