If the warnings we’d received were anything to go by, Gothenburg was going to be Sweden’s dark underbelly—a city where danger lurked behind every corner. We braced ourselves for chaos—Scandi-style, of course, so perhaps some overly competitive knitting circles, rogue moose with a vendetta, or cafés occasionally running out of oat milk.
Crossing the Øresund Bridge from Denmark into Sweden is one of those experiences that manages to be both jaw-droppingly stunning and a direct assault on your wallet.
Leaving behind the cobbled chaos of Ribe and the LEGO shrine of Billund, we ventured eastward for the grand finale of our Danish escapade: Kronborg Castle (known to most as Hamlet’s castle).
There comes a time in everyone's life when they feel compelled to go big—an unspoken challenge to outdo their previous adventures, preferably in a way that involves fewer calories than cycling across a continent but more logistical chaos than a weekend in Devon. For us, this was that moment.
From exploring traditional Cypriot mountain villages and discovering seven-hundred-year-old UNESCO-listed monasteries to Bar Street Paphos; the cultural chasm was wider than the potholes on Mumbles Road. Or was it? We had a week to find out whether the infamous Inbetweener beach resort had anything more to offer than two-for-one cocktails and chlamydia.
A one-hour hop over the glistening Mediterranean from Cairo landed us in Larnaka. Following a rather intense week in the Nile Delta, we planned for a far more reposeful week in Cyprus, although driving a hire car into a demilitarised zone may not have been the most stress-free start.
Following a frenzied few days in the smoggy capital, we decided that some sea air would work wonders for our clogged sinuses, taking a two-and-a-half-hour Uber to the coastal city of Alexandria for the utterly ridiculous price of twenty pounds sterling.
With van living being the primary focus in recent times, it’s been three and a half years since I last boarded an aluminium deathtrap in earnest and in that time my discomfort of flying hasn’t eased. In fact, I have now been joined by a person who finds it even more discomforting than I, which presented an interesting challenge when sat next to each other for over five hours as we fist clenched and teeth gritted our way over Europe.
With Vishnu under several metres of snow somewhere on the outskirts of Prague, we decided to save our great escape for another day and make the most of our time in the glacial Czech capital. After bidding au revoir to the campsite's ostentation of bemused peacocks we caught a convenient tram to the city’s most iconic structure: Karlův most.
