Why are we heading to Sweden?

On the 28th of June 2005, at four thirty in the morning, my wife Mayumi, my daughter Julia and I left home rubbing our drowsy eyes and heading to Luton Airport in north London. This was in order to catch the half-past-six flight to Västerås, Sweden. Our final destination of the day was to be Stockholm.

It was the second time for me to visit Sweden in 2005. At the beginning of February, in the middle of the harsh Swedish winter, I visited the Skåne district. The reason why I visited Sweden so often was because I am interested in some Swedish authors and since last year, have read their works exclusively.

Last year, I read all the books of the Kurt Wallander series written by Henning Mankell whose stories are set mainly in the Skåne district, the most southern part of Sweden. After finishing the series, I wanted to visit the scene of the stories and did so. I am now reading books of another series, Inspector Martin Beck, written by a Swedish couple, Per Wahlöö and Maj Sjöwall. As their stories are set in Stockholm, I wanted to see the city with my own eyes.

Although Henning Mankell is a writer who is presently active, the Martin Beck series was written in the sixties and the seventies. Wahlöö, the husband, died in 1975, already thirty years ago. Therefore I was not confident that I could still taste the atmosphere of Stockholm described by them in the sixties and the seventies when the protagonist Martin Beck lived.

Our family spent our last Christmas holiday in Venice where I traced footsteps of Commisario Brunetti, the protagonist of novels by Donna Leon. It seems to be my habit (or disease) to visit the settings of books that I have read. My wife called our trip to Sweden as ‘A trip following footsteps of Moto’s favorite author’.

There were two more reasons which motivated me to travel to Sweden. The first one was the twentieth wedding anniversary of my wife and I. 2004 was the year of our anniversary but as my wife was unwell at the time. We could not travel and postponed the trip until 2005. For a long time we have been spending holidays with our children, and on this occasion, I was thinking of traveling with just my wife. However, my wife allowed our daughter Julia to come with us, therefore the trip became the second honeymoon with an addition.

The second reason to visit Sweden was that I wanted to observe what happens in Scandinavia at midsummer. Even in London, which is 50 degrees on the north latitude, the sun rises at four in the morning and sets at nine in the evening in midsummer. I was interested to see what it looks like in Stockholm which is far north on 61 degrees. Of course I know that we have to go to Lapland to experience a real white night. According to Julia’s research, the sun rises in Stockholm just before three and it sets at half past eleven. What an exciting experience to see the sun set at nearly midnight!

Because of my limited free time, we could only stay in Stockholm for two days. We were expecting quite a busy schedule; leaving home early in the morning on the 28th and coming back at midnight on the 29th. Fortunately, it only takes about two hours from London to Västerås. When leaving London, I boarded the plane hoping that we would be able to see a lot of Stockholm in such a short time.