Text and photos as usually by Davor Konjikusic

I came back to Zagreb last Thursday, after almost 18 days of trip in Nordic Europe. Now it is a wright time to type something about this trip, since I had a time to settle down a bit and to organize all the impressions crowding in my head.

In my research I traveled to Scandinavia to see what are the similarities and differences between Balkans or if you prefer to call it South – East Europe, and Nordic countries, Sweden Norway, Finland and Denmark. It is obvious that there is the big difference between ex-Yugoslavian and one of the most developed countries in Europe, but also there are some similarities. In history Finland was part of Sweden, in seventeen century Denmark and Sweden had a Thirty Years War, after which Denmark lost large part of its territory. Norway is a country which citizens for the two times on referendum refused entering EU and there is some kind of easy antagonism between Norway and Sweden. Some people would disagree with me, but that is mine impression. Also people from Sweden, Norway and Island mostly can understand each other.

After the very turbulent history these countries now cooperate in almost every field and there is a big story of mobility in economy and culture.

I just put on paper all the distances I traveled around and realized that I made more then 5430 kilometers on this trip (see the map), without counting flight up and back, and some other small trips. I was using all types of transport except submarine and balloon. I came by plane, then I used trains and ferry, even small boats, then buses, wens and cars.

Also it won’t be far away from the truth if I say that this was one of the best trips in my life. I just feel like that in the moment. After a long time, this was a trip really far away from home and places that I know very good. The tastes, people, smells, landscapes, customs and everything else on this tour were completely new. And the travelling alone is a very good way to meet other people and to be in a real researching – observing mode.

I came back with around 25 GB of photos and it will take some time to work on them. But, since I do know that you are curious, I will put some of them on-line. But, the main collections you can expect after the work on research.

SWEDEN

I landed on Stockholm airport Arlanda on 15^th of July. It was beautiful to watch the sunset from the plane, which gave a gold color to Baltic sea with a thousands of small islands on the surface. Stockholm archipelago is made of 24,000 islands.

After a first step out of the plane the strong wind welcomed me on airport and the next period in Scandinavia I spent dressed in a t-shirt, jumper and light jacket. I wasn’t exactly prepared for the lower temperatures and rain almost every day.

STOCKHOLM: The capital of Sweden has a epithet of one of the most beautiful cities in the world. The city if positioned across a series of islands where Lake Malaren meets Baltic Sea. City is built on 14 islands and it is a mecca for people who enjoy the beautiful styles of architecture, cultural life and design. One of my first impressions was that people in Stockholm are among of the top dressed people in Europe, very casual, but also very trendy. I really enjoyed staying there, walking around islands, meeting new faces. Somehow the city is very compact and you do not feel large number of tourists, excpept if you go in the old city Gamla Stan.

Around T-Centralen

People are really hospitable, but not more then that. After a while I had an impression that trendy people are a little bit arrogant in the way that they are not too much interested in meeting new people and learning more about some other places in the world. Swedens are very well educated, they travel a lot and maybe there is a root of something what I saw as ignoring behaviour.

One of our prejudices that Sweden is a sterile state is not true. I mean, it is a clean place, people are very well educated, there is not too much of poor people, but it is not sterile for sure.

Stockholm is definitely not a city of a continental Europe. You feel like you came somewhere else, like ona big, well developed, island. I really like Swedish way of living and their connections with nature. In Stockholm most of the people do have some kind of wooden house somewhere on the lake, island or in the wood. It’s a must.

The smallest Stockholm street - Marten Trotzigs Grand

The prices are high for our standard