Swedish Train Cruises Give “Different” Holiday

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27928, 27 March 1956, Page 15

Swedish Train Cruises Give “Different” Holiday

(From a Reuter Correspondent)

STOCKHOLM. Train cruises are Sweden’s solution to the problem of finding “a holiday that is different.”

Other countries organise cruises in steamers, large and small, round their coasts, and coach trips which explore tne interior of the country by road. Sweden has the coaches for those who want them and she also has steamers cruising on her many beautiful lakes and rivers.

But for those in search for something more novel, she uses her highly developed and well organised network of all-electric railways in an unique way. Special trains become not merely a means of transport but also hotel, sight-seeing base and social centre. They have many advantages. They can, for example, travel long distances by night, leaving the day free for sightseeing.

From the tourist’s point of view, too, train cruises sav’e the tiresome packing and unpacking of the suitcases at hotel after hotel, day after day. Above all, they offer great variety at a moderate cost, amounting to just under £2 a day-in most cases. The all-in charge includes everything that would be included in a sea cruise or coach tour—full board and lodging, sightseeing excursions, entrance fees, tips and the services of an expert guide who speaks English, and usually German and French as well.

Tlie tourist this summer has a good choice of area which he can visit on one of these train cruises: the “Lake District” of Varmland and Dalecarlia; Lapland, far inside the Arctic Circle and the land of the sunlit nights; or the mountains of central Sweden, from Ostersund to Storlien on the Norwegian border. One tour which takes in the last named train cruise and includes a whole day in Stockholm, costs only £49 10s for a 15-day round trip from London back to London. It begins and ends with a short sea cruise, because the North Sea crossing by Swedish Lloyd steamer from Tilbury to Gothenburg is timed so as to give passengers one whole day at sea. Tourists travelling from Stockholm for example, to join the Lapland touring train at Boden get a 25 per cent, reduction in the return railway

fare and the sleeper supplement is included in the tour fee of just under £l4 for seven days. For the seven days of the land cruise, the train becomes home to the tourist. Equipped with two-berth sleepers which serve as bedrooms, it also has a,lounge car with card room, library and a compartment with a gramophone for dancing. Each sleeping compartment has hot and cold running water and such refinements as thermostatically controlled heating for chilly days and wall plugs for electric razors of any voltage. There is also a shower car with a number of shower baths, a wash-room for the nylon “smalls.” an electric iron—and even a hair dryer.

. Travel by night is especially advantageous on the long journey north into Jamtland and the Arctic Circle. After running all night, mainly through forests, the train cruiser will discover as he eats his breakfast that the trees are getting lower—a sure sign that he is approaching the Arctic Circle where the towering silver birches of Dalecarlia are replaced by dwarf editions no taller than a man. Exact planning which makes the best of every hour of the day. and sees to it that nothing of outstanding interest is missed while “on the move” at night, combined with the indefatigable efforts of the guides to see that all their guests are happy and no one is lonely, are the keynotes of the success of these train cruises.

On most trips, the 60 to 90 strangers who set off from the starting point leave the train at the end of the cruise as so many friends. For they have shared a novel ho’iday and “discovered” together Sweden's natural beauties: her woods and lakes, green meadows with hay drying on fences, towering mountains and gushing waterfalls. They will also have learned much about the customs and history of her people and it is likely that they will part with a “skal” all round and the singing of one or two Swedish drinking songs which they have added to their repertoire during the holiday.

Language problems on these cruises rarely arise. Even outside the province of tourism. Swedes never expect their foreign visitors to know their language and readily go to a great deal of trouble to discover someone who speaks a language which the tourist can understand. On the train cruises, the guide is usually well able to take care of whatever language situation may present itself.