DAY 19, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 30th
Today I had no classes or field studies so me and a couple friends planned a trip to Malmö, Sweden! It’s about a 40 min train ride or 1 hour bus ride from Copenhagen! We left from Copenhagen central station at 8:30 and hopped on a bus. There weren’t too many big “must-sees” in Malmö so we hit a couple landmarks but also just wandered.
Some of our first sights out of the train station:
One of the first things we noticed while walking around was how empty it was, compared to Copenhagen or any “city” I’ve been, it was super empty- there was no one around (and Malmö is technically the third largest city in Sweden). After grabbing a coffee and croissant we headed toward the Malmö castle or Malmöhus. It wasn’t the most impressive building but cool nontheless.
The original version of the castle was built in 1434 but its current appearance came through reconstruction in the mid 16th century. The building has served several purposes throughout the years including as a mint house, a prison at one point and is now currently housing the Malmö museum. We went in to the museum which had a small art exhibit and fashion in movies exhibit but most interesting to us was the exhibits in the older portion of the castle on how the castle was used originally, how it was used a prison, and the portion discussing some history of Malmö, Sweden and the Sweden-Danish battles.
After finishing up in the museum we walked around the side towards behind the castle where there was a windmill which looked cool but I didn’t really know anything about. Based on a quick google search, I figured out the windmill is called Slottsmöllan and it is a historical smock mill located in the garden of which was built in 1851.
Behind the windmill was a cute park called Kungsparken that we walked through for a bit. We did notice Malmö had a lot of green space that is probably even more gorgeous in the springtime.
We eventually made our way through the park and started heading to the The Turning Torso which the tallest building in Sweden. It is used for residential purposes but it is a super cool building with some unique architecture.
The building was right near the shore where we wandered around and were able to see the Øresund bridge that connects Denmark and Sweden, it is the longest combined road and rail bridge in Europe. We also could kind of see Denmark off in the distance. This are we were walking around was much newer and reminded me of the harbor/newest part of Boston. It definitely had a very different feel from the more central part of Malmö.
Around then we were quite hungry so we walked toward a few suggestions we found online
which were all busts; but it did take us through a popular square called Lilla Torg which is a cute stone square with some older buildings, but again there was pretty much no one there. We eventually made our way to Malmö Saluhall which is a nice indoor food market with a few different options. We all decided on a noodle bar which had handmade noodles and was delicious.
We were tired from all the walking (roughly 8 miles and 22,000 steps) so we ended up relaxing and chatting at our table for a few hours with my friends treating themselves to delicious ice cream and gourmet chocolates while there. I was holding out for some candy so when we finally left 3 hours later (lol) we headed to a candy shop where I just got a couple things to satisfy my sweet tooth. We headed over to St. Peter’s church which was nearby, unfortunately it was closed and dark so we couldn’t see too much.
We then headed back to the central station and found a place to sit, eat, and wait for our bus. It’s a pretty nice station with lots of food options and tables. Our bus was about an hour late, we love budget buses, but eventually we got on and we made it home. Malmö was not my fav city and I don’t feel like I got a for sure feel of the country since there weren’t many people around, but it was definitely nice to get a small taste of Sweden!
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