Swedish Lapland study trip

This is how "product testing" looks like, when me and my colleague's check out what we actually sell to our clients, i.e. to the tourists.
End of November 2013 I went with 5 of my colleagues to experience (a slightly modified version of) one of our bestselling tours, a tour to Swedish Lapland including night train from Stockholm to Boden, overnight in the spectacular Treehotel, the "cool" Ice Hotel and with some luck some beautifully shining Northern Lights dancing at the skies over the Abisko Nationalpark :-)
We sightly adapted this tour for us to a little bit tighter schedule.

For a detailed outline about the tour (and eventually book it for yourself): click here.
For pictures of our great tour: just stay on this page and scroll down!


Thursday, 28th November:
In the early evening, after work, the six of us (Wiebke, Asta and Johanne from Authentic Scandinavia, Jana and Michelle from Haman Scandinavia and me from Terra Nova) went to Oslo Airport Gardermoen to take a flight at 08:05 p.m. to Stockholm airport and from where we embarked at around 10:30 p.m. the night train northwards to Swedish Lapland, to Boden. We were even upgraded to 1st class, compartments with private bathroom! "Luxury" :-)

 

Friday, 29th November:
Good morning - somewhere with the train in Northern Sweden, having breakfast on board.

10:30 a.m. arrival Boden station, where we were picked up by Graeme Richardson from Visit Luleå, the regional tourism board.

Transfer to the Treehotel in Harads. When we arrived at Treehotel, we checked in at Britta’s Pensionat where they serve breakfast, lunch and dinner for Treehotel guests. Britta’s Pensionat has an authentic 1930-50s setting and offers a restaurant, bar, sauna and relaxation area. Maybe it’s the inviting sofas, details that remind you of past times, or the crackling fire that accentuates the calmness and cosyness of this place? One could feel at home there!

We were welcomed by Britta, one of the founders of this great place in the nature and the manager of the hostel. While we enjoyed lunch, coffee and biscuits, Graeme presented the region to us.

 

After lunch we met with Kent who is running and managing Treehotel and the hostel together with Britta. He led us a short stroll through nature to the tree rooms located in the tall pine forest with spectacular views of the Lule River. The tree rooms are suspended 4-6 metres above the ground and are accessible by ramp, bridge, or electric stairs.
Each room is unique. Not only the architecture but also its furniture, lighting and fabrics are custom designed. The rooms vary in size between 15-30 m², with the largest rooms accommodating up to four people.
The daily operations as well as the tree room’s construction are environmentally friendly, aimed to have minimal impact on nature. That’s why each room has modern, environmentally-friendly combustion toilets and water-efficient sinks.

As of today, Treehotel offers 6 unique tree "rooms" built in 2010 and designed by some of Scandinavia’s leading architects. We visited one by one. In addition there is also a tree sauna for up to twelve people, situated among the centuries-old pines.

The Cabin (for more info click here):

 

The Bird's Nest (for more info click here):

 

The Tree Sauna (for more info click here):

 

The "Blue" Cone (for more info click here):

 

 

The Dragonfly (for more info click here):

 

 What a view from a toilet!

 

The Ufo (for more info click here):

 

 

The Mirrorcube (for more info click here):

 

  Jana and Michelle on the mirrorcube's rooftop terrace.

Totally impressed by this place we return to Britta's Pensionat for some biscuits and "glögg" (sort of Glühwein) to warm up.

 Then Britta showed us around in the hostel with its various rooms.

 

In the afternoon (yes it was already dark outside), surprise activity from Kent: camp fire with freshly smoked reindeer "kebap".

Afterwards the six of us relaxed and enjoyed the warmth of the sauna - sparkling wine and chocolate included. 

Lovely dinner home made by Britta: so delicious we simply had to ask her for the recipe of that yummy salmon soup and the juicy raspberry tarte - and even got it from her :-)

After dinner we walked back to our "hotel room". Except for the mirrorcube which was booked by a couple, all tree rooms were free and we were allowed to chose in which two rooms we'd like to sleep. While Asta and Johanne opted for the dragonfly, the other four of us chose to stay overnight in the red "blue" cone.

Saturday, 30th November:

Wow, those beds were comfortable!!! What a pity that the night was so damn short! We already had to get up at 4 a.m. to catch an early train departing Boden at around 6 a.m. Britta had prepared breakfast packages for us which we could eat in the train on our way to Kiruna, Sweden's northernmost city.

Upon arrival we were picked up by Karine from the Ice Hotel in Jukkarsjärvi.

She led us around the property, showing us the warm chalets...

  ...the warm apartments...

...and the probably coolest accommodation: the Ice Hotel itself. Unfortunately it was still one week to the official opening, so for security reasons we were not allowed to enter the construction site for a little closer look around before the hotel wasn't finished.

...and the Ice Bar.

 

Not even two hours later, Karin had brought us back to town, to Kiruna where another site inspection followed: at the Scandic Hotel Ferrum.

Iron ore extraction is one of the key industries of the area and the town actually is constructed above a huge mine. Due to the iron ore exploitation the city is actually sinking. The ground deformations became apparent in 2003, so in 2004 it was decided that the present centre of the municipality would have to be relocated to counter mining-related subsidence. As a consequence several buildings are to be moved or demolished and the town center of Kiruna is to be moved 3 kilometers to the east.

Apart from that there is nothing too spectacular about this city. It seems that due to the relocation inhabitants do not care anymore about how their city looks like and seem reluctant to put any effort in keeping it beautiful. I can understand them: why investing money in reparations, major cleaning and renovation projects if their effort won't last?

So after the hotel visit we grabbed some lunch in a nearby rundown cafeteria, waiting for our train journey onwards to Abisko.

In the afternoon, at 3.30 p.m. we arrived at Abisko Turiststation (consisting of a railway station of the same name and the Abisko Youth Hostel) where we were welcomed by Lotta.

She showed us around the hotel and hostel facilities.

At 6 p.m. Lotta took us up to the Aurora Sky Station. A 20 minutes ride by chair lift brought us up to the top of a mountain in the middle of the Abisko Nationalpark where you find a small restaurant where we were served a delicious 5-courses dinner.

Abisko, in the middle of the auroral zone, is considered to be the best place on earth to see the Aurora Borealis. With its fresh, clear air and its practically permanent cloud-free sky the prerequisites in Abisko are optimal. More or less active northern lights can be seen almost every night. And so, yes, we were lucky and saw some Northern Lights :-) Luckily our colleague Wiebke had brought a good camera to take the below pictures of that evening's auroras :-)

Simply magnificent!!!

Even during our chair lift ride back to the village the some weak lights were shining in the sky.

Overnight at the tourist station hotel.

Sunday, 01st December:

Breakfast - that morning at a more human time - followed by a short visit of the Abisko Mountain Lodge.

 

 We weren't really impressed by this place. The nicest thing there was probably the big snowman :-)

At 11:30 a.m. we were brought to Abisko train station for yet another train journey.

This time the train would bring us over the border to Narvik in Norway, located at the end of this fjord.

Since we had quite a lot of time to kill before taking the shuttle bus from Narvik city to the Evenes airport we spontaneously visited the Quality Hotel Grand Royal.

We had our suitcases with us and outside was too much snow to go anywhere else, so we simply sat in the hotel bar. A couple of coffees and about 50 Christmas songs played on the radio (enjoyed by me, but not appreciated by all of my colleagues!) later, we were finally sitting in the shuttle bus on our way to the airport. Being just tired.

This was really an impressive trip!!! I can really call myself lucky that this is (part of) my work to visit such great places (on the company's account of course). Work could be worse :-)

But now I was tired and just wanted to get home to Oslo, to Marco!