A Scandinavian adventure: One family's journey by train to Sweden

Our journey began with an early taxi ride to the Oxford train station to catch our train to London, followed by a bus to St. Pancras International for our Eurostar to Brussels. After consuming coffees and pastries, we travelled smoothly to Brussels in time for lunch.

Timing was perfect as our two-year-old managed to have a nap before we caught a train to Cologne, where would stay for the night. It was worth breaking up the journey to avoid spending a whole day on trains (we’ve done this once before, 26 hours of travel from London to Stockholm).

After some breakfast with family living near Cologne, we took a train from Cologne to Hamburg in order to catch our night train to Stockholm that evening.

We had a few hours to kill in Hamburg, so we left our luggage at lockers at the train station and explored the city. We discovered the Thalia bookshop in a new shopping centre which had a big yellow slide & play area for young kids and later enjoyed an early dinner at a nearby restaurant.

As we still had a couple of hours before the night train, we discovered an amazing pirate-themed playground (the Piratenspielplatz in Grasbrookpark), filled with lots of water and sand. We had hoped to keep the children relatively dry, but my youngest had other plans and decided to slide through the wet sand. Seeing as this was a losing battle, we capitulated.

Leaving to the kids to play under Lisanne’s watchful eye, I went to visit the Elbphilharmonie, designed by architecture firm

Herzog and de Meuron. As an architect, I am always drawn to exploring the buildings around us. 

We travelled back to the train station with wet and sandy kids, collected our bags, and got ready for the night train from Hamburg to Stockholm. Our train was slightly delayed, which was a bit tricky with tired little ones, but we finally made it on to our sleeper carriage, with beds.

We were a bit nervous about the journey, as we booked beds in a 6-sleeper, but the kids slept through the whole journey (which was a relief!). The highlight of the journey was looking out at the Swedish countryside whilst having a lovely summer’s morning breakfast in the dining car, with plenty of coffee! 

After a lovely time with family, we began our journey back home with a built-in holiday, using our remaining four travel days on our Interrail Passes. We have always wanted to visit the west coast of Sweden as a family and felt that Falkenberg was the right sort of distance to get us away from home but not too close to our next stop (Copenhagen).

Our journey included a bus replacement service from Gothenburg to the next train station, which was challenging with having space for our luggage and keeping the kids occupied. We’re grateful that this was only for a short section of the journey. When we arrived in Falkenberg, we had some dinner at a local pizzeria before settling into where we stayed for the night.

The next day, we started off by going to Vallarnas Playground, an epic playground with a five-metre-high climbing net and a mini-zoo. There was also a hobby-horse area, which was fun for all! We got to see goats, sheep, chickens and pigs.

We finished off the morning with an all-you-can-eat buffet lunch break in the town centre before heading to Skrea Strand, a beautiful sandy beach. Our two year old got to enjoy being by the sea for the first time! We couldn’t go by the sea without having some ice-cream and decided to stop by Glasshuset, a lovely parlour with many flavours to choose from. We found it easy to get around Falkenberg with good bus links and a handy app for the local transport system.

We took an early morning, direct train to make the most of our time in Copenhagen, as we were only spending one night there. It is one of our favourite cities, and we couldn’t do this journey without passing through.

After dropping off our luggage we headed to Tårnlegepladsen (Triangle playground), where the kids had the time of their lives in the warm weather (27°C+).

What we love most about the playgrounds in Denmark is the trust-based approach to play; with footballs, hula hoops, and other loose play equipment that you can borrow and use. There was also an indoor play area, where our four-year-old got fully immersed in some crafts. 

We had a great lunch at La Petit Café before meeting an old friend at Hart, a fantastic bakery and café. We spent the rest of the day with them, with a late afternoon spent at Classens Have, a beautiful courtyard amongst some lovely apartments, where the kids could play in the playground and where we all enjoyed some takeaway pizza.

The next day, we couldn’t help but pick up some pastries from Juno’s, our favourite bakery, and stop by another playground Trafiklegepladsen (Traffic playground). This was an amazing mini-town with streets and working traffic lights, where the kids could borrow bikes (for free!), ride around and use up some energy before our journey to Hamburg.

The five-hour ride from Copenhagen to Hamburg was our longest single train journey, but we got through it, as our youngest managed to nap for a good two hours of the journey and we had plenty of games we could play.

We arrived in the late afternoon in Hamburg, so we decided to just find a place to eat before a night’s rest at our accommodation.

The following day involved a lovely breakfast at Nord Coast Coffee Roastery, spending several hours at the LEGO Discovery Centre (would highly recommend it), and a return to our favourite pirate-themed playground, Piratenspielplatz, Grasbrookpark.

Of course we couldn’t visit Hamburg without having a hamburger, and our place of choice was Grill & Green. After our second night at Hamburg, it was onwards to Ghent!

Our journey to Ghent was the one that required the most coordination. We took three trains (Hamburg – Cologne, Cologne – Brussels, Brussels – Ghent). It was long and tiring, and probably the stretch that took the most energy out of us. We were so glad to arrive at our lovely self-catered accommodation, grab a quick bite for dinner and rest for the night.

The next day we took a boat tour through Ghent (which is a must!), and walked through the town before catching a bus towards Strand Gent, a sandy beach by a lake. The kids had lots of fun in the water and going on the slides.

Later in the afternoon, we wandered through central Ghent to grab an ice cream and a tasty pasta-based dinner at Bravat. The following day, we had a lovely brunch at Desayuno, before visiting our final playground of the trip.

Our journey home was surprisingly smooth! We took a quick 30-minute train from Ghent to Brussels and had a lunch break together. It didn’t take long for us to wait for the Eurostar, and we were onwards to London. It’s great that with Interrail Passes you can use outbound and inbound trains from your country of origin; therefore, we continued our inbound journey on the same day with a final train ride back to Oxford.

Overall, we had a fantastic trip, and we would highly recommend making a holiday out of travelling with an Interrail Pass. The kids loved playing games on the trains, and visiting all the playgrounds that we got to explore. Lisanne and I enjoyed exploring new places we’ve never been before and being able to find the right balance between rest, food, coffee and play during the holiday.

• If you’re travelling through Germany, reserve seats in a family compartment. They are usually available on the ICE trains, and they are great as it means you have your own space. You can close the door and feel like the kids can move around and make as much noise as they want to (within reason!).
• Get creative by bringing small games, toys and activities. We brought a range of things, from colouring books and pens, to small board games, simple card games and toys. We also had tablets, which meant the kids could have some screen time with headphones. 
• Bring lots and lots of snacks. Never assume you’ll have a dining car, it’s always better to be prepared to avoid having tired and hungry kids on a train. 
• If your child still naps, time your trains around their nap times. 
• Do your research on finding playgrounds in the cities/towns you’ll be visiting. It’s worthwhile in the end, as the kids will be happy and they can use up their energy to (hopefully) get a good night’s rest! 

• Break up journeys so you don’t have to take more than 2-3 trains in one day 
• Always have back-up train times just in case there are any delays.
• Find accommodation that is affordable, but also reasonably close to the train station, whether it is by walking or using one form of public transport (bus, tram, etc.) 
• Research good places to eat in advance — if there’s a queue outside, that’s a good sign!  

Wongani Mwanza lives in Oxford with his family. He is an architect at Transition by Design Cooperative and teaches architecture at Oxford Brookes University. He is a keen park runner and loves to bake with sourdough.