Malmo is Sweden's third largest city on the southwest coast, almost a suburb of Copenhagen now due to the 20 min Oresund Bridge Sea Crossing. On my last visit in 2003 I took the train south from Oslo, stopped in Malmo for about an hour, before getting back on the train to Copenhagen. Today was to be a similar short stop.

I took the 45 min train from the northern port city of Helsingborg to Malmo, from where I had crossed by ferry into Sweden, arriving in Malmo by 5pm. I still had time to walk around before dark.



Since my last visit in 2003 a new set of modern towers has gone up as the city is slowly becoming more of a Copenhagen suburb with the 20 min crossing. Many people make daily cross border trips to work, study, shop, or dine, in either country.



The skyline reminded me of Oslo's new skyline, how thought had been put into making it a work of art as the permanent landscape. There is also a twisting tower which is now Scandinavia's tallest and from where the best views of the sea crossing can be seen

    


















 
A short distance from the station is the castle which I wasn't able to visit in 2003. It had already closed today but didn't seem like I missed anything as it housed a different type of museum not related to the castle.
































 
To navigate myself back to the city centre I came thru the castle gardens. The castle is surrounded by a moat and the gardens had a windmill.



Back in town were the familiar squares I had visited in 2003. I wanted to venture a bit further as I had more time than 2003 and wanted to see something different.



Crossing the river was a much larger town square I hadn't seen on my last visit. Further away was a rather interesting church with unusual architecture. As I made my way over it appeared to be closed. The town had a heavy police presence due to visiting Greek fans for a soccer match.



The rain now seemed to be coming down again following me on my travels. I kept needing to pee every 30 mins for some reason, I must have been absorbing all this rain as I wasn't drinking anything. Unfortunately all toilets in Sweden were coin operated. Having just crossed the border for only a few hours I had no Swedish coins so needed to hold out till I made it back to Copenhagen!
 


















 
I also tried buying a souvenir magnet to get out the rain for a bit. My credit card was declined. This was now my second card to be declined on this trip. I think because I did so many transactions today in two countries they got confused and locked it. I still had a day and a half to go on this trip and only had one final card left to survive on if this one was locked, as my visa card had been since I arrived in Iceland.



My Denmark rail pass includes the Oresund Bridge train and I was hoping to get on and use the bathroom!. The walls had moving images as we waited on an empty platform. They showed train journeys in different cities such as Tokyo and Bangkok.



The Oresund Rail crossing is actually a big loop line that goes further then Malmo-Copenhagen and goes further into each country to outlying towns. In theory I could have taken the train all the way from Helsingborg in the north to Copenhagen had I not got out at Malmo. There is even a new international airport now on the rail line in the middle of both cities on the Danish side serving and with connections back to both cities.



Coming back I didn't need to get off at Copenhagen Central Station and could continue on the train as it went further north in Denmark heading back to Helsingor on the northern coast from where I had visited Kronborg Castle today and took the ferry into Sweden. There was no passport and border control as in 2003.

My station was Norreport, a regional commuter station about a km from Central Station. It had been a fun four city, two country, giant cross border loop, with no major mishaps except for the heavy rains.







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