Day 21: Travel Day
Nau mai
Yesterday we travelled from Hamburg to Jönköping.
We had a big driving day ahead of us. There was the best part of 700km to travel and two sizeable bodies of water that had to be crossed. The morning began in the restaurant of the Hotel NH Hamburg where I experienced some buffet anxiety as a consequence of not performing a full reconnaissance of the spread before beginning to load my plate. Auxiliary plates solved my issues, and although they are harder to photograph it made for a nicely structured meal.
Fresh pineapple and watermelon were served with yoghurt and granola in a small bowl, while on my main plate a salad of cos lettuce and radishes was lightly drizzled with olive oil, accompanying a frittata, roasted cherry tomatoes, and sliced brown bread with butter. I even treated myself to a dessert course of cherry tart, pictured on the medium plate at the back left of the picture.
The first leg of the journey was up through northern Germany, a smooth drive through a mix of rich green woodland and broad, cultivated plains that stretched all the way to the horizon. The highlight of this stint was seeing the 115m Puttgarden Sky Needle, a telecommunications tower on the island of Fehmarn, very close to our ferry terminal. What it lacks in restaurants and observation decks it makes up for in fine proportioning, an elegant pointy design, and a fine set of LED safety lights that can be witnessed outside of daylight hours. I’m not sure if I have reviewed this Sky Needle in a previous tour but just in case, I’ll share this Google review from local guide Familie C&S.
“😀👌 beautiful telecommunications tower. ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️”
Our ferry was a highly efficient service, and it felt like we had only just driven onto the ship when we felt it pulling away from the wharf and heading for open seas. The waters of the Fehmarn Belt carried a light chop, but it was a short and comfortable voyage, taking us only 45 minutes to cross this 18-kilometre strait at the western edge of the Baltic Sea.
Jon waits for the ferry to arrive.
We disembarked at the town of Rødbyhavn on the southern coast of Denmark and after a quick chat with the border police we were on our way, driving north up the island of Zealand, heading towards the capital city of Copenhagen. One of the world’s great pieces of transport infrastructure was about to be utilised by our MAN TGE panel van and trailer, as we had to cross the Øresund Strait, the body of water standing between us and the Kingdom of Sweden.
Highway E20 bypasses Copenhagen to the south and heads east towards the coast, leaving land behind as the roadway is carried by what feels like a gradually ascending causeway, isolated and exposed as it stretches out into this body of water. It is a nearly 8km bridge that crosses the first part of the strait and our highlight was of course the cable-stayed span in the middle of this great structure, which I failed to adequately capture from inside the van, but which looks fantastic in an aerial photograph. The bridge descends to the manmade Peberholm Island and the remaining part of the crossing is through a 4km tunnel, not as visually thrilling as the bridge, but equally impressive as a crucial part of the engineering feat that is this transport link.
Crossing the cable-stayed section of the bridge.
Looking back across the straight towards Copenhagen.
Sweden is a long, narrow kingdom and even though we had at it for hours yesterday we barely made a dent in its length. As the sun set, we cruised up European Route 4 enjoying a smooth and gently curving highway that carved its way north through deciduous forests that were proudly displaying their autumn colours. Finally, at 7:30pm we reached the town of Jönköping and found our lodgings for the night, embracing the opportunity to leave the van in its packed state and enjoy a quiet meal before bed.