A 7am bus out of Gothenburg made for an early wake-up call. Mercifully, whatever I pulled or twinged in my back the previous day seemed to have improved, as I was able to walk around again. For some reason, our tickets to Copenhagen included a 15 minute bus ride to Mölndal before transferring to a train. We were lucky we were at the bus stop a bit early as that enabled us to get a seat. Either there were multiple buses back-to-back or they’d overbooked substantially, as there was a line of at least 20 or so people at the stop as our bus pulled away.

It was a gloriously sunny day for our only full day in Gothenburg. I had heard that it was a great food city, so we thought we’d spend the day on a relaxing culinary tour. First stop, of course, was coffee. While we had stopped at Da Matteo the previous afternoon, they have 2 locations, and D wanted to check out the roaster location. Hilariously enough, it was right across the square from the other location. We walked along the river through the bustling commercial district to the roaster, which had a vastly different feel than its other location.

From there, we wandered the streets, through a colourful (in several senses of the word) square, until we reached the harbour. We stopped in for a coffee and some pastries (a tasty cinnamon bun and a custard filled pastry) at Baker Brun, which was apparently established in 1893. Caffeinated and sugared-up nicely, we set out to explore the harbour around the bay of Vågen. Bryggen (Old Town) lines the waterfront with cute and brightly coloured buildings.

It was an early start, as we had an 8 am train to catch. However, it was convenient to get down to the train station. We grabbed some sandwiches from a deli for breakfast and hopped on our first train of the day. I'd booked us on a Norway in a Nutshell tour, which isn't a "tour" in the traditional sense with tour guides and a group that you follow around but simply arranged transport from one place to another. We spent about 4.5 hours on a train from Oslo to Myrdal, a relaxing ride through the countryside, passing colourful farm houses, frozen lakes and streams and through Hallingskarvet National Park--an expansive snow-covered plateau.

It was another slow-going start, as D was eager to return to Tim Wendelboe for another taste of their coffee. We meandered our way down in time for them to open, and he had another double hit of coffee with an aeropress and a double espresso, which were both thoroughly delicious. Happily caffeinated, we headed off to catch a tram to see the Viking Ship Museum. No good trip to Norway would truly be complete without some kind of Viking fun.

We were fairly leisurely in getting going, as our first stop was a renowned coffee shop, Tim Wendelboe, which opened at 11 am. Thankfully, it was only a relatively short walk away, and we rolled in right as it opened. Perhaps the most striking thing we noticed right off the bat was it wasn’t really set up as a coffee shop, as there were only a handful of chairs. Ultimately, the space was roaster-oriented, with a coffee shop attached in order to showcase the beans. D ordered an aeropress of their Ethiopian beans. He declared it to be the best aeropress he’d ever had–light bodied, tangy, tart but sweet.

One of the major disadvantages to staying at a hostel is that it tends to attract certain crowd of folk, some of which like to return to the hostel at 3 am and hang out in the hallway to have protracted, boisterous conversations. Such was the occasion last night, which made for not ideal sleeping conditions. We groggily got our things together and opted to take a cab back to Central Station to make life easier, which also had the perk of giving us a bit more time. We grabbed a quick bite for breakfast and headed out to catch our train to Oslo.

It was another leisurely start for us, perhaps the lingering aftereffects of our hefty meal last night, though D was able to put in a bit of work before we left for the day. We had planned to go to the National Museum; however, a quick check of their website determined that they had closed for extensive renovations (I think within the last couple of weeks) and wouldn’t re-open until 2017, though they would have a temporary exhibition somewhere in June. As a result, I had no major plans for the day other than to explore some of the other islands surrounding Gamla Stan.

I thought that we’d gotten off to a nice early start when D and I both woke up around 7 am. We puttered around for a bit, but it wasn’t long before a quick “closing of the eyes” turned into a couple of hours. As a result, it wasn’t until 11 am until we got ourselves out the door. Apparently, Scandinavia is wild about great coffee, and as such, there are a number of boutique coffee roasters and coffee shops to choose from. Naturally, we had to try one out, so we headed off in search of Drop Coffee in Södermalm, what’s apparently a very bohemian, trendy district of Stockholm.

It was short ride to the central station in Stockholm, and we were soon off the shuttle bus, getting our bearings. A couple of years of extensive smartphone map use has apparently made us less competent at deciphering maps. We ended up dragging our bags on those snowy, gravel-strewn sidewalks in the completely the wrong direction before finally turning around and taking a somewhat circuitous route in the right direction. When we finally circled back to the other end of the central station. Tired from dragging our luggage around, we ultimately just hopped in a pricey cab to take us over to our hotel.