Copenhagen to Oslo: Part 1 Great Continental Railway Journeys


Copenhagen to Oslo: Part 1

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I'm embarking on a new railway adventure that will take me

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across the heart of Europe.

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I'll be using this -

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my Bradshaw's Continental Railway Guide, dated 1913, which

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opened up an exotic world of foreign travel for the British tourist.

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'It told travellers where to go, what to see and how to navigate

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'the thousands of miles of tracks crisscrossing the continent.

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'Now, a century later,

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'I'm using my copy to reveal an era of great optimism and energy,

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'where technology, industry, science and the arts were flourishing.'

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I want to rediscover that lost Europe that, in 1913, couldn't know

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that its way of life would shortly be swept aside by the advent of war.

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I'm beginning a new journey through Denmark, Sweden and Norway,

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which, until the early 16th century,

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were all ruled by a powerful Danish monarchy.

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By the time of my guidebook in 1913,

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the three were politically separate,

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but known collectively as Scandinavia.

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The British traveller could now visit

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the extreme landscapes of mountains and lakes thanks to the railways.

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'At the turn of the 20th century,

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'British tourists would have felt a particular connection to

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'Scandinavia, thanks to the marriage of the future King Edward VII

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'to the Danish Princess Alexandra in 1863.

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'Their daughter Maud would go on to become Queen of Norway,

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'forging further strong links

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'between Britain and these Nordic lands.

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'My adventure begins in Denmark's capital Copenhagen, crosses

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'the famous Oresund Bridge to Malmo in Sweden,

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'then travels north along Sweden's west coast to Gothenburg,

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'stopping briefly in Trollhatten

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'before heading to Norway's capital, Oslo.

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'Along the way, I lose my inhibitions in a Swedish sauna...'

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On the whole,

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I don't take my clothes off with people I don't know.

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'..ride one of the world's oldest fairground attractions...'

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Oh!

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'..have a Highland fling, Scandinavian style...'

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ALL: Skol!

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'..and brave a white-knuckle ride

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'based on a winter sport invented by Norwegians.'

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Whee-hoo!

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One of the great experiences of my life.

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My first stop is the Danish capital Copenhagen.

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My Bradshaw's quips that, "Denmark is a little monarchy,

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"formerly more extensive, between the North Sea and the Baltic."

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Copenhagen is the economic, political

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and cultural centre of Denmark.

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It started life in the 11th century as a Viking fishing port.

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Surrounded by water and interlaced with canals,

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it's a veritable Venice of the North.

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It is connected to Stockholm, Hamburg, Berlin

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and beyond by the railways.

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Copenhagen's main railway station was, in fact,

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new at the time of my Bradshaw's guide

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but, built as it is out of traditional wooden trusses,

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it has the feeling of a Gothic banqueting hall -

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perhaps a way of reminding us that the Danish monarchy traces its

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origins back more than 1,000 years to the middle of the 10th century.

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'According to my guide, Copenhagen is one of the pleasantest

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'of the smaller capitals of Europe.'

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And 100 years on,

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the historic skyline is unspoiled by high-rise buildings.

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On leaving the railway station,

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travellers would have noticed at once one of the oldest

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amusement parks in the world - the Tivoli Gardens.

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'Ellen Dahl knows all about it.'

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-Ellen, hello.

-Hello.

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What is the origin of the Tivoli Gardens at Copenhagen?

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When Tivoli was founded in 1843, it was a big fashion all over Europe.

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So this was the first place in Denmark you could actually

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go into the public domain and see people and have fun

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and have a meal and see a show and just be out.

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Now, if I've got this right, the railway came after Tivoli Gardens.

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-It started in 1847, didn't it, the railway?

-That's true, yes.

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And the first railway station in Copenhagen was just next to

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Tivoli, so just a little more west.

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And people would stand inside Tivoli to look out on the railways

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and see the trains, because they'd never seen anything like it.

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And, vice versa, people would stand in the train station

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and look into Tivoli and see all the fun going on in here.

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What does Tivoli mean to the people of Copenhagen?

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Well, Tivoli is somewhere that everybody has been.

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People have very fond memories of Tivoli, so they tend to get

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very attached to things that are in Tivoli and they tend to want

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to relive childhood memories, actually, when they are here.

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I'd like to return to childhood myself,

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on the most popular attraction in Tivoli.

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Every year, up to 1.3 million thrill-seekers

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ride this wooden roller coaster.

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Dating from 1914, it is one of the oldest of its kind in the world.

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How much has it changed, then, in the last century?

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It's extremely authentic.

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Of course, things have been maintained

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and things have been changed,

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in terms of actual boards and rails and things like that,

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but the ride is as you would have seen it 100 years ago.

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I can't wait any longer.

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-Ellen, this will be fun.

-Are you all right?

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-Yeah. I like roller coasters.

-Don't stand up.

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-Hold your arms inside the carriage, yeah?

-And keep hold of Bradshaw.

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Hold on to your book.

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The roller coaster is pulled up to the top of the first incline,

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the highest point, and then gravity takes over.

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You have to put your arms up, yeah?

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Aaa-oh!

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HE LAUGHS

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Oh, my bottom was well off the seat there.

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That's what they call air time. That's the fun of it.

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'Tivoli is Scandinavia's most popular attraction.

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'Over four million visitors a year enjoy the rides.'

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-Oh, Ellen, that was brilliant.

-Did you enjoy it?

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My bottom was in the air more than it was on the seat.

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After that excitement, I'll seek a classic theme park refreshment.

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-Hello.

-Hello, Michael. Welcome.

-Thank you, Kjeld.

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This looks like a very traditional ice cream salon.

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How long has it been going?

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It's been going on for more than 100 years. Since 1906.

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-Has it been in the family?

-Yes. See the picture up there in the corner?

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The small boy over there, that's my grandad, back in 1906.

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-That's amazing.

-Yeah.

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Kjeld's family have been using the same recipe for waffle cones

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for over a century.

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Let's see whether I can master the age-old technique.

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-OK, here goes.

-Yeah.

-Right. So, I lift the waffle.

-Yeah.

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-And that one.

-I turn this around. I give it a small squirt.

-Perfect.

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Yes. So far, so good.

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The difficult bit is still to come.

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A small squeeze.

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And now we just wait.

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Now is going to be the tricky part.

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-Lift up?

-Yeah.

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-Close that up.

-Next one.

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The difficult thing here is to get that fold working just right.

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-Nice and easy.

-Nice and easy. And put it down there.

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-And put it down there.

-Yeah.

-Sort of.

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This is almost perfect. Almost.

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'I had no idea that waffle cone making was such a precision art.'

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I hope that was worth it cos my fingers are burning.

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I hope it tastes as good as it looks.

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Mm! My visit to Tivoli has given me

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a real flavour of an amusement garden, 1913 style.

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'In the early 20th century,

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'the Tivoli Gardens were a great leveller -

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'a place where both rich and poor came to enjoy themselves.'

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Hurrah, two!

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But elsewhere in Copenhagen,

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the social divide was more rigidly observed

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and nowhere more so than at the Amalienborg.

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These four near-identical palaces are still home

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to the Danish royal family.

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Around the time of my guide, the connection with

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Buckingham Palace naturally drew many British visitors.

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Historian Knud Jespersen knows more.

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How did it happen, then,

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that Princess Alexandra married the British Prince of Wales?

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I think that the key person in this process

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was Edward's elder sister, Vicky,

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who was Crown Princess in Prussia and who had taken it upon herself

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to find an appropriate spouse for her little brother.

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They sent pictures to Edward, who rejected them one after one.

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Then she also sent the picture of beautiful Alexandra.

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Then he was very pleased with that so some secret meetings were arranged

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at different places in Germany,

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and it ended up with a wedding in 1863.

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The marriage at Windsor took place amid great ceremonial.

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The British welcomed Alexandra with a poem

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written by Alfred Lord Tennyson, the Poet Laureate,

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celebrating the ancient links between the nations.

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"Sea-kings' daughter from over the sea, Alexandra!

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"Saxon and Norman and Dane are we

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"But all of us Danes in our welcome of thee, Alexandra!"

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A successful marriage between Alexandra and Edward VII?

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I think so. I think Alexandra was a very tolerant woman,

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who endured all Edward's affairs.

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-Was she popular in Britain?

-I think so.

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She had a good social instinct

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so she could communicate with

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the upper class at the court and also with the common people.

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Alexandra was the Diana of her day,

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and not the only member of her family to grace a European throne.

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One brother became the King of Denmark. Another, King of Greece.

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And her sister, Dagmar, Empress of Russia.

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I'm interested, you know, these two women, Alexandra and Dagmar,

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they have both become empresses.

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That must have been quite important, politically.

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It was because there was a direct connection between

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the two great powers of Europe - Great Britain and Russia -

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and it showed when the Russian Revolution broke

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and the Tsar's family were chased and executed.

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And so Dagmar's son, who by then was Tsar, was murdered.

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-And other members of the family?

-All of them.

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She was the only one that survived.

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And only thanks to her evacuation by the British man-of-war,

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which was sent to Crimea

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on the instigation of Queen, or Empress, Alexandra.

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The bond between Alexandra and Dagmar was forged

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during a happy childhood.

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Growing up together close to the Amalienborg Palace,

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the princesses enjoyed stories read to them

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by a Danish writer famed across the world.

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'Hans Christian Andersen is perhaps Denmark's best-known author.

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'His fairy tales are known everywhere,

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'and many, such as Thumbelina and The Princess And The Pea,

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'have inspired ballets, plays and films.'

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The visitor using my Bradshaw's guide

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had a brand-new tourist attraction to see,

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because in 1913 they unveiled a statue to The Little Mermaid,

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one of the characters from a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale.

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And now tourists will risk life and limb

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to get close to this pretty creature and her fishy tale of woe.

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More than a million people visit The Little Mermaid each year.

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Most know her from the Disney film but, unlike her cartoon counterpart,

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this Little Mermaid's story didn't have a happy ending.

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-Can you remember the story of The Little Mermaid?

-Er...yeah.

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It's a love story about The Little Mermaid

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and she's condemned to stay in the water.

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She couldn't get out.

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Is it a happy story or a sad story?

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A sad story.

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Are you visiting Copenhagen?

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Well, I'm local. I live only 3km from this place.

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What is the genius of Hans Christian Andersen?

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Why was he so successful? Why do we remember him?

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I think because he expressed himself through the fairy tales.

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He was a very sensitive person

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and he had a special life when he was young and so on

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and he had to fight for his life. He was born in 1805.

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He never married and maybe he never had any relationship with a woman.

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The Little Mermaid has a rather sad ending.

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Maybe he was projecting his own life in this story as well.

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To him, there was no happy ending.

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He was happy because he became world famous when he was older,

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but his personal life was not so happy.

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It looks as if he's making a lot of tourists happy today.

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The Little Mermaid's appeal is enduring and universal.

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But, with a train to catch, I must return to the station.

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A traveller using a Bradshaw's guide in 1913 would have had to do

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the next part of my journey over to Sweden by steamer.

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But, even at the beginning of the 20th century, the idea of a bridge

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was already a dream, and finally the dream became reality in 1999.

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MUSIC: "Hollow Talk" by Choir Of Young Believers

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# Echoes start as a cross in you... #

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'My journey is taking me across the Oresund Bridge.'

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'It's a central feature of the Scandi-noir drama The Bridge.

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# Spatial movement which seems to you... #

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'In the television series, it brings together detectives from Denmark

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'and Sweden to solve a gruesome murder.

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'The bridge also allows people to commute

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'between Malmo and Copenhagen.'

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# Hollow talking and hollow girl. #

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-Hello.

-Hello.

-Do you use it very much?

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Yeah, because my mother-in-law has a small house in Sweden,

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and we live in Denmark, so sometimes we go visit the house there.

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The bridge is for both trains and cars, is that right?

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-That's right, yeah.

-What do you normally do? Train or car?

-Car.

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I suppose you must all be very proud of this bridge.

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-It's an amazing piece of engineering.

-Yes, it is.

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Has it really altered people's lives?

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Danes are going more to Malmo in Sweden for shopping

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and probably also the Swedes are coming into the city of Copenhagen

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for fun and restaurants and so on.

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It now takes just 30 minutes,

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crossing the ten-mile Oresund Strait,

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to travel from Copenhagen to Malmo in Sweden.

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We are now passing beneath Swedish soil.

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My next stop will be Malmo.

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My Bradshaw's tells me the railway station is on the quay

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close to the landing place of the steamers from Copenhagen.

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In 1917, a bald-headed gentleman might have been seen

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passing through that station on his way to Russia.

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His journey was to have epic consequences.

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'The passenger travelling to his place in history was

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'the Russian revolutionary leader, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin.

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'To find out what he was doing here in Malmo,

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'I'm following his footsteps across the bridge

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'from the station to the Savoy Hotel.

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'Over a drink in the bar there,

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'guide Jacques Schultze tells me more about Lenin.'

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-Hello, Jacques.

-Hello, Michael.

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Why have we met in the Savoy Hotel?

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Because some people say that he actually spent the night here.

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There is a little bit of discussion about this

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because the old ledgers are unfortunately missing

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so we don't have his signed autograph that he spent the night here

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but we are quite certain at the very least

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he had a traditional Swedish smorgasbord here.

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'Lenin was returning from exile in Zurich to Russia.

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'In February 1917, the hardships of the war had led to

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'a revolution in Russia and the Tsar had abdicated.

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'But for Lenin the revolution was incomplete.

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'Only a takeover by his own Bolshevik faction of communists

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'would guarantee the transformation of Russia into a people's state.'

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Where was Lenin

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when the first revolution occurred in Russia at the beginning of 1917?

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He was still in Switzerland.

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When news reached him of the revolution,

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he saw this as his chance to say,

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"Speed is of the essence. We have to rescue the revolution."

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Of course, Germany was quite interested in this

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because the Russians were still fighting

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and they saw this as a chance to get the Russians

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out of the war by having a proper revolution, so to speak.

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'The Germans saw that a second Bolshevik revolution

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'would take one enemy out of the war

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'so they could concentrate on the Western front.

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'They gave Lenin safe passage by train from Switzerland,

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'through their own country to Scandinavia,

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'from where he could reach Petrograd - now St Petersburg.'

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So, how did he make the journey across Germany?

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He made it in, some people call it the poisonous germ.

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The legend is he was sealed up in a compartment

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so he couldn't spread his revolutionary ideas along the way.

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It was sealed and the story goes that actually

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one part of the compartment, they had a chalk line on the floor

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where they had German soldiers on one side watching him

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so he wouldn't get up to any, well, funny business.

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And the train was sealed in the sense that, of course,

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he wasn't allowed out in Germany

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-and nobody in Germany was allowed onto the train either.

-Exactly.

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So, it was like a sealed diplomatic post-box that was sent up

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through Germany and Denmark and then over here.

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So, what were the consequences

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of Lenin's journey from Switzerland, via at the Savoy Hotel in Malmo,

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to St Petersburg?

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I would say that the final consequence would be

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the Russian Revolution, when people think of the Russian Revolution

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as the forming of the Soviet state.

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So, really, this German plot of sending a poison chalice,

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this revolutionary back to Russia, was successful

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because after the revolution Russia drops out of the war.

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Yes, of course.

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Early morning has brought me to this beautiful place,

0:21:010:21:04

thanks to a reference in my Bradshaw's to the fine pier harbour.

0:21:040:21:08

What a place for bracing sea air and possibly something more.

0:21:080:21:12

The buildings at the end of the pier are the Kallbadhus sauna,

0:21:140:21:18

which was built in 1898.

0:21:180:21:21

The owner, Henrik Klamborn,

0:21:210:21:22

tells me about a fine Swedish custom that takes place here.

0:21:220:21:26

It's quite a tradition, almost quite a cult for the Swedish people,

0:21:270:21:31

this matter of bathing.

0:21:310:21:32

Yes, this is almost like a religion.

0:21:320:21:34

When you have a cold bath and you come from the hot sauna

0:21:340:21:38

to the cold water, you feel very good and it's like...

0:21:380:21:43

I don't know what you call it in English, but you must do it again.

0:21:430:21:46

-It's like a cigarette.

-It's addictive.

-Yeah.

0:21:460:21:49

-So the tradition is you go from a very hot sauna into cold water.

-Yes.

0:21:490:21:53

-How hot, how cold?

-Between 85 and 95 degrees.

0:21:530:21:57

And in the winter, you have -2, -3.

0:21:570:22:01

-And you go from one to the other?

-Yes, directly.

0:22:010:22:03

Does that kill many people?

0:22:030:22:05

No. Not yet, I hope.

0:22:050:22:08

-Let's go and have a sauna. Do I put my swimming trunks on?

-No,

0:22:080:22:12

you don't. When you're in the sauna, you don't have any clothes on at all.

0:22:120:22:16

-I'm so sorry.

-OK.

0:22:170:22:20

-Let's give it a go.

-You're welcome.

0:22:200:22:22

Across Scandinavia, families go to saunas together

0:22:250:22:28

and seem to have no hang-ups about being naked with the in-laws.

0:22:280:22:32

It's as natural for them as taking a stroll in the park.

0:22:330:22:37

We think of Swedes as being, to put it mildly, pretty relaxed

0:22:390:22:43

about nudity, whether it's saunas or Swedish movies or whatever.

0:22:430:22:48

Is this true? Is this true?

0:22:480:22:52

I don't think Swedes are more...

0:22:520:22:55

What do you call it? The nudity and stuff, more than other countries.

0:22:560:23:01

But I think the films have been more

0:23:010:23:04

giving the wrong idea what Swedes are.

0:23:040:23:06

But, on the other hand, the fact that you do like saunas -

0:23:060:23:09

you say it's a kind of a national religion -

0:23:090:23:12

that does mean a lot of people who don't know each other being naked.

0:23:120:23:15

Yes, it is.

0:23:150:23:17

I have to tell you, that would be very un-British.

0:23:170:23:19

-It is?

-Oh, yeah.

-OK.

0:23:190:23:22

On the whole,

0:23:220:23:23

I don't take my clothes off with people I don't know.

0:23:230:23:26

Saunas have been part of Scandinavian culture

0:23:300:23:32

for hundreds of years.

0:23:320:23:34

The heat, along with being beaten with birch twigs,

0:23:350:23:38

increases blood circulation and the whole experience climaxes

0:23:380:23:42

with a plunge into freezing cold snow or water.

0:23:420:23:45

Time for me to see how my British stiff upper lip

0:23:460:23:49

copes with the experience.

0:23:490:23:51

Now for the Scandinavian plunge.

0:23:530:23:55

You didn't really think I'd do the full Swedish monty, did you?

0:23:570:24:00

Aargh!

0:24:020:24:03

Whoa!

0:24:040:24:06

Oh! That is invigorating.

0:24:060:24:09

It is.

0:24:090:24:10

But I'm not sure I'd describe it as addictive.

0:24:110:24:14

'Thawed out and properly dressed, I'm ready to continue my travels.'

0:24:270:24:32

I'm heading 11 miles north-east to the town of Lund.

0:24:360:24:39

It's a ten-minute journey on a line which opened in 1856.

0:24:390:24:43

Bradshaw's rather downbeat assessment of my next stop, Lund,

0:24:510:24:55

is, "A quiet town, once much more important."

0:24:550:24:59

But it does go on to say,

0:24:590:25:00

"The Romanesque cathedral, 12th century,

0:25:000:25:03

"is regarded as one of the finest in Sweden."

0:25:030:25:06

Indeed, it could have gone further and said

0:25:060:25:09

it's one of the most historic sites in northern Christendom.

0:25:090:25:12

From the 12th century onwards, pilgrims beat a path

0:25:160:25:19

to Lund Cathedral and, even today,

0:25:190:25:22

it attracts 700,000 visitors each year.

0:25:220:25:25

'I'm meeting Anita Larsson to find out more.'

0:25:280:25:32

Hello, Michael. Welcome to Lund Cathedral.

0:25:320:25:35

Thank you, Anita. It is a stunning building.

0:25:350:25:38

What is the significance of this in Christian history?

0:25:380:25:42

Well, this was actually the central Christian part of Northern Europe

0:25:420:25:48

in the Middle Ages because the Archbishop of Northern Europe

0:25:480:25:52

was placed here and therefore this church was built.

0:25:520:25:56

-Does it have any relics of saints?

-There are some interesting relics.

0:25:560:25:59

For example, some drops of the breast milk of Mary, for example.

0:25:590:26:04

-How curious.

-Yes.

-And has it been altered very much?

0:26:040:26:08

-It looks very complete from the outside.

-Yes.

0:26:080:26:10

There were big restorations in the 1800s.

0:26:100:26:14

For example, the western part here with the two towers

0:26:140:26:17

were completely new-built in the 1860s and '70s

0:26:170:26:21

because the medieval towers were in rather bad condition.

0:26:210:26:25

So this is 150 years old

0:26:250:26:27

but the eastern part is complete from the 1100s.

0:26:270:26:31

-How magnificent.

-Yes.

0:26:310:26:32

One of the finest features of Lund Cathedral

0:26:410:26:44

is the Horologium Mirabile Lundense,

0:26:440:26:47

which, if my Latin serves me correctly,

0:26:470:26:49

translates as the wondrous timepiece of Lund.

0:26:490:26:52

Here in front of you, you have this wonderful clock

0:26:540:26:57

that is in two sections.

0:26:570:26:59

Originally, it was built in the 1420s

0:26:590:27:02

but it was restored in the very beginning of the 1900s.

0:27:020:27:05

So, this clock from the 15th century with its signs of the Zodiac,

0:27:050:27:09

what does this tell us about the knowledge that those people had?

0:27:090:27:12

They, of course, had an opinion of the world.

0:27:120:27:15

Everyone did not think that the Earth was flat.

0:27:150:27:18

There were people knowing, the scientists, of course, that

0:27:180:27:21

the Earth was round and this is what you can see in the middle.

0:27:210:27:24

So, if you see the screw in the middle up there,

0:27:240:27:27

it is a symbol of the Earth,

0:27:270:27:29

and around the Earth you have the sun, the moon and the stars.

0:27:290:27:33

-So, they're still going round the Earth.

-Yes.

0:27:330:27:37

They thought so, actually.

0:27:370:27:39

And we are still saying that the sun is rising and setting,

0:27:390:27:43

-even if we know it is not so.

-Exactly.

0:27:430:27:46

On the second part of my journey through Scandinavia,

0:27:520:27:55

I discover the tiny origins of one of Sweden's greatest icons...

0:27:550:27:59

..rediscover a powerful waterfall...

0:28:050:28:07

That is spectacular!

0:28:090:28:11

..hear how the British were beaten in the race for the South Pole.

0:28:110:28:14

These skis, which I have taken out from the showcase,

0:28:140:28:18

from the exhibition itself, is Scott's skis.

0:28:180:28:23

-That is extraordinary.

-Yeah.

0:28:230:28:25

..and pay homage to the man who brought me here.

0:28:250:28:27

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