Sweden’s Arlanda airport is an $40 train ride from the Stockholm city center ($80 round-trip), and thanks to congestion at JFK, my eight-hour layover had dwindled to just five-and-a-half hours, not all of it in daylight. I weighed my options as I ate lunch in a randomly selected airport restaurant. Then I noticed the flowers on my table were real, and moreover were seasonal wildflowers — some kind of native aster, it appeared, along with a sprig of spearmint. If these people are as nuts about nature as I’d always heard, surely it must be possible to go walking right outside the airport, I thought.
I headed for what looked like the nearest patch of trees, crossed the highway, and sure enough: there was a signed exercise trail. It took me straight to a four-mile nature trail, laid out in a loop around a lake. From roadside weeds I went to photographing trees, mushrooms, sphagnum moss and more. The thing about being a nature nerd is that I am always very easily — and cheaply — entertained, as long as there are some unmanaged corners of wild nature here and there.
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When I finally made my way back to the airport, I was able to follow a walking path all the way into the terminal. Then I sat down at another of the elegantly designed restaurants (I didn’t see anything tacky in the entire, enormous terminal) and treated myself to some delicious smoked herrings: fish that taste the way fish are supposed to taste.
I think the next time I go to Sweden, it will be for quite a bit more than a brief lay-over.
Love this. I want to visit all of Scandinavia, actually. Iceland may just be the tip of the iceberg, so to speak, and the tackiness index there, too, is pretty close to zero.