X2K Train Malmö-Copenhagen. Photo by Hugh Llewelyn

The main train booking site in Sweden is sj.se. To get the cheapest ticket you can, a great advice is to book in low traffic days like Mondays and too book early, because last minute deals are only for retires and youngster under 26. Last minute can be bought the last 24 hours before departure.

Another alternative is to buy the tickets at Tradera.se where SJ is placing their unsold train tickets on auction with the outgoing price as 1 SEK. Book your train ticket on the internet or in the ticket automat at the station to get the lowest booking fee. Also check the different train types, very often the speed train X200 is more expensive.

Personally (and many others with me) I find SJ’s new system to buy tickets more complicated, I like the way it were before when there were normal ticket prices and last minute prices.

There are also the alternative to book with veolia-transport.se, for example between Malmö – Stockholm or Malmö – Berlin. Their ticket system is with fixed ticket rates.

Both the Resrobot at reseplanerare.resrobot.se (mobile app too) and resplus.se are very useful travel tools if you decide to take a train trip.

You can find a list with all the tracks in Sweden at www.jarnvag.net, (info in Swedish) and lots of other information. Especially interesting if you’re a train enthusiast, since they also keep a list of Museum railways (even some steam trains).

If going from Stockholm Arlanda Airport in to Stockholm City I recommend taking the express train arlandaexpress.se to/from Arlanda since the traffic is sometimes not so reliable, with the train you’re always in time. They also use to have a journey time guarantee, so if you’re not in time, check if they pay you back the ticket price.

To travel locally within Stockholm County you can go by the subway. Timetables for the Stockholm subway can be found at sl.se and it goes rather far out in the suburbs. Make sure you get the right ticket card to lower your subway ticket fee’s, because buying only one ticket at the moment, is going to be expensive for you.

There are available SL cards I recommend that’s valid from 24h up to 7 days (and beyond if you plan to stay for long), but if you’re going to do sightseeing which includes a lot of museums and other attractions, I do recommend to get the Stockholm Card from the tourist office. It’s worth it and makes things a lot easier.

©Lifecruiser Love Train Rides

Other train travel related posts at Lifecruiser:

Travel News: Arctic Circle Pass by SJ
Where to go by train from Madrid
How to find cheap holiday deals from Sweden
 

The building has been nominated to Stockholm Building 2010 for it’s design by the Swedish architect Per Johanson, who played with pastel-colored balcony windows glass as a contrast to the white side of the house which continues over the roof and is supposed to make the house look like it’s upside down U-shaped – at least on a a distance.

What’s so special (read scary!) with this house is the balcony rail of glass from floor to ceiling that hangs like a loose plate outside the balcony itself. I’m afraid of heights myself, so my first thought was how I would dare to go to the front of the balcony rail without getting the feeling of falling down…

When traveling by the subway train passing by the house, you get many reflexes in the colored glass on the house. The more practical side of me thought: how difficult to clean the windows, so much glass everywhere – and how to clean the outside?

I suppose they hire professional windows cleaners to get the job done and not hanging out from there themselves. Phew!

This whole area at Brommaplan is now in the plans of renewing with 600 new apartments as well as 14000 kvm shopping/service areas and it was not a day too early if I should be honest! It’s a bit worn down and not effective used today.

Stockholm is growing and developing – all places need to catch the modern time we are in even though we also need to keep the wonderful old architecture Stockholm has too.

©Lifecruiser Love Stockholm
 

To celebrate Midsummer we did choose to go to the Midsummer meadow at Bromma Church School of all the places in Stockholm were there were Midsummer celebrations. The reason why we did choose this place was because of the old surroundings – and the folk dance.

We arrived there just in time to not miss the most important: the folk dancers from Bromma folkdansgille. The sun did shine through the clouds and the festive atmosphere made us in a very good mood.

We did check out the surroundings too and as long as we were there, the weather gods were with us, no rain until later when we had gone home!!!!

Bromma church is situated in the western suburbs and is one of the oldest in Stockholm. It has also been voted the city’s most beautiful by Stockholm’s Radio listeners once in 2006, another reason for us to be curious.

The oldest part is the round part of the church, which was built around the year 1160 or 1170 and that is also the part of the church which I love the most. The baroque hood with the 8 squared lantern roof and high steeple were added at 1681, other parts at different times.

The church is not only beautiful on the outside, it also contains medieval paintings from the late 15th century, so it’s worth taking a look inside too.

See also Lifecruiser photo slideshow Midsummer 2009 with more photos both of the folk dancers and the church, including some photos of our dinner at home.

How to get there: Take the metro (T-bana) to Brommaplan, then Bus 117 to Gliavägen 100, Bromma kyrka.

Lifecruiser ♥ Bromma Midsummer
 

When we arrived in Vienna at Schwedenplatz (2 Sept 2008), we didn’t have to walk far to get to the wonderful Stephansplatz with the magnificent Stephansdom or St. Stephen’s Cathedral as it’s called in English.

The cathedral stands on the ruins of two former churches and the current one in Gothic and Romanesque style was initiated by Rudolf IV, completed in the year of 1160.

It’s said to be one of the tallest churches in the world: 107 meters (350 ft) long, 40 meters (131 ft) wide, and 136 meters (445 ft) tall at the highest point.

It’s a giant building masterpiece and I for sure noticed that when trying to take a photo of it. Just look at that wonderful roof – and how small all the people is!

I felt like a small ant looking up at an elephant and no matter how far I walked away from it, I still had problems to get all of the cathedral within my photo.

It’s built of limestone and has over the centuries blackened from soot and air pollutions, but I’m glad that restoration projects have begin to get it back to its original white color. It would be such a shame to not show it off.

The Stephansdom has 23 bells and it was because of them the composer Ludwig van Beethoven discovered the totality of his deafness. He did see the birds flying out of the bell tower when the bells were ringing, but he didn’t hear the bells at all.

If you’re a fan of Sara Brightman, you might recognize it since she made a concert there in 2008 to promote her album Symphony with both a TV broadcast and a DVD release. (source: Wikipedia)

There are lots of interesting architecture in Vienna, so if you’re interested you’ll have a marvelous time for sure!

Around the Stephansplatz lays several big shopping streets with lots of cafes and restaurants making it to a very pleasant area to just hang around.

However, we were on our way with our weekend trolleys to our booked Hostel, so we took the subway from Stephensplatz to Westbahnhof.

We did get the Vienna Card (around 18 Euro) which gave us three days of unlimited travel on public transports (and discounted entrance to some Museums).

For us it did benefit us even more, because we were supposed to get a stamp on our tickets in the machines when entering, but we totally missed that part, so our tickets were good all the time we were there…

Lifecruiser ♥ Vienna