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Sweden/Norway March 2024 This trip was to revisit Scandinavia but more importantly, catch the Northern Lights which had been showing brightly for months. Figured a return trip to Tromsø Norway would take care of that and wanted to add the rocking city of Gothenburg Sweden. Also decided to go back to Stockholm for the first time since 2006 and Bergen Norway since 2011 (previous Norway trip here. ). Kind of weird to return to so many places when my list is long and time is getting short, but so be it. Pretty easy flight and super quick ride into town to check into our hotel a 5 min walk away. The Hotel Royal is the oldest in Gothenburg and was great. A pretty, classic place with free water, coffee and baked goods. As usual no time to relax so we went out to find my fave Scandi treat, the kardemummabullar. It's like a cinnamon roll with cardamom and Cafe de Matteo provided a great one. Wandered into the cathedral, checked out BrewDog pub and was told they did trivia on Sun. so made note of that. Up the street was the Steampunk Bar, cool place and the crazy gin drink was good. Regrouped to get ready for the rock show and finally decided on dinner at All Day then on to Pustervik to see my new boys Upploppet opening for long time band Sator (whose LP I bought my first time in Stockholm eons ago). I thought the youngsters kicked ass, sounding a lot like Gluecifer. Sator were fine but not as exciting as the boys. We tried to go for a last drink but no place fit the bill, so time to (try to) sleep, after grabbing the best bargain of the trip at KFC.
Sunday we walked to the Gothenburg Museum of Art which had great exhibits and a ping pong table (I lost). Also checked out the touristy Haga part of town for souvenirs then a delish schnitzel lunch at Schnitzelplatz then more sweets. Also stopped by Mina Fine Art for cool modern pop art. Later we hit the Brew Dog for trivia (in English) and I actually knew/guessed that Örebro was the answer to a question. Nice people working and sitting by us. We then made our way to 2112 owned by some guys in In Flames. It was unusually quiet so we got to chat with bartenders Simon and Mike and listen to Backyard Babies and other good stuff they had lined up, plus enjoy an amazing burger. Scandinavian prices used to shock me but since Boston got so pricy after Covid, it's not that different now. The trivia guy showed up at 2112 and we could have just hung there but I wanted to head over to Rock Baren. A much darker bar with some odd people but it was fun talking to a bunch of drunk Scots. Monday we took a ferry to see the Gothenburg archipelago which was fine, felt like it was something that needed to be done. It was a lovely day but not much to do and we missed the earlier ferry back, so spent more time there than needed but had a great doner kebab. When we got back to town, we went to Dirty Records but they were closed. Mr. Cake provided more sweet treats as we wandered around and later it was awesome drinks at Avalon and an excellent, fancier dinner at Bord 27.
Tuesday was a 3 hour train ride to Stockholm, then we did the 30 min walk to our Scandic Malmen hotel in the Södermalm part of town. It was a bit from the train station but super close to the club (I knew it was close when I booked it but not *that* close). The Swedes have this term "fika" which is basically a coffee break, so we hit Espresso House, the Caffe Nero of Scandi. Checked out the exhibits at Fotografiska and headed back, but not before Andrew got a hot dog at the cart by our hotel. Time for the show with Michael Monroe at Biblioteket which I had assumed was the full band who have been to Boston a couple times. I quickly bought tix online in Boston then realized it was acoustic, just him along with Rich who plays guitar in his band (and was in the Black Halos), so my excitement was dampened. We went in thinking maybe some of the dudes from the Hellacopters would be hanging out but no famous rocking Swedes (that I knew of at least). The club seemed too nice for rock, the kind of spot where they sell bottles of champagne. It finally filled up, the boys got on stage and happily, it was an excellent show. Plus we had the bonus guest star Dregen (of the Hellacopters and has also played with MM) for a few songs. After, we headed to Garlic & Shots where we ate back in 2006 where on a very quiet nite, I got an awesome photo op with the Hellacopters who had also shown up). This time we had a good burger then hung out with new pals Gene and Johann who were at the show (as were many people at the bar plus Danko Jones promoting a new beer). Who comes in but Dregen, so now my attention was focused on scoring another photo op. Got some really fun pics with him, met the owner who's also in a Stockholm metal band (whose name I'm spacing on) and had a great nite overall.
Dregen had told us that Michael Monroe was staying at our hotel so I had a feeling I'd see him at breakfast. Sure enough, he shows up and I accosted him at the buffet for a pic, man he had so much makeup on at 8:30AM haha. Then it was time for more touristy things like walking to the Skansen area where a lot of the museums are. Skipped the Abba one and the Nordic Museum (where we should have gone) and decided on the Viking Museum which was fine. Returned to the restaurant Bakfickan and ordered the same food as 2006, their famous Swedish meatballs and crayfish toast, very tasty. Dinner that night was at the Hairy Pig then a fancy drink at Tweed and as we walked back to our part of town, we caught a little of a cover band doing Dio, Maiden, etc. And I finally had a good night of sleep yay.
Thurs. I putzed around on my own and visited the City Museum which Tommy from Stupidity had told me was hosting a punk photo exhibit. I only knew a couple of the bands but it was cool as were the other things in there ranging from art to the city history, and it was free! Walked some more, stopped for an expensive coffee and cake, then hung out at Sound Pollution records. What a fun time yapping with William and Wilhelm (who's in the Janitors). They kindly gave me a free shirt that I was able to shrink down to fit, woo hoo. That nite we hit a couple places with Tommy and Erniz from Stupidity. We started at Bränerian, serving lots of gin drinks. Tommy picked Östgötakällaren for dinner, a place that looked a lot older than it was. Very homestyle menu, I got a cutlet bigger than two heads. Andrew and I then made one last stop at Garlic & Shots, highly recommend that place. We chatted with our friendly night manager Robert at the Malmen when we got back, but then sleep was not kind to me as *someone's* notifications wouldn't shut up on their phone. I was up way earlier than needed, even for a 4:30AM pick up. The original plan was to just get a ride to the train station then take that to the airport, but he talked us into taking the ride all the way. Where yours truly got out of the cab realizing that my phone had fallen out of my back pocket. Total spazz attack running after him but getting one of his co-workers. Thankfully I had the receipt with our driver's # on it so he eventually came back, tried handing me two other phones before I finally got mine, and $20 later we were ready to fly to Tromsø, with way too much time to sit in the airport. Nick, our Air BnB host, offered to pick us up at the airport which was sweet. The space was decent but damn, they don't believe in salt or dirt on those icy hills. The place wasn't ready, so he dropped us off in town where we grabbed coffee and a croissant at a funky café, walked around and reacquainted ourselves with the city, then got in line for our excursion visiting reindeer. Took a bus about 45 min, got a lesson on the Lapland area (keep in mind, we're 200 miles north of the Arctic Circle), got a bucket of food to feed the sometimes aggressive reindeer, took a little sleigh ride getting pulled by a reindeer, then ate it in a stew. Ironic? Mean? A little weird for sure. Back in town we stopped at Aunegarden for nice Nordic drinks, walked some more then needed dinner. Got a rec for pizza which sounded good to both of us and after checking out the menu and feel of a couple places, we decided on La Famiglia. It was excellent but sadly we learned the next day that while we were sitting inside, we missed the only Northern Lights of the 3 days there. WTF, the whole reason for going and we're eating freaking pizza. Walked back up the hill keeping our eyes to the sky, and I got up several times to look for them (that Air BnB had reviews of people seeing them from there), but alas….
On Sat. Andrew got out before me so I met him after making my way down the icy hill with crampons on and hung at a cute cafe for a bit. Then we walked across the bridge to the Arctic Church which we didn't go in having gone previously. Revisited Olhallen who have a million beers, went into a free tiny museum, then over to Backbeat records. That evening was drinks at Nitty Gritty then a burger at the famous Blårock which has the coolest posters and tabletops of bands I love. Someone was actually playing later that nite and that's when we met their photographer Daniel who showed us the pic of the lights we had missed the nite before. We decided to get drinks at Misfit Tiki Bar, they were super nice and made a great pisco sour (not the easiest). Sunday was more wandering including a stop at Full Steam which is both a restaurant and a museum showing life in a Nordic harbor town. Waited in a short line at the famous Raketten Bar for a reindeer hot dog then back to Blårock to take photos when it wasn't crowded, then a beer at Robura. We got a quick dinner of fish n chips at sports bar, Hjemmebane, which was packed for a soccer game and close to the dock where our cruise to see the Northern Lights was scheduled. Well, "to see" in the abstract sense. It was a lovely cruise with a free drink and bowl of soup, but you already know, we had no luck with the lights. We decided that our final drink should be at Bastard Bar, another cool place we'd gone to before, and it was now time for stop 4 of the Scandinavian tour.
On Mon. we cabbed it to the airport for an 8AM flight to Bergen (our second ever electric vehicle on the trip) then took the tram into town which was super easy. Not easy was our check in at the Radisson Blu. They upgraded us after two previous attempts to get into a room failed. Before dealing with this hassle, we got coffee and snacks at a café where minstrel types were hanging out (who knows what was going on with them), then to Apollon Records which also serves a million beers but didn't have one then, saw a Worshipper record on sale tho. That evening we returned to the bar Biblioteket where we had wonderful drinks 13 years ago, just ok this time. Got an amazing dinner at Pingvinen then stumbled into this bar Utidi, very cute and wish we'd gotten back there.
We walked to Mt. Ulriken and took the cable car up (and back) on Tuesday. Lots of people making what looked like a difficult climb up, one woman with a baby on her back. A guy did some hang gliding which was cool to see. Got back into town and split a lamb sausage, hit another Espresso House for my final cardamom treat then Andrew got a beer at Apollon where he bought a record. Walked around the fortress, did some souvenir shopping and regrouped for the travel agent dinner. We had a very disappointing start at the super fancy bar of the Opus XVI hotel. Let's just say what I assumed would be an easy/standby drink to make (a Cosmo) came out in a rocks glass filled with ice. That's so wrong. Much better was the excellent dinner at Brygelloftet & Stuene, from 1910 and supposedly a bit of a tourist trap. but who cares when it's that good. We then walked over to Lampemannen, a cute little bar with lots of deco and 60's lamps and a very good espresso martini. We called it a nite.
Wed. was sadly a rainy, crappy day, which Bergen is known for (but thankfully in two visits, just two bad days). To backtrack, I forgot to get in touch with Kjarten earlier, who I met at a Muck/Fadeaways show at Precinct shortly after being in Bergen back in 2011. He works most nites and sometimes the hours get extended so that's why Tues. nite didn’t work out. Instead after going to the Kode Art Museum and two others (thankfully close to each other so avoiding the rain a little), we met him for lunch. Well, we had lunch, he only had a coffee. It was nice seeing him after all this time, he's "all growed up" with a child and the crazy guy I knew in Boston then at a festival in Spain isn't quite as crazy anymore. I really wanted to check out Frescohallen for an afternoon beverage, very posh with beautiful murals. Yes I drink way more on vacation but the chance I'm back to most of these places is pretty slim. We finished shopping and got drenched one more time. Stayed close by for dinner at FG Restaurant then had a final drink and game of pool at the cool Salong Bar. Watched some more Law & Order SVU (always defaulting to shitty American TV) and thus ended 12 nites in Sweden and Norway. So many more places to visit there, but the next big trip will be a bit further south. And seeing my boys Monster Magnet who are on tour!!!
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