Our three months in Scandinavia are over! It’s time to look back and remember what we liked about it. [By the way, Finland is not actually part of Scandinavia; that honour belongs to Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and Iceland. But we’re going to treat it as if it is, because we like the alliteration.] Our aim here is not to choose sides or pick one country as the winner. We found lots of great stuff in each one of them. Besides, we spent two months in Norway and only ten days each in Sweden and Finland. So it wouldn’t be fair. Instead, we’ll note a few categories of things we found to like in each place. It’s more like compare and contrast the differences, like those old school essays.
Let’s start with food. (We always start with food.) You could say Scandinavian food is all pretty much the same. We suppose that’s true in a general sense. But as we learned with meatballs, there are subtle but important differences! Laurel’s fave, pickled fish, was easier to find in Sweden and Finland than in Norway, so a slight nod there. Plus, we had the best meal of our lives at Lysverket. But then again we had the best smorgasbord of our lives in Stockholm. We found great bread in each city. (Bread is very important to us!) Ditto with coffee shops. As for food markets, we found nice ones in Norway and Sweden but Finland wins hands down, because of the fabulous food hall in Stockmann’s department store.
OK, on to other things. Water: we like harbours! Each city has a spectacular harbour, but there are significant differences. Oslo’s is modern and up to date, with its new museums and opera house. The Stockholm harbour is very grand. It’s lined with old-world façades and imperial buildings which dominate the view in every direction. We walked around Helsinki’s harbours some; they are much less built up. Even the most built-up one did not have grand buildings ringing it, just a few markets and the food hall. We liked the harbour-walk to Kaivopuisto park, which also has lovely open views of water on three sides. Different as they were, we found ourselves spending as much time as we could near each of them.
We’re not shoppers, but we had two favourite pedestrian streets: Karl-Johans gate in Oslo and Esplanadi in Helsinki. The former connects the train station and the palace, and is lined with all kinds of small and large stores and restaurants. It’s always a hive of activity except in the early morning. And you get nice views in either direction as you walk along. We spent a lot of our two months walking up and down the former, but it never got old.
As for Esplanadi in Helsinki, that’s probably our favourite Scandinavian street. It’s a wide boulevard with a park running down the centre, and really beautiful late-19th/early-20th century buildings lining either side. Here you find the fancy stores in large numbers, but it’s not overly commercial, thanks to the park and lots of nice restaurants and cafés along the way. To us it felt very much like an Eastern European city, e.g. Vienna or a Budapest.
How about the people? We found people everywhere to be friendly and helpful. They are more reserved than Americans, but that’s a good thing. Naturally, we had more chances to meet and talk with people in Oslo (and visit their cabins). But we assume that if we had spent more time in Stockholm and Helsinki, we would have found the people there just as nice. Most everyone we encountered in shops and public places could speak English, though the Norwegians do it the best of the three. Finns are the happiest people in the world, which might or might not be related to the fact that they drink more coffee (and talk less) than anyone else in the world. Norwegians are obsessed with the outdoors, and they have a ton of oil money. Swedes think they’re smarter than the others, and Finns and Norwegians fear they might be right.
General atmosphere: all three cities are clean, with excellent public transportation, and all have a substantial infrastructure funded by social democratic voters. Sweden is a bit more right-leaning than the other two, at least if the recent elections are any indication. And Finland is much influenced by its proximity to Russia – lots more monuments to czars here! Each has welcomed refugees, usually relying on language to be(come) a unifiying feature.
Since we began with food, let’s end with drink. We found a bar/pub we really liked in each city. In Oslo, it was Orlando’s Pub, right in our neighbourhood. Orlando is originally from Cape Verde (one of our future destinations) and has owned the pub for thirty years. The pub is tiny but very inviting, with excellent music, and Orlando himself is charming. In Stockholm we found the Bar Lilla Compagniet near our hotel. This place had a great selection of beers and cocktails, and an extremely friendly and knowledgeable bartender. It was comfy as well, with good lighting and music. Finally, in Helsinki we really liked the Badger & Co. Bar/Café. Despite its name, it’s really more of a pub. Again, friendly service, with terrific beers and good music — if you like eighties music, as we do!
We could go on, of course, but you get the picture. We had a fabulous time in Scandinavia and look forward to getting back there some day soon.
