Malmo is very quiet city with lots of open space and a large number of well-maintained parks with greenery spreading all over the city. That’s why Malmo is also called City of Parks. Though the city has a population of just about four lakh inhabitants, yet it has the highest concentration of restaurants which makes it famous for its rich variety of food. Besides many historic buildings, the city also has the famous Malmo University. I along with my brother visited many places of interests in the city enjoying our lunch and dinners at various famous restaurants. 

After exploring the city for two days, we set off to Denmark passing through the Oresund Bridge in my brother’s Merc. Now it was the time for enjoying the life-time experience of driving through the under-the-sea tunnel. The bridge consists of a bridge, a tunnel and the artificial island Peberholmen with a combined length of around 15kms. It connects Sweden’s third largest city, Malmo with Denmark’s capital Copenhagen. Since my travel planners, Exotic Travel Club had arranged a Schengen visa for me, I did not face any problem in crossing the border of two countries. I just had to keep my passport ready with me, just in case the authorities of Denmark ask for it, which they didn’t. 

I found Copenhagen in Denmark in stark contrast to its neighbor Swedish city Malmo where the people are self-centered and hardly mix up with strangers. But here in Copenhagen, the people seems to be enjoying their life to the fullest on the streets. They look bubbly, laughing and having beer and merry making. Besides roaming the city we visited the famous amusement park and pleasure garden, Tivoli in Copenhagen. I wondered, how quickly the day passed by when it was time to go back to our home in Malmo.

After having our dinner in a famous restaurant we drove through the same Oresund Bridge on our way back at around 11 pm. At night the bridge, with all its lights on and well-illuminated looked more fascinating than it was in the day time. 

The itinerary of my travelogue also has a visit to Norway and Poland, the details of which I will discuss in my next blog.

After spending two and a half days in Stockholm I started my journey by road for another beautiful city Malmo which is third largest city after Stockholm and Gothenburg. My travel planner Exotic Travel Club arranged a cab for me to undertake around 600+ kms of memorable and very comfortable road journey. The highway in itself was a wonderful experience. It was just like a runway, no pot holes, no bumps and no hindrance of any sort. The traffic was disciplined, moving according to the speed-limit of the lanesbecause you have to maintain a particular speed if you are driving in a slow-moving or fast-moving lanes. To overtake a vehicle or to change the lane there are specific markings on the road thus minimizing the chance of an accident.We drove at almost 100 kms speed, and man what a smooth ride it was, as if you are gliding on the road. It took us almost six and a half hour to reach Malmo, which includes our short stop-over at McDonalds for refreshments.

My younger brother Rajan lives in Malmo for the past more than 25 years. My stay was at his home and I was going to spend some quality time with him and his family. The city contains many historic buildings like Turning Torso, and Malmo castle besides parks big shopping centers. The city Malmo is linked to another neighboring country Denmark through Oresund Bridge which was built in collaboration with both the countries. Nearly eight kms long bridge is a fine example of modern technology, architecture and great engineering motorway structure. From Swedish coast it is built on the surface but the other half is connected through a tunnel under the sea which opens at the Denmark side. You need to pay toll tax to cross that bridge and many residents of both friendly countries commute daily on this bridge. 

My brother was now my host, my guide and my companion in my quest for exploring the city. Together we visited beautiful beaches, quiet green parks, historical buildings and many more places in and around Malmo. We also went to Denmark through famous Oresund Bridge, the experience of which I will explain in my next blog.

My passion for travelling has led me to many places in India and around the world as well. On one such occasion I decided to visit some Scandinavian countries which includes Sweden, Denmark and Norway. I searched the net to find any travelling company which can arrange a hassle-free tour for me. I was lucky enough to come across one such dependable company namely the Exotic Travel Club. And man, what a wonderful experience it was dealing with them. Right from ticketing, Visa and travel insurance they took care of everything very professionally.

My flight landed in Stockholm, capital of Sweden and a car was already waiting for me to lodge me comfortably in a hotel. Next day I started my excursion to explore this beautiful city. Stockholm is the cultural, political and economic hub of Sweden. Through its widely connected metro, which of course is an experience to have, my first was to Stockholm’s famous Vasa museum and an amusement park, Grona Lund which is a popular tourist attraction. The city in itself was a treat to watch and sunny weather was perfect for roaming around. Stockholm is very clean, nicely architectural tall buildings with friendly and jovial inhabitants.I wonder how clean a city could be. You won’t find a litter of paper or garbage anywhere. The people are self-disciplined and feel proud to keep their city nice and tidy without any authorities forcing them to do so, unlike in India where the government has to spend crores on Swatch Bharat Abhiyan just to educate people not to throw garbage in the streets. Traffic was also much disciplined. Everybody gives respect to other driver and vehicle coming from the right side has the first right to pass the crossings. No one honks because honking is considered as a bad manner almost similar to abusing.

There are many many more things to share about this beautiful city, but then it will become a sort of an essay, than a blog. My next destination is Malmo, another beautiful city of Sweden which I will discuss in my next blog. Thankyou Exotic Travel Club for taking care of every minute details to give me an opportunity to have this comfortable and life-time experience.

Well, my tour to Scandinavia with every passing day was proving to be a pleasant experience of a lifetime. I was enjoying beautiful clean and well maintained beaches, pollution-free air, well-disciplined traffic and a two in one company of my brother-cum-friend. The days were passing as if the wings have been grown to them. After about a week roaming and exploring the beautiful and quiet city of Malmo, it was time to move on to another destination of my itinerary i.e Norway. We had three options for our travel to Norway. One was to go by road in my brother’s car, second was to go by air and third which we ultimately chose was to take a cruise. Since I had never experienced the cruise travel, I was all in for it, but the thing was in that case I would miss the beautiful scenic beauty of highway travelling. The suggestion from my travel agent Exotic Travel Club comes handy once again. They suggested that we take our car in the ship to Norway and come backby road. In that way we can enjoy both cruise and road travel. So we happily opted for it.

We searched the net and booked Star Cruise ship for our journey. The ship leaves from Copenhagen, Denmark in the evening and a full night travel will land us in Oslo, Norway in the morning. So we went in our car to Denmark and docked our car in the ship and started our journey to explore Norway. The cruise experience was amazing. It was almost as if a small city was sailing on the sea. Since I had never been on a ship in my life I was astonished to see how enormous it was. It had four stories and every facility was provided. Good food, comfortable cabins, nicely laid beds, wine, beer, whiskey and what not! A music group was playing the popular songs and people were dancing to the tunes with full enthusiasm. There was swimming pool, indoor games and a vast area with all the toys and small swings where the kids could enjoy on their own while their parents could relax in the bar with a beer or whiskey in their hand. How quickly the night passed, I still can’t remember because we hardly slept when it was time to disembark in Norway in the morning.

Our nephewwith his family lives in Oslo so we didn’t have any tension of our stay and food. He was more than happy to receive us because it is not much often when a relative or friend visit them. He treated us as a VIP guests. We were served delicious Indian food. Next day he took us to city’s tour showing us all the major places of tourist attractions in and around Oslo. We had only two days at our disposal to be in Norway because of my brother’s business commitments back home in Malmo. This time constraint didn’t permit us to explore some far off attractions of this beautiful country about which our nephew told us very excitedly with the hope that we will extend our stay with him. Of course, we were lured to the bait, but had to disappoint him so after spending two memorable days with him, we started our journey back to Malmo in our car.

The drive in the car back home was another memorable experience. The same wide bump free smooth drive on 120 plus speed in Mercedes was something to experience which cannot be honestly explained. We enjoyed beautiful scenic beauty, neat and clean well maintained wheat fields, mountains, slopes. Everything was so mesmerizing and it was a complete money worth trip. 

In my next blog I will take you to my next destination, Poland. So watch out folks!

My visit to Poland was never in my travel itinerary. A week after coming from Norway, I received a call from my travel organizers Exotic Travel Club that they have come across some cheap air tickets from Malmo to Poland and asked me if I would be interested. Since I had nothing significant to do in Malmo, I happily agreedbecause the air tickets they offered were so cheap that I couldn’t resist the temptation of missing this opportunity to visit one more country even for a short duration. I told them to arrange two tickets for me and my brother. The air fair cost us 175 Swedish Kronas for each ticket which was equivalent to Indian rupees of approximately 1200/- per ticket. Not a bad deal, we thought and happily grabbed it. It was a very short trip spanning two days only because I was scheduled to return back to India within a week’s time. Moreover my bro too was not in a position to spare much of a time once again from his busy hectic schedule and business commitments. 

We boarded our flight to Poland next day early in the morning from Malmo airport and an hour’s flight landed us in Gndask a city in Poland at around 11 am. My travel company Exotic Travel Club had arranged our stay in a nice hotel. We drove in a taxi to our hotel where we were going to stay for two days. The hotel typical Polish boutique hotel, well maintained, a neat and clean abode. We were received by the hotel staff showing us the room and other facilities. They served us welcome snacks, tea and coffee and later when we had freshen up after taking bath, they served us healthy breakfast. After breakfast we took a taxi and ventured out to explore the city Gdansk.

Gdansk is a small beautiful and clean sea-port city of Poland having around five lakh population. The buildings are fine example of ancient architecture having castle like domes with historical values. It was clear sky, very pleasant weather and our whole day was passed roaming in and around the city itself.Being a sea port city the tourist attraction was sea ferry which take you the round trip to main tourist spots along the coast line. The Long Lane in Gdańsk, Poland, is one of the most notable tourist attractions of the city. It leads from Golden Gate to Long Market and Green Gate.You can disembark at any place, roam around and then board at your choice of time on any ferry with the same ticket. Several boats makes round the trip at all stations after a gap of one hour. So it was fun and a beer can in hand we made a merry of our time. The Long Market in Gdańsk, is one of the most notable tourist attractions of the city. It is situated between the end of Long Lane and Green Gate. We also did some shopping, enjoyed the street food and had our dinner in one of the fine eating joint before coming back to our hotel late in the evening. 

Next day was also spent roaming in the city itself. Being a Sunday the market place was full of local crowd. One thing which I didn’t find very encouraging was a callous attitude of some of the local people. We too had to encounter one such middle age man who seems to be an Asians-hater for some reason best known to him only because without any provocation he started yelling at us using some foul language in his native language. Since we didn’t understand a word of it, we just ignored him and refused to take the load of garbage stuffed in his mind. In the evening we met three young boys who were also from north India and were studying there on a student visa. On conversation with them we came to know that here the most of the locals don’t have much liking for the black hair Asians and they too had to go through these type of cold stares and snide comments from the locals. The best way was not to react and ignore them totally. But barring this lone incident we found most of the people with an indifferent attitude towards tourists. 

Well this was the last day of our stay in Poland and we boarded our flight back home next day. After spending another two three days with my brother and his family in Malmo, I flew back to India with some very pleasant memories of my Scandinavian tour. In my next blog I will try to share my experience of my European tour to Switzerland, Italy, Hungry, Czech and Germany. Till then bye folks!