The night before we'd asked at the ticket office in the train station and found out that trains ran pretty regular and we could get a double return ticket for 260DKK (approx £30)as long as we travelled together.
The train from Copenhagen H or Central Station was the same train that goes to the airport, it took about 40 minutes to get to Malmö - there wasn't much of a view, it was quite foggy then we went into a tunnel. When we arrived in Malmo, there were no passport checks, we just walked out into the brisk cold air of Sweden! Apparently it's one of the few border crossings where you can get away with showing only a credit card for ID.
We didn't have much of a plan for Malmö, we'd read that Lilla Torg was the square where everyone hangs out drinking coffee, but that must be reserved for the Summer months
We'd also decided to check out the Castle/Museum (Malmöhus), to get there we walked through a Cemetery which seemed to be in the middle of the town, across to a 'Kingspark' to Malmöhus. As we approached we could see the infamous Turning Torso shrouded in fog
The entrance fee was around £5/6 and as we found out included entry into all the museums in the immediate area (7 in total)- which included Malmo Museum & Castle, the Technology & Maritime Museum, a Photography Gallery - Although how you would manage to see everything in one day is beyond me! We spent a good 3 hours plus in the Castle/Museum alone.
When we arrived we were greeted with this sign,
which confused us for about a minute as we hadn't realised there were exhibitions about Apartheid, Nelson Mandela as well as the Scandinavian migration to South Africa.
In addition to these special exhibitions, there were also modern art galleries with prints, paintings etc and the castle itself which documents the history of Malmo and it's tumultuous affair with Denmark, whilst downstairs there is an exhibition of stuffed animals native to Sweden along with actual live nocturnal animals.
For lunch we ate at the Museum Cafe, this was fantastic seeing as Sweden is renowned for being expensive and a McDonald's meal was going to cost around £6 each. The main meals cost approx £7 each, I had breaded plaice with new potatoes and Danish sauce whilst he had something that looked like a giant toad in the whole but with bacon instead of sausages, included in the price was help yourself salad bar/bread, drinks from the dispensers (not bottled/canned) and tea/coffee, complete bargain!
After a hearty but much needed lunch we saw a bit more of the exhibits mentioned above then set off to investigate the other places, including the fisherman's wharf (which seemed to be closed, although to be fair, it was freezing and very quiet), a very non de-script building that had some sort of exhibition about recycling/climate change then upstairs had two contemporary photography exhibitions. The only shame about the photography gallery was that the booklets with the language translations were found at the end of the exhibition rather than at the beginning.
Onwards to the Technology & Maritime Museum, which reminded me of Manchester's Science & Industry Museum, except smaller and warmer feeling. Considering we don't speak Swedish or Danish we did ok at working out what was going on most of the time, as it seems that the further away from the Main Castle we got, the fewer the translations (and unlike London, you weren't being offered those audio guides at every turn either). In fact in some areas there were non at all, leaving you to guess that maybe the Swedes just really like motorbikes, or the wheel in general. The highlight of this museum for me was the submarine, which you could climb inside, I saw climb because you couldn't walk through it, it was tiny! Well I guess it would be bigger if you took out all the controls etc, but then it wouldn't be as much fun.
Along side the sub, there were cars, planes, bikes, motorbikes, scooters and I seem to recall a horse & carriage.
Not to mention a Viking ship.
After this we decided to head back to Denmark and made our slow walk back to the station, via an Irish pub where we had a much needed Tuborg to keep us going.
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