Travel
Spring in Scandinavia
publish on this page articles and notes which may help our readers in their plans for travel at home and abroad. They are written by correspondents who have visited the places described. We shall be glad to answer questions arising out of the Travel articles published in our columns. Inquiries should be addressed to the Travel Manager, The SpEcrAron, 99 Gower Street, W.C.1.] UNFORTUNATELY I have only been to Norway and Sweden in summer ; but I long to go to Finse for the ski-ing this Easter, and I have accumulated enough information, from my own travels and from questions and guide-books, to be of use, perhaps, to some lucky reader whose time and money are not so limited as mine.
First, how to get there. The best way to go to Norway is by Newcastle and Bergen. The Jupiter,' Venus ' and Leda ' cross the North Sea every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday respectively, in about twenty-seven hours, the last five of which, are in smooth fjord water. The Jupiter' timings are as follows : Leave King's Cross, London, at 10 a.m. Tuesday ' • arrive Newcastle 8.30 p.m. ; Tyne Commission Quay 4.80 p.m. ; Bergen 7 p.m. Wednesday ; leave Bergen by sleeper 9.50 p.m., arriving Oslo (if that be your destination) at 9.50 a.m. Thursday morning. An evening train lands you in Stockholm the following day.
The first-class fare from Newcastle to Oslo, including a single sleeper from Bergen on the very comfortable Norwegian trams, is £11 2s. To Stockholm (and, of course, also to Oslo) there are also land and air routes; you can leave Paris at 12.15 p.m. Monday and going by Hamburg and Stralsund, reach the Swedish capital at 8 a.m. Wednesday morning. The cost works out at about £20, as also does the air route by K.L.M. and Lufthansa. Details of these and other routes can be supplied by Messrs. Bennett's Travel Bureau, 66 Haymarket, S.W.1. If heavy luggage be not taken, the overland route is not very expensive, yet on the whole the Newcastle-Bergen route is best. The ships are well found, the food and cabin accommodation good, and the North Sea not half so had in reality as it is in imagination.
The Scandinavian ski-ing season may be said to last from March to May ; first in the valleys, then the highlands. Mr. Becket Williams in his Winter Sport in Europe (Bell, 7s. 6d.) is a good guide to sports-centres and hotels ; he is of the opinion that the best ski-ing grounds in Sweden are: (1) Solleftea, (2) Leksand and Rattvik, (8) Stockholm and surroundings, (4) Kiruna, (5) Hudiksvall, (6) Are, (7) Storlien ; and he adds that Sweden is cheaper than Norway. Neither are expensive, however, so far as my experience goes. Except in the capitals it should be possible to obtain en pension terms of from 10s. to 15s. a day, which compares favourably with Switzerland. In Norway, he recommends Trondhjem (which will be too far north and rather inaccessible for most people) and says of Finse (which is much nearer, being midway between Bergen and Oslo)—" the country around is quite perfect for skiers . . . Dozens of slopes, easy and difficult, surround the hotel . • . The St. Paul run affords an easy climb and a delicious descent, which is never too hard for the least skilled, and can be lengthened in as many ways as there are ridges tothe hills." But there is another side to the picture. Blizzards. Ice and snow. " Still, when Finse is good, it is wonderful, and it is not yet in our power to control the winds and rains."
Ski-ing in Scandinavia is a national sport. The jump turns and Christianas favoured by Anglo-Swiss experts are not so much in evidence : turns and twists are regarded as incidentals to the true purpose of this glorious sport, which is to cross great ranges of snow-bound country and survey the inimitable panoramas of the North. Do not expect the fashions of St. Moritz, the glitter of Gstadv. There will be dancing in the evening, and perhaps illuminated ice-skating, but that is all. The Scandinavians are an active race : their snow-slopes are the widest in the world. After a day on them, food and sleep will be the better.portion.
But the inwardness of a visit to Norway or Sweden cannot be exactly measured by the sporting amenities, good as these are. There is something in that white world which speaks straight to the heart of the Englishman. Men and women are tall, and fair, and free from those cares and cramping:: which inhibit the happiness of less fortunate and more densely- populated lands. Democracy—that much abused term— is here really in being. War .psychology is unknown. Sport is not an affair of the boxing ring or the football stadium : it is the play of the whole people. All Oslo is on skis for the Holmkollen meeting ; all Scandinavia seeks the sea in summer. Fresh air and exercise are not the privileges of the few ; there are no downtrodden toilers, no idle rich (or at any rate very few). The two Royal Families ride in trams, ski, and skate with their people. Swedes and Norwegians laugh and work and play much- as we do ; they are of our own blood, but without some of the inevitable penalties of our Imperial greatness. It is good to live amongst them fora time, and to find again in ourselves some of the deepest of racial memories
We can be citizens of the world and yet prefer to live amongst " our own people." In Scandinavia, the British traveller
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