On Boxing Day, we had a very nice hotel breakfast. There were just so many different kinds of bread available!

After breakfast, we went outside the hotel and realised it was snowing! Everything was covered in white. It looks like a winter wonderland.

We checked out of the hotel and were supposed to take a public bus to the Jukkasjärvi Ice Hotel next. We found out from the hotel that there is no public bus on Boxing Day. As such, we had to book a taxi to make our way there.

The first check in was at the front gate where we were informed that since we had booked a cold room, we are to go further in and check in at the second front desk for the cold room. This is where we had a very bad service, which we suspect was due to our race. The family in front of us were Europeans, and the second front desk lady was very helpful and cheerful. When it came to our turn, she did not offer any information, did not inform us how to proceed and so on. We had to keep asking her with questions, which she answered reluctantly. We managed to book our dinner at a very nice expensive restaurant just across the road. We then stored our luggage in these huge lockers and went for our guided tour where we were briefed on how to sleep in the ice hotel, on a bed made of ice.

We then explored the small village where the Ice Hotel was located.

It was quite a small village. We then went to the restaurant across the Ice Hotel for our dinner. It was fantastic, service was top notch, and the food was really delicious!

There was a dish with the food on top of a small ice block!

After dinner, as we walked back to the Ice Hotel, we saw our second night of the Northern Lights. We were very lucky!

We then showered and cleaned up in these toilets near the second check in area, wrapping ourselves up before dashing out of the warm area into the cold rooms. This was our room for the night.

The ice bed was covered with reindeer skins (which smell funny), and a warm sleeping bed was provided for each of us. Truthfully, it was not very comfortable, but it was something that just had to be experience. The next morning, we had breakfast in the same restaurant where we had dinner the night before. It was the typical type of hotel breakfast.

We then had a bit of time before checking out, so we wandered around the area.

After checking out, we found out again that there is still no public bus, so we shared a taxi back to Kiruna’s bus stop with a China couple who were working in Cologne, Germany. Upon reaching the bus stop, we took the free bus to the train station, only to find out that the train has been delayed for a few hours due to frozen track. It was a long, cold wait.

The train finally arrived, and we took the overnight train back to Stockholm, Sweden.

We woke up on Christmas Eve, had a nice breakfast in the hotel and then checked out.

We had booked a dogsledding overnight tour from White Trail Adventures. We waited for the people to pick us up from the hotel. We were then driven to the Mushers Lodge where we put on the winter gear, which included thick overalls, thick socks, boots etc. After putting it on, we could hardly walk!

After a brief introduction to the dogs, how to put on harness on the dogs, how to control the dogsled, we were off to the wooden cabin in the woods to spend the night.

While the dogs look very adorable in the pictures, in actual fact, they were almost impossible to control in real life. All they want is do is just to run, and they do not care if you are controlling them or not. Their secondary purpose is to throw you off the dogsled, and once you are thrown off, the dogs will keep running. They will then have to get someone on the snowmobile to chase after the dogs. We were thrown off once, lost our dogs, on the way to the wooden cabin.

However, we finally caught our first sighting of the Northern Lights (Aurora Borealis) so I guessed it was worth it.

We finally reached the wooden cabin. It does not have any electricity nor running water. It was one of the coldest nights in recent times, reaching a low of –30 degrees, and the only warmth in the cabin came from a fireplace. It was almost as cold inside the cabin as outside.

As the guides were preparing our special Christmas dinner in the cabin, we went out to continue taking pictures of the Northern Lights. What an amazing sight it is! The lights seem to move like waves, with some invisible wind blowing gently. Each time we looked at it, it is different. It was really an unforgettable experience.

It was really cold, so we could not last too long outdoors before having to go indoors to warm ourselves. Soon, the Christmas dinner was ready. It was really delicious, and we ate it while having friendly chats with the visitors from other groups.

And they served ice cream for dessert. Imagine that!

We were soon asleep, after a tiring day. The next morning after a short breakfast, we took some photos of the wooden cabin area before setting off again.

Then we were off. As it was not cold as last night (“Good news! We are 10 degrees warmer!” “It is –20 degrees. It is still cold.”), the guide took us on a much longer route, through beautiful white forest, across frozen lake. As usual, we were again thrown off by the dogs. After more than an hour, where even my nose hair was frozen, we arrived back at the Mushers Lodge. After removing the harness and dragging the dogs back to their kennel, we paid the remaining amount, return the winter gear, and was driven back to Scandic Ferrum to check in for a night.

After a nice warm bath, we took a long nap to recover our battered and bruised body. While we thoroughly enjoyed the experience, we agreed that dogsledding was something that we just have to do it once, and never do again.

We did wake up long enough to walk across to the only eatery place open on Christmas Day, a pizza place, and did a pizza takeaway. It was one of the most delicious pizza we had eaten. Perhaps the weather has something to do with it.

It started snowing heavily before we went to bed.

It was really one of the most memorable Christmas we had ever.

We only managed to secure a shared cabin (6 beds) for the train to Kiruna. It felt funny to sleep in a cramped cabin with 4 other strangers. Also, there was a problem with finding space to store our luggage. In the end, we stored our luggage outside the cabin.

All the uncomfortable feeling was gone when we woke up to this.

Kiruna is the northernmost town in Sweden, in the province of Lapland. It is located 145 km north of the Arctic circle. We came here because we wanted to catch the Northern Lights.

We chose the hotel Scandic Ferrum, which is really a very good hotel. The rooms are big and clean, the bed is comfortable, the breakfast buffet each morning was tasty and of great variety. After checking in, it was time to explore the small town of Kiruna and get dinner.

We came from the tropics where it is summer all year round, and while this is not the first time we have seen snow, we are still very amazed at it.

We found a Swedish fast food restaurant called Sibylla that served really good burgers, reindeer meat and fries. We had our lunch there.

The above is reindeer meat, and it is really tasty.

After taking a short nap, we went to Landstroms Kok & Bar for a nice dinner.

Then we went back to the hotel to turn in for the night.

We spent the 22nd Dec 2014 in Stockholm because we only managed to get the night train to Kiruna from Stockholm. So we decided to spend the day sightseeing in Stockholm.

We stored our luggage in the lockers within the Stockholm train station. The lockers required a lot of coins, and we had a small adventure, involving multiple trips, trying to get the coins by buying coffee from a cafe in the train station. The lockers were clean, easy to use, and the big ones could take a really big sized luggage.

We walked to Gamla stan, or The Old Town, from the station. It was quite a far walk, but we did not mind. There were light snow on the ground, and some parts of the road were frozen over.

Gamla stan, while touristy, was a charming place. As we were early, the tourists had yet to arrive, and most of the shops were closed. We managed to explore the place without seeing anyone.

We came upon a nice small cafe that was opened, so we went in to have our breakfast and coffee. It was quite a nice, warm and cosy cafe.

After warming ourselves up, it was time to take a nice stroll through Stockholm to the Vasa Museum.

Stockholm is so beautiful! The buildings, while old, have so much character and charm. We agreed that Stockholm is our favourite city for this trip. It was a very cold day in Stockholm so we were glad when we reached our destination. Vasa Museum is a whole museum dedicated to the only almost fully intact 17th century ship that has been salvaged. We went without any expectations, but it turned out to be a very good museum, very well executed and very well managed. We enjoyed it thoroughly.

We then had lunch in the cafe located inside the museum. Truthfully, we were tired and sleepy, and the lunch provided us an excuse to sit down and rest. This was the first time we ate Swedish cuisine, and we loved it.

We then left the museum and made our way slowly back to the train station. We also did some window shopping along the way.

We retrieved our luggage from the locker before boarding the train to Kiruna at 1755 hours.

After returning the car at Frankfurt, we would spend the rest of the day travelling from Frankfurt, Germany to Copenhagen, Denmark and finally ending at Stockholm, Sweden via train.

Taking a train through these countries was not too difficult, but it requires proper planning beforehand. We took a few days to track down exactly which trains to take, from where, timing, platform from the website Eurail. Taking advantage of their train passes, we proceed to make a booking from their website, paying a small processing fee. We also had them booking our seats, so that we had confirmed seats. Reserving seats do incur additional fee, but we felt it was worth it. The site will then get someone to come back to us on the availability of the trains we wanted, and alternatives. Once confirmed and paid for, the train passes were then mailed from a Singapore address to our home within a few days.

We would recommend using this website if there is a need to take multiple trains, like us, but if it was just for a single train trip, it is better to book directly from the train website itself.

We could have taken a flight from Frankfurt to Stockholm, but we wanted to experience taking the train through these countries. It was a fantastic experience.

So we took a train from Frankfurt to Hamburg, about 3 1/2 hours.

We waited for an hour in the Hamburg train station. Luckily, it is a huge train station so there is plenty of places to eat, and we took the time to have a quick lunch. We took another train from Hamburg to Copenhagen (or Koebenhavn) in Denmark.

The train to Copenhagen was interesting because we had to cross the Baltic Sea. This was done by getting the train to move into the ferry. We had some problems understanding this at first, and we almost alighted at the station just before the crossing, thinking we may have to go through border controls. Luckily we did not. The train entered the ferry at the bottom deck, and all passengers had to leave the train to get onto the upper deck of the ferry.

The photo above shows how nicely the train fits into the ferry. The upper decks of the ferry included duty-free shopping, cafe, and there were a lot of seats. We also had a very expensive bottle of Coke here.

It was possible to go outside and look at the Baltic Sea, however it was at night, and thus too dark to see anything. Also, it was really windy and cold outside. After almost an hour, they announced that we are reaching Denmark, and we are to make our way back to the train. Before long, the train departed the ferry and we were on our way to Copenhagen. It was really an amazing experience!

We then arrive at Copenhagen station quite late at night. The train station was quite empty. We were supposed to hop onto the next train to Hässleholm, Sweden. However looking at the train board there, there was no such train. The train was supposed to depart Copenhagen at 2152 hours, and there were a few trains scheduled during that time according to the board. In the end, we had to look at the train number (in this case, 1106) to find the correct platform. Once the train arrived, we looked for the train conductor on the platform to confirm. It seems that the destination listed on the board at the platform showed the final destination of the train, while we were to alight at one of the stops before the final destination. No wonder we could not find the train going to Hässleholm. To be honest, we were quite worried that we would miss our connecting train.

After around 1 1/2 hours, we reached Hässleholm. We waited about 1/2 an hour before taking the overnight train to Stockholm. We had secured a private cabin, where there are two beds, one on top of another, and comes with its own washroom. This allowed us to sleep all the way to Stockholm. The cabin was small, and we had some problems finding space to store our luggage. However, the bed was comfortable, and the cabin was very cosy. After spending the whole day travelling on the train, we fell asleep pretty quickly. We did wake up just before arriving at Stockholm to catch our first sighting of snow on this trip.

 

Before reaching Stockholm, we washed up, and took a light breakfast at the restaurant car.

We then arrived in Stockholm on the 22nd December 0616 hours.

It was a nice drive from Munich to Nuremberg. However, the place that we chose to stay for the night in Nuremberg was a bit of a let down. Hotel Hamburg was located conveniently, with the metro station just a short walk. There is a shopping mall just opposite, and we parked our car just in front of the hotel. The room was old, and it was not very clean. As our room faced the shopping mall, we wanted to pull down the shutter (no curtains) before we sleep. However it was broken. As it was only for one night, we decided to ignore it. The breakfast next morning was fabulous so it sort of made up for it.

We came to Nuremberg for its Christmas Market, and we were not disappointed. It was massive, there were more variety of stalls, and even the downpour towards the end of the night could not dampen the Christmas spirit in the air.

The night ended when there was a sudden downpour. We decided to go back to the hotel. The next day, after a fabulous breakfast, it was time to drive back to Frankfurt, return the car, and take the trains to Sweden.

We arrived in Munich after a nice drive. Munich definitely feels much more alive than Frankfurt, there were quite a lot more to see compared to Frankfurt.

We stayed at ibis Munich City West, which was in a quiet part of Munich. However, as there is a U-Bahn station just outside the hotel, it was very convenient to get to where we wanted to go.

The traditional German beer house is a must. We went to the famous Hofbräuhaus.

Then it was another Christmas market in Munich.

The next day, we left Munich and drove to Nuremberg, where we experienced the last, and the best, Christmas market in Germany.

The next day we had one of the nicest breakfast for this trip, served by a really grumpy woman who was muttering in German throughout. Luckily for us, we did not understand a word!

We left the B&B, driving for the next few hours to our next destination Fussen. Truthfully, the medieval old town was nice to visit, but it quite actually quite creepy. The overcast weather did not help.

We headed for Neuschwanstein Castle, which is just a short distance from Fussen. This castle is world famous, and was the inspiration behind the Disneyland’s Sleeping Beauty Castle. There is also another castle beside it, the Hohenschwangau Castle. That was the castle we went to first. After buying the tickets for the timing we chose, we took some photos at the base of the castles.

We then climbed up the hill to visit the Hohenschwangau Castle.

Unfortunately photography was not allowed inside the castle.

There are 3 ways to get up to Neuschwanstein Castle, by horse ride, by bus or walk. We decided to walk up. It was quite steep and tiring!

The bridge over the canyon is call the Marie’s Bridge (Marienbrücke) where it provides a vintage point to view the castle. Unfortunately as it was getting to closing time, we decided to skip it.

Again, photography was not allowed inside the castle until the end of the tour.

We drove to Fussen to stay the night in City Apart Hotel Fuessen. As it was dark and raining heavily, we spent quite a lot of time driving in circles, trying to find a way to get to the hotel. In the end, we had to park 2 blocks away. After enquiring at the front desk, we found out the road in front of the hotel is closed to traffic after a certain timing. It was inconvenient to drag our luggage from the car to the hotel, and because the hotel has no lifts, we had to drag our luggage up a few floors to our room. However, our room was spacious and comfortable. After a quick wash up, we found a nice German restaurant nearby, Madame Plüsch, to have German food for dinner. The food was quite good!

The next morning the rain had stopped, after a nice breakfast at the hotel, we decided to go to the Marie’s Bridge to view the castle instead of the planned drive to Munich. This is the advantage of having a free and easy holiday.

This time we decided to take the bus up as the bus stopped very close to the bridge.

After alighting from the bus, and walking a short distance, we finally reached the bridge. The view from the bridge justified our decision to drive to the castle again.

After the bridge, visitors usually walk to the castle. But as we already did the castle, we decided to wait for the bus to take us down the hill.

We then drove to Munich where we stayed for the next 2 nights.

The next part of the trip was traveling along the Romantic Road. We had a nice Turkish breakfast at Simit Sarayi, before having a really nice cup of coffee at this place Wackers Kaffee.

What we ate at the Turkish breakfast place:

Coffee at the cafe:

Fantastic coffee at this cafe that is full of character. We were walking around Frankfurt after coffee.

Then we went to collect our car, and we almost did not make it. It seems they will only hold the car reservation for us for only 2 hours, and we collected the car with 15 minutes to spare. Just when we thought we can finally get onto the road, we realised the car they gave us was a manual car, even though we specifically asked for automatic one. In the end, the only automatic car they have is a van. Since we did not want to delay any further, we took the van.

The fastest way traveling along the Romantic Road is to use the Autobahn. There are almost no speed limit on it, and together with the fact that this was the first time I was driving in right hand traffic, i.e. steering wheel is on the left hand side of the car, it was especially stressful initially. Driving at 180km/h and most cars still overtake you is not something that happens often in Singapore.

The starting point of the Romantic Road is the city Wurzburg. It is a beautiful city, and a wonderful place to start the Romantic Road trip. The first stop when we reach the city was the majestic Marienberg Fortress (German : Festung Marienberg). It is located on the left bank of the Main river in Wurzburg, and on top of a hill, providing a very nice view of the city. The fort itself was very quiet, and because it was winter and on top of a hill, we were freezing.

Then we drove to our hotel for the night, Mercure Hotel, though we had to make a few turns to find it. It was not a bad place to stay, the staff were friendly, the rooms were clean, tidy though quite small. After checking in and putting down our luggage, we walked across the famous Alte Mainbrücke (Old Bridge) on our way to the Christmas Market.

There is the bridge in the background as we walked along the river bank.

We finally reached the Christmas Market of Wurzburg. It feels less commercialised than the one we went to in Frankfurt and was almost as big.

Dinner was at the Nordsee restaurant, a chain of restaurants that serve really nice seafood. Besides, we were getting sick of the usual sausages that are found almost everywhere in Germany.

After dinner, it was time to head back to the hotel.

The next time, we had a quick breakfast at a small cafe before heading to the UNESCO World Heritage Site, the Wurzburg Residence. I am not sure why it is called a ‘Residence’ when it is clearly a palace. We reached before they were open, so we spent the time taking photos of its exterior.

Unfortunately we were not allowed to take photos inside the Residence. However, it was definitely worth the visit. We then went back to the hotel to check out, before proceeding to our next location for a bit of shopping, the Wertheim Village Outlet.

It was not as good as the outlet shopping in Japan, but it was not too bad. Unfortunately, it was winter, and so it was selling mostly winter clothing. We managed to buy some additional winter wear, just in case, that was really cheap. It proved to be the correct decision in the subsequent days of this trip. We had this fantastic burger in one of the restaurant for lunch.

We then head off to our next location, Rothenburg ob der Tauber. It is a very well-preserved German medieval old town, and was the inspiration behind the village in the 1940 Walt Disney movie Pinocchio. It was almost dark when we reached our stay for the night, Hotel Klingentor Garni. It was a nice bed and breakfast place, just a short walk to the medieval town. We found that the accommodation outside the medieval town tend to be cheaper than those within. The town is surrounded by old walls and towers. We wanted to walk around the walls but was told by the owner of the B&B not to do it after dark. We asked if it is because it was dangerous since there is no light, he said no and mysteriously left it at that. We eventually did walk along the walls for a short distance before we decided to move on to the town.

The famous shop in this town is the Käthe Wohlfahrt, which sells Christmas decorations and items the whole year round. The shop was brightly lighted, and was filled with every kind of Christmas decorations and toys.

Then we went to the Christmas market. It was not big and does not feel very commercialised.

We also tried the town’s food speciality, Schneeballen or Snowball. It tasted quite good.

Then we decided to head back to the B&B to retire for the night.

Planned this Europe trip to clear my leave in December 2014. Then unexpectedly, I found another new job, so have to ask for 3 weeks of leave immediately after starting work, which was approved.

The main objective of this trip was to see countries that we never have been to before, see snow, and hopefully, manage to catch the Northern Lights. Not only did we see lots of snow, caught the Northern Lights on two separate nights, we even had a little adventure. All in all, we thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

Flew in to Frankfurt on the 13th December night, and the plan was to rest the next day to prepare for the road trip in Germany. As it was going to be a one week road trip and this is the first time I am doing a left hand drive, I wanted to ensure I have enough rest before starting the road trip. I did not want the previous experience I had in Perth, where I flew in on a red-eye flight, collect the car, then drove for six hours all the while struggling to keep awake.

Frankfurt is primarily a business city, as such, it was functional. It lacked a certain character, a certain charm to it. However, there were still plenty of things to see, and do. We also encountered our first Christmas market, and though it felt very commercialised, we enjoyed it a lot.