Kiruna and the Sleeper

Our second day in Kiruna sees us back in the town centre as the church reaches its new home. 

More to come about that, but first back to the start of the day.

Early Morning

I wake at 3.00am this morning and begin the blog post about the day we arrived at Tromsø. 

Drew woke at 4.45pm and I made us each a cup of Lady Gray tea - a tea he'd not tasted before our visit to Prague, earlier this year and which has become a favourite of his with its light citrus flavour. 

I do my ablutions beginning at 6am Drew does the same at 6.25am. 

Breakfast

Breakfast is much quieter at 7am today than it was yesterday. Drew opts for a salad start this morning with a bread roll on the side.

Having enjoyed my breakfast yesterday I had another chia pudding this morning, followed by yogurt and nuts, seeds, raisins and oat pieces.

Drew had two boiled eggs and bacon

Where as I am back with my favourites - mustard and pickled herring, two types of cheese and smoked salmon.

It is interesting to note that in Sweden it is pickled and mustard herring that are the dominant form, in Norway it is pickled, tomato and sour cream that are the main flavour. I don't know why this is, but it seems fairly consistent from my recent experience.

Post- Breakfast 

At 7.45pm we go back to the cabin where I pick up my laptop and go back to reception to get the faster wifi that will allow me to edit photos. All yesterdays and this morning's breakfast photos edited, titled and loaded to Flickr before 9am when I stroll back to the cabin, do our final checks and go to reception to leave our bags in the the Luggage Room for later. My sister will appreciate the warning notice!

Into the City

We leave Camp Ripan at 9.15am to chase down the moving church. 

We arrive at OK Parken bus stop for the free city bus to the centre at 9.35am. It arrives at 9.50am, they are running every twenty minutes.

City Centre

We see the church on the route and decide not to head away from the 'New' City Centre but to wait for it to come to us. It is even cooler and windier today than yesterday. So, we walk to the main square and see the again see the guy who is hosting the live stream from here who looks like he is freezing on stage. 

We then go into the Civic Centre Library and see the exhibition associated with the church move. Some of the images, including a children's school competition, are in this montage of photos.

From the library we visit a book shop called Ugglan Bookshop, where Drew, who is learning Swedish wanted to buy some young people's books to improve his mastery of the language.

Lunch

As it is now Midday we decide to stop at lunch. The new City Centre had eight or nine eating places, many of them fast food, but a few full service restaurants. We spotted one called La Guna and decided to stop there. 

We were thinking to have something substantial, but not to heavy, given we would be on a train at dinner time this evening.

Drew opted for Mozarellasticks and what arrived was just as billed.

Four sticks of mozzarella cooked in breadcrumbs, they were a perfect starter.

I ordered Räksallad, that is shrimp salad

 

Wow, I was expecting a small side salad, not one with pineapple and cheese as well as tomato, lettuce, olives and onion with a ranch dressing and a huge eadge of delicious lightly cooked shrimps. A real delightful mix of flavours, but much larger than I had expected - but I managed.

For his mains Drew had ordered Lax på planka which translates as Salmon on a plank

the salmon was served with piped potato, tomatoes and a remoulade. This suited Drew very well. The salmon had a hint of smokiness about him, the potato was smooth and had been cooked on the plank, so it acted like a moat to the rest of the dinner. 

I had also chosen food on a plank Suovas på planka, that is Sliced Reindeer on a plank

This was absolutly delciious. the reindeer meat (and there was plenty was served with the same type of piped potato as Drew had had, but tis was served with Crème fraîche and a tangy lingonberry sauce. Probably more than I'd intended to eat but great all the same.

The other, mainly elderdly dinners, were all watching the church on the TV in the corener of the restaurant.

It seemed a bit surreal to be watching a TV programme of an event we could hear happening outside about 50 meters away. But it was much more comfortable than standing in the biting breeze.

Back to Camp Ripan

We saw the church arrive at its new home, a few hours early, as we were eating our lunch. We had wondered if we would talk around to see it settled, but with King Carl XVI Gustaf and a range of celebrities all on site, the crowds had created a long queue, as seen here.

We decided that joining the lengthy queue made no sense so we headed back to the Free Bus stop and were the only ones on the bus. It was like having a taxi service!

We drove past the newly situated church on our way out of the City.

The bus departed at 12.55pm and we arrived at OK Parken at 1.07pm and at Camp Ripan at 1.17pm.

Afternoon at Camp Ripan

Having arrived back at Camp Ripan we collect our luggage and I sit in the lounge at reception editing and loading up all our photos from this morning, so we are right up to date. Drew read his noval on his kindle.

Departure from Camp Ripan

To give ourselves plenty of time for the train we leave Camp Ripan at 4.30pm to catch the free bus at 4.40pm. 

Here's Drew approaching the bus stop

the bus arrives at 4.50pm. As mentioned earlier these free buses have been arranged to try and reduce car movement in the city for these two days of church moving, Not for freeloaders like us, though the driver welcomes and tells us where to put our luggage. 

Here's Drew on the bus

with the luggage safe behind him. 

By this time the bus was quite full, unlike earlier, but we still arrived at the Railway Station at 5.02pm. Over an hour before the train is due, but we like it that way.

From the station you get good views of Mount Luossavaarabacken a ski-resort that overlooks Kiruna. We could see it from the side when eating at Camp Ripan.

The station also has a memorial to those who built the line

and there are many lines, though only one platform. 

Drew takes a photo of me at the station - we were alone apart from one Chinese gentleman.

We are still alone twenty minutes later when the bus drives past again - the driver waves, and the second time 20 minutes later. By the third time, when there were a few more people around us, he even stops opens the door and laughing offers us one last free ride to the city or back, as he could make it before the train arrives!! I'm used to being mocked by family and friends for being really early for things - but this is the first time a bus driver has taken up the amusement! Though in a very friendly way.

It is a surprise to find it is the platform called platform 11 - but that appears to be a translation issue as Spor (the Norwegian word, means line, not platform, it is only that we talk about platforms in English, so it might seem to be the correct - if not direct translation. There really are abnother 10 lines here but no others with platforms, the other lines are the ones for the ore carrying trains, the main activity at this station.

Kiruna is now all blue sky and sun, though still a bit nippy. Such a lovely way to end an enjoyable day in this amusing place. 

On the 99 Train to Boden

Normally a sleeper train leaves Kiruna every day and ends up in Stockholm the next day. But, as I menitoned in an earlier post, there are major repair works going on the line between here and Luleå - this being the reason bookings for this part of the journey took place so late. So instead we are on a train to Boden, where we will meet the Luleå to Stockholm sleeper, avoiding the bit of track that is being repaired.

The train is twenty minutes late when it arrives. And we head for it as everyone on the platform is piling on.

A French lady, already on the train, decides to take the air with her child and blocks access to our carriage door, Drew speaks to her in Swedish and she moves. [Co-pilot's note: I must, dear readers, insist that we did not know that she was French at the time when I started speaking Swedish to her.]

We arrive at our seats, it is the French lady and her husband who have left signs of occupation. I suspect hoping the train wouldn't be full and we would take other seats - it was full. So, when they return from their breather they remove there items and go back to their children!! As the journey progresses we begin to understand why they want to get away from them!! Exemplary children travellers, they were not!! [Co-pilot's note: I, dear readers, felt sooooooo sorry for the poor little French man, who was the father - he was in a right state - he was a ruin.]

The train leaves at 6.27pm. The train is exceptionally full with no spare seats anywhere. This is the route:

Even though the station is six miles from the New City Centre, the train goes no nearer to Kiruna, in fact it leaves Kiruna by reversing out of the station and then going forward around the mine which dominates the city skyline. 

Supper

At 7.14pm we have the snack we bought yesterday. A bag of salted crisps for me and a bar of chocolate for Drew. This is chocolate we bought in Olden based on the brand comment of my sister when we were in Oslo, that one of the signs we had taken was an advert for Norwegian chocolate. Drew has been very abstemious on the chocolate front wiring until this evening to consume it. 

We proceed along the line heading for Gällivar, 8.25pm instead of 7.55pm. We are held outside Fjällåsen for a goods train to pass. This now means we will be 30 minutes late at Gällivar. 

The current position is that we will arrive in Boden (our transfer point to the Sleeper train at 10.05pm, but there is space for that to slip yet!!). The sleeper train is due to leave at 10.18pm

As the train gets slower and stops to allow other traffic past (apart from at stations there is only single track on this line) more often, thankfully we have the first announcement from the guard that the 93 train to Stockholm won't leave Boden before we arrive. A great relief for all I'm sure. 

We skipped the station at Nattavaaara and arrived at Murjek 44 minutes late at 9.34pm. [Co-pilot's note: It was here, dear readers, that I noticed that the French fella had resorted to putting up his hoody and gently rocking back and for as his children ran around him screaming!!]

Finally we arrived at Boden at 10.30pm 45 minutes late so we had to speed across the platform to get to the sleeper in time. 

The Boden train is now confirmed for 10.50pm departure, 4 minutes after we arrive. It will be on the platform opposite ours when we arrive. so we will need to walk across the platform to find our carriage and apartment 

Sleeper apartment

With everyone rushing on board the train actully leaves the station at 10.40pm on our way. We had booked a private sleeper cabin.

Which has the advantage of a private toilet,

 

which is also fitted with a sink 

and shower

We then have the challenge of making the beds - I love the look of wonder on Drew's face as he tries to compare reality with the guide on the cabin wall!

Though he mastered it all, so that he had the downstairs bunk

and I the upstairs bunk

At 11.06pm I climb up into bed, after the three hours on a train already it is certainly time to sleep.

See you in the morning all.

Did the Church move for you??

An odd title for a blog post I know - but it really did seem that Kiruna's mining company Luossavaara-Kiirunavaara AB (LKAB) had arranged to move the Kiruna church just for us.

I explained yesterday why we had come to Kiruna and I'd pictured our visit as a chance to see some of the sights of the various events in the books/TV programmes which had introduced us to the place. 

The dates we spent in Kiruna were factored by the time we had between leaving Norway and catching the plane back from Stockholm to London - so the dates we were due to be here had long been planned. 

What a surprise then, when about six weeks ago I logged on to the Kiruna website to see.

Yes, that's right, on the two days we are going to be in Kiruna (August 19th and 20th) they are going to be moving the City's Church. What a wonderful coincidence.

But before we hear more about the church move, let's start the day at the beginning - as Julie Andrews' used to sing - It's a very good place to start.

Early Morning

I slept until 4am this morning and I slept really well. Even going to bed as early as 10pm didn't stop me from sleeping through to 4am, longer than I usually sleep at home. 

Waking refreshed I started to blog about Bodø and the evening on the ferry. Drew wakes at 5.20am and I make tea for the both of us as usual. 

I go into the shower at 6am and Drew at 6.20am then walk over to the reception area for our breakfast as it starts at 7am. This is the view from our cabin front door - so it isn't far.

It is a bit of a shock to find that the weather is a bracing 6°c feeling like 4°c with the addition of the biting wind. It was a striking reminder that weather, especially temperature, is not only a determinant of position, we are 2 degrees south of Tromsø, but of the distance from the sea and power of the wind. 

Breakfast 

A large number of people have the same idea of an early breakfast with about 30 people all in a line for the food as we arrive. We manage to negotiate this large group of Spanish visitors. 

Drew struggling to see where which food was started with pancakes and cloudberry jam.

I managed to get a chia pudding and yogurt with seeds, nuts and corn, perhaps my elbowing skills are better!!

Drew then had a Finnish Ruisreikäleipä - a rye cracker with a circle in the middle. The hole had a functional purpose in the bread's development. The bread was baked in flat rings to be placed on poles suspended just below the kitchen ceiling to mature and dry in the relative warmth - meaning it would last through the long winters in Northern Finland. He had this with bacon.

I had found the pickled fish and vegetables with a Swedish brie style cheese. Interestingly the selection of pickled herring has a different taste and pickling liquid from those of nearby Norway, but they are still yummy.

I also tried a Ruisreikäleipä which is crunchy with rye flour flavour and plenty of salt.

Things having quietened down I went for a meat, egg and vegetable mixture as an alternative to the fish heavy diet of Norwegian mornings.  

Drew also had bacon and scrambled eggs, but added a boiled egg too.

To the Church

We go back to the cabin at 7.45am and leave again at 8.40am to walk down to the church, which by this time is already on the move, as we see on the live feed on the town website.

The walk to the church from Camp Ripan is 0.6 of a mile, walking back the route we walked from OK Parken the day before and going a similar distance to where the church was.

 By now this wasn't the most interesting site.

But across the road and less than a hundred yards from here was the church and the crowds. The scene is well covered in this video selection of our photos from this morning.

Though in case the sense of motion wasn't clear (actually it was) I also took a short video with my phone camara which shows the gentle trip this valuable building is on.

The event was exciting for us who were stood around watching it happening, but it made international news, with detailed reports and live church cam from the BBC and reports on the Guardian Website

Spoilers here - the BBC even recorded a timelapse video of the whole thing 

Undermining

Thinking about the church move and all the previous and planned moves in Kiruna, brings us to a word I have used for many years without thinking. My only association with undermining was someone who was hurting, not helping the personal development of another. It is only today that I suddenly realise the root and real meaning of undermining. If you dig for long enough under a building, church, town hall, house etc you are mining under it, and a sufficient amount of this mining will undermine the building by meaning it has a huge chasm below it.

LKAP are rebuilding or moving the properties in Kiruna because the worlds' voracious demands for 'rare earth' minerals mean that the mining has gone on deep under the surface here, until the buildings are undermined. Now LKAP can, rightly, say - the town wouldn't exist without the mine. It is true that before the mine development in 1890 the area was lived in by nomadic Sami people herding their reindeer, there wasn't a Kiruna as such. So, it is ironic that the resource which led to the town being built is that which has led to it being undermined and rebuilt/removed.

Indeed, the very church at the centre of today's action was designed, built and paid for by the mining company to attract workers to its area. Now they are paying to relocate the city and its heart.

Incidentally the idea of an undermined city has become a drama for Netflix called the Abyss, based on the premise of the town sinking. Being a free TV viewer I'm not likely to see it in the near future, but for those who pay for additional channels, I'm sure the setting will make it a great watch. 

Further exploration of Kiruna

We left the area of the church movement, determined to catch-up with it again tomorrow and saw a familiar name on Google Maps - the Kiruna Coop Store

Why familiar, because in one of the dramas we have watched this is the sight of an abduction and subsequent search for a young women. We visited, but came out un-abducted.

Why does this always happen to me

Regular readers of my holiday blog will know that I have a history of going to inappropriate places when walking around towns I don't know and there is seldom a holiday when this doesn't happen - well today is that day. Be it the man who started banging his head against a wall in San Francisco in 1994 or the instance of the body being forced into the boot of a car in the same city in 2002 or less salubrious places in Miami, Sydney, Paris, Havana, Rome, Dubrovnik and many others - today's the day.

Having left the Coop at 10.20am - two hours into our morning walk. I felt ready for a coffee. Drew decided to walk towards the City Centre (or New City Centre as it is called here as it was built only three years ago). I said we could look at Google Maps and using the 'Coffee' button at the top of the map saw it was only a short distance to 'Beans in Cup' so we walked into an industrial estate

Drew, having been dragged after me to such places too many times to mention, began to say, it can't be up here, but I could see it on the map

We walked further and the path moved from tarmac to scrapped earth - and 'Beans in Coffee' turned out to be a Coffee machine supplier, not a provider of caffeinated drinks - oops.

For the next half hour as we negotiated our way through the industrial estate Drew reminded me with some vigour, that it is always better to listen to a Drew. But of course, he said: "You'll never learn". 

[Co-pilot's note: I wish, dear readers, to introduce a by-line here. Our valiant blogger always insists "I know a short cut" - We all know he does not "know a short cut" but we are still dragged along behind him. I am not the sole victim of this. Poor Dr. Alice Lau, often regalad me with tales of his "expert navigation skills" when he dragged her behind him at a conference or other. Today, as well as saying: "I know a short cut" he added. "I like seeing industrial estates, it gives you the flavour of a city". It is very vexing, dear readers, very vexing.]

Lesson over we found some other dug up area of the City, this time however it was preparatory work for the church to make its stately progress tomorrow. 

We arrived at Espresso House in the New City Centre at 11.40am, yes my detour took an hour and twenty minutes.

You'll note that to avoid my usual complaint of not having as much fluid as Drew with a European size Americano - I order two to his one Caffe Latte - we needed fluids by this time.

Drew also needed his first Kanelbullar of the holiday, This Swedish fika not to be confused with the similarly named Kanelboller which he encountered in Norway.

New City Centre

Kiruna New City Centre is quite an impressive location. You can read about its transformation here

From the clock tower

to the modern Scandic Hotel

the City Hall, known as the Kristallen (Crystal)

to the new Library

and three malls built around the New Centrum as the old one begins to show the cracks of undermining. 

The centrality of the City's reliance on Iron Ore isn't missed.

Today, however it also had the role of the centre of the live - 7am to 7pm - broadcast on Swedish Television of the Church move. If you want a peaceful 15 hours (8 the first day, 7 the second) you can watch the whole thing as a piece of Swedish Slow TV here.

The poor Swedish presenter was looking freezing (see him on the left) on the stage 

and live on the big screen behind me.

Back to Camp Ripan

We left the City Centre and found that our Google mapped route back to Camp Ripan wasn't open - as the church is going that way tomorrow.

Drew again felt I was taking him down routes he would prefer not to go.

Others might have liked the large diggers all around 😉 

[Co-pilot's note: Again, dear readers, I feel the need to correct the record. Our valiant blogger was clearly informed by the co-pilot that this was a building site! The presence of cranes, diggers, rebar, people in hard hats and hi-vis jackets, all indicated the construction site nature of this area. But still we ploughed on. I would have thought, the lack of other pedestrians might have been an indicator that this was not a safe route. Very vexing, dear readers, very vexing.]

Though seeing a unicyclist on the route back was a moment of amusement.

As we are travelling by sleeper train at the end of tomorrow, we decided to stop at a small coop on our way back to Camp Ripan.

The Coop Lappgaten was only ten minutes from the camp.

Though, as per the rest of the day, the return route wasn't necessarily the most pleasant one. 

Is it Hirwaun or Dyfatty this brings to mind for you??

Drew was not, I'm sure, secretly hoping I'd slip down this slope to prove he was right again!

But it turned out Google was correct this time and at the bottom of the unlikely incline we were on the path on which our cabin is located. 

Afternoon in Camp Ripan

We arrived back at the cabin at 3.10pm and unpacked our goodies for tomorrow night    

Strange that Drew's chocolate and Oreos didn't make the picture!

Blogging

While the cabin had wifi, the connection was slow. Fine for normal use, but large uploading, editing and downloading of photos was difficult. So at 3.30pm I went across to the reception area of the camp and had an excellent connection. 

Indeed by the time Drew came to join me for coffee at 5.30pm 

I had loaded every photo we had taken up to yesterday and began a blog post.

Dinner

We had booked dinner at 8pm, late for us, but with all the arrangements about the church, the Camp is full tonight and by the time we decided to eat here again, they earlier slots had all been booked.

This evening we were offered a pre-starter of Black Bread and Seed Bread with whipped cream and beetroot. 

The black bread is the same texture and taste as a Frisian loaf Drew makes me on occasion- it is really tasty (his and theirs). The seed bread is like toasted trill with some binding agent!!

For starter Drew choose Tomato carpaccio 

The tomato carpaccio was with basil oil and strawberry chutney, served with Västerbotten cheese crème, pine nuts, bread crisps and basil. It was exceedingly tasty with a salty tang that brought out the sweetness of the tomatoes which worked really well with the cream cheese. The dressing was tangy and with the pinenuts formed a pesto crunch. 

I opted for the starter Drew had had last night - Ren - Reindeer - Croquettes of smoked suovas reindeer and grated cheese from Svedjan, served with parmesan crisps, lingonberry sauce, radish and red onion - It was lovely - the parmesan crisps were topped with fresh parmesan which tasted really well with the reindeer balls, excellent celebration of local and international prodcuts.

Drew had been planning to have the fish - Xander - tonight, but by the time we got to order they had run out, so the Halloumi Burger was his second choice

He was very happy with it though. The cheese was a standard chargrilled halloumi, with squeak, it had a ketchup type sauce with a spicy tang and the peppers added a lovely texture. 

I opted for Sirloin 

and apologies to my vegetarian and vegan friends, but it was wonderful. I asked for bleu and I got bleu, perfect cooking.

They served the Sirloin with roasted new potato salad as a side.

The salad had lots of balsamic and vinegar - brilliant flavour, the balance of hot spuds and cold tomatoes etc. worked really well.

Drew finished with a dessert called Crinkle 

The Crinkle cookie with roasted apple and nut ice cream was sweet even by Drew's standards, but there was none left remaining at the end.

We finished the meal with an espresso each, again served in a Sami wooden cup. 

We finished dinner at 10.05pm. 

During the day we have done 18,506 steps that's 8.5 miles or 13.7Km - perhaps those short-cuts weren't to short after all!!

We were glad to get to bed at 10.30pm and I was soon fast asleep.