To begin, a brief overview:
We went for 6 nights, broken out with the 1st night on the SJ sleeper train, 2 nights at The Yellow House in Kiruna, 4th night on the SJ sleeper train back and 2 nights at The Red Boat in Stockholm.
Both of those aren’t great websites, but they give you an idea of what the hostel was like. The Yellow House is amazing–with a furnished kitchen, nice shower/bathroom, and enough room for everyone to be standing at once.
The Red Boat is rather novel, but lacks the key aforementioned trait of The Yellow House–there is not enough room for both people in the room to be standing at the same time, much less getting ready/packing. Needless to say, getting ready to go anywhere was a bit of a fiasco.
Sleeper trains are awesome. I love trains. If only we cheap and usable trains in the U.S….[On a side note, at least Seattle is FINALLY getting some type of light rail. Though 2023, REALLY?!]
Just to give you an idea of our 17-hour train ride, here is a route map. See Stockholm, in the middle? Now look all the way up. There you will find Kiruna, near Norway. 17 hours. (Actually, there was a disabled train on our way up, so it took 21 hours on the way there. But they did give us free food. I had Elk.)
Instead of carrying on with words, here is a selection of photos give you an idea of the trip:
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- We had 5 hours in Stockholm before catching our train to Kiruna. We walked around. This picture was at 3 p.m., as the sun started to set.
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- It was icy and cold. But super fun.
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- I was balancing my camera on random rocks etc. to get a long enough exposure. Hence the weird angles.
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- We hiked up a ski mountain and saw the Northern lights. It was awesome.
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- Reindeer are cooler in theory then in reality. But seeing them was still fun.
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- These glassblowers were also at Skansen: http://www.skansen.se/
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- This, along with the mine, are the two main attractions of Kiruna.
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- Dog sledding in Kiruna
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- This was our last night, walking back to the Red Boat
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