Ödds & Södra

 

Suitably refreshed from my disco nap, I returned to T-Centralen and got the train to Gamla Stan.  The station's a weird hybrid, both underground and open air, accessed by tunnels and by a bridge.  A dual carriageway passes by on one side.  I left the station with dozens of excitable visitors; even though it was early evening by now, it was still busy.  

Gamla Stan means Old Town, and it's the ancient heart of Stockholm.  What this actually translates to is "tourist trap".  After a day in mostly quiet residential streets, it came as something of a shock.  Suddenly there were people everywhere, darting in and out of the cobbled streets, pushing down alleyways.  The shops and restaurants were angled to foreigners, with price boards outside that definitely reflected that "overpriced Sweden" I'd been hearing about but hadn't really noticed.  I walked without real purpose, trying to explore, but it didn't open itself up to me.  All I saw was the tackiness - the Irish pubs, the Japanese sushi bars, the British store with Union Jacks on every surface.  I'm not sure why you'd go to Sweden and then buy a load of British tat; perhaps it's for Americans who are making a trip to only one European country and decided to buy something from all the others while they're here.

A police car cruised by at low speed, making sure everyone was behaving themselves.  Some of the bars had signs up advertising they were open for the Euros, but Sweden hadn't qualified for the competition so enthusiasm was tepid.  It actually meant I got a week away from the football, which was delightful, although I paid for it when I returned to England and the BF wouldn't talk about anything else.  

Without really meaning to, I realised I'd stumbled on the Kungliga slottet: the Royal Palace.  I walked into the semi-circular parade ground where a board encouraged me to visit the Royal Gift Shop.  It was almost deserted, though there were a couple of guards on show.  The palace was simultaneously disappointing and impressive.  Disappointing, because I'm used to British palaces, enormous and overbearing and glitzy.  Impressive, for the simple reason that it wasn't enormous and overbearing and glitzy.  It felt smaller and more intimate, like the royals were close and part of the city, rather than locked away behind metal and guns.

I'm really not sure how we deal with royals in the 21st century.  They're a ridiculous anachronism and a drain on the public purse, but on the other hand, removing them from power would seem sort of... rude?  The European countries that have still got royals - Britain, the Netherlands, the Scandinavian threesome, Belgium - they're all quite boringly sensible nations who'd never have anything as vulgar or hot-blooded as a revolution.  Chopping the crowned head off would be terribly gauche.  The Spanish got the closest - fiery Mediterranean types, you see - but then they brought the King back once Franco popped it, to remind them of the good times.  Really, what we need them to do is politely accept for themselves that they're a relic and retire gracefully.  Charles won't do it, of course, because he's thrilled he's finally got his sausage fingers on the crown, and it's increasingly looking like William's as much of a traditionalist as his dad.  Perhaps George VII will abdicate to Balmoral or Sandringham and Buckingham Palace can be turned into a hotel.

 

I emerged onto the Slottsbacken, Stockholm's version of The Mall, a wide avenue that sloped down to the quayside.  There was an obelisk and a statue of a long dead king (Gustav III) plus a mix of royal buildings and nationally important churches and cathedrals.

It was all very pretty, which I know sounds like the faintest of praise, but I mean it sincerely.  There was unifying style of architecture and design throughout this part of Gamla Stan which meant every view seemed to have a focal point or a quirk that called out to you.  It was all well-preserved and well-maintained and hadn't been knocked about by ambitious town planners or wrecked by 1960s road schemes.  The tackiness was largely absent too, though I did spy a dreaded street "entertainer".  It was a pleasing spot to look round, although I was glad it was later in the day, when the crowds had largely dispersed.

I walked down to the quay, where the traffic was crawling along at a snail's pace.  I assumed it was the usual rush hour crush, but when I got to the head of the queue, I found the world's smallest pro-Palestinian protest chanting and singing.  There were literally nine people on it, but there were still two police cars behind holding up traffic for them to march.  It was delightfully respectful; none of the cars behind honked their horns or tried to speed past.  In the UK someone would've definitely got out to shout at them by this point.

I followed the road round, then crossed the Slussbron to leave the island, all the time hoping that the girl who seemed to match my pace exactly didn't think I was a mad rapist or something.  Ahead was the vast building site that would form the New Slussen.  

This was always an big interchange area for the city; major roads, the railways, ferries and a bus terminal all met here.  With land at a premium and the city growing all the time a radical plan was formed to get more desirable building plots while also improving lives for the residents.  The highway and the bus station are being put underground so that plazas and a new park can be built on top.  Links to the Tunnelbana station will thread throughout.  There will be new bridges across to Gamla Stan, along with new locks to allow a greater flow of water from the lake to the bay and minimise flooding in the area.  Office buildings, cafes, and shops will, obviously, fill the new plots to pay for it all.

It's a massive project that's still years off completion and should be admired.  The problem is of course that it means the area around Slussen is a mess.  I knew there was a station in there somewhere - I'd changed trains there earlier that day, twice in fact - but finding the entrance was difficult.  I thought if I followed the crowds they might take me there, but they all seemed to branch off into different directions, and they walked with the purpose of commuters and were hard to track.

Google Maps was no use, sending me in completely the wrong direction so that I had to double back on myself, and signage seemed to be at a minimum.  I got the impression that SL would really prefer it if you didn't use Slussen station at all.  Eventually I found it, a temporary silver box that I had in fact walked round the back of earlier, but I'm obviously blaming the Swedish people for their lack of clear wayfinding rather than acknowledging I might be a bit thick.

The Red Line platform was heaving.  If you can cast your mind back to my very first Stockholm blog, you might remember that Slussen was a change point as the tunnel through the city was closed.  Everyone had to wait for the shuttle to Mariatorget, and by "everyone", I mean a lot of grumpy, tired, commuters, sweating through their crumpled clothes in the baking July heat.

Slussen is the zero point for the entire Tunnelbana.  It originally opened as the terminus of a tram tunnel, and the northern Green Line largely follows this old network.  It was converted into a metro in the 1930s however, and then expanded to the south of the city, meaning that distances from Slussen rise in both directions.  If you board a Red Line train at Norsberg, the official distances count down until you reach zero at Slussen, and then they count up again on their way to Ropsten.  Well, I found it interesting.

There's art at both Gamla Stan and Slussen, but my photos of them were absolutely dreadful.  They're not that amazing anyway.  At Gamla Stan it's some tilework in the ground and on one wall to represent woven fabrics.  At Slussen there are a few different parts, but the only one I managed to successfully capture was the one above: steel screens with triangular cut outs by Bernt Rafael Sundberg.  To be honest, I was mainly trying to take a picture of the blue tiles on the wall at that point - I thought they were lovely, and reminded me of the East Berlin sections of the U-Bahn that were largely ignored over the decades.

The Art at Mariatorget is similarly minimalist.  When the station was planned, in the 1960s, it was decided that this would be one where there would be a fair amount of advertising on the track walls, rather than it simply being a haven for namby pamby artistic nonsense.  They did, however, allow Karin Björquist to design the tiles for the walls, and she came up with a far more interesting concept than she needed to.  Ceramic rods make the tiles 3-D and that orangey-brown is warm against the chilly white concrete of the rest of the platform.

The architecture as art theme continues with metal gates, used to close off an exit, but designed by Britt-Louise Sundell to look like a piece of delicate sculpture in their own right.

I stepped out onto a back street, the sun sparkling in my eyes.  There was a police station further down with idling patrol cars.  A moment to applaud the Swedish police uniforms, by the way, which include a gloriously camp hat that makes them all look like they've got pointy heads.

I walked past some building sites and restaurants that hadn't yet opened for the evening custom.  One street was being prepared for filming of some sort, and a couple of elderly gentlemen stood and watched as cables were unrolled.  It was too early for anyone of importance to have turned up though, so I missed out on a glimpse of the Swedish Julia Roberts.

I passed Teater Tre, which, based on the noticeboard advertising its coming attractions, I unfairly judged as a horribly pretentious experimental theatre.  The pictures were lots of people in garish costumes pulling odd faces.  They looked like the shows you get at the Edinburgh Festival that "hilariously" combined politics with humour: a journey through an alternate Britain where Tony Blair became emperor or a thought provoking dance and mime experience reflecting on the horrors of the Corn Laws.  I'm a puritan when it comes to theatre; I want a nice set with some good actors delivering dialogue, not a confrontational experience designed to make me rethink my very self.  And don't get me started on one-man plays, which are the absolute worst.  Anyway, it turns out Teater Tre is a specialist theatre aimed squarely at young children, so you can basically ignore all of the last paragraph.

I turned right at the Zinkensdamm Stadium, home to the Hammarby Bandy team.  Bandy is a sort of cross between ice hockey and football, in which a ball is knocked around by skaters on a rink using sticks.  Surprisingly, it's an English game, with the rules based on ones codified by us in the nineteenth century; its name, bandy, means "to knock back and forth," as in when the British bandy ideas about.  Bandy is now almost exclusively a Scandinavian sport, with a bit of Russia as well (when they're not invading other countries, obviously), though the international federation has 27 teams and there's a Great Britain Bandy Association.  

Zinkensdamm station was accessed via a small pavilion at the side of the road, which I always like because it feels properly "big city" to me.  I descended to the platform level and encountered a wall of Pop Art.  The SL has a policy of commissioning temporary pieces for some of their stations, as well as the permanent ones, and at Zinkensdamm it's currently work by Marie-Louise Ekman.  On the northbound platform it's a piece called A Thousandth of a Second.

When Hornstull station was constructed, it was thought that the shops on the streets above would pay to display goods down on the platform, so a series of glass cases were built into the wall.  It turned out nobody was interested, so instead they've filled it with art and, in one of them, a display for a children's theatre production called Who Will Comfort Toffle?, based on the book by Tove Jansson, better known as the creator of the Moomins.  I'm afraid this is where I admit I really hate the Moomins.  (You'll note I waited until I was safely out of Sweden before I confessed this).  There's something about their stupid faces that really rubs me up the wrong way.  Their big noses and their piggy eyes and their awful podgy hands - can't stand them.

Far more up my street was The Art at Hornstull, red and black bricks on the platform walls with a pattern cut into them by Berndt Helleberg.  It was very Goth and dramatic.  

There was even more art in the shopping centre that the station is incorporated into, with one of the columns turned organic, like an Ent was here to hold the roof up.

I walked, blinking, into the sunlight, and took the sign pic.  They're not as much fun when they're not totems, can I say?

What a twat.  That was the BEST of the three pictures I took at Hornstull.  Can you imagine?

I was headed off the island of Södermalm now, and to do that I needed to use the Lijleholmsbron, a cantilevered bridge that arcs high above the water.  The world seemed to change once I stepped on it.  The oppressive heat of the city vanished to be replaced by a breeze on the water.  I was looking down at a park beneath me then, beyond that, a marina with a busy waterfront bar.

It's incredible how a glimpse of water can make your day so much better.  I once read a psychological theory that it's because we evolved from the water, that there's a deeply buried primitive instinct to return there, which is of course nonsense.  But as I paused on the bridge to look at it below me I did feel a real sense of calm and contentment.

Liljeholmen is a district that's getting a significant upgrade; it's another transport interchange, with the Red Line meeting the Tvärbanen, a long tram line that loops round the city and lets you get to different networks without having to go all the way into the centre and out again.  There were new apartment blocks and offices springing up everywhere I looked.

I kept my eye out for a tram, excitedly, but none showed up.  It was curious but I didn't think much of it.  I have a habit of turning up at exactly the wrong moment to see stuff.

There isn't so much one piece of art at Liljeholmen, more that the whole station is the work of an artist.  Leif Bolter worked with the Reinius-Sporrong architecture practice when it was rebuilt in the 2000s.  It was a real collaboration and it means that it's hard to tell what was art and what was building.

Liljeholmen sits underneath a bus exchange so they tried to introduce as much natural light as possible.  One way was glass picture windows so that you could see out into the park next door; the outside effectively became the platform art.

This was the last Red Line station south of T-Centralen I needed to visit; I'd crossed all twenty-five off my list now.  From here it was a trip back to my hotel in the city centre, but the thought of that awful Mariatorget-Slussen shuttle, followed by the crush of everyone changing to the Green Line, depressed me.  I wondered if there was a different way to go.  I had to get a train out of Liljeholmen, those were the rules, so I couldn't go up to the tram stop and take that across town.  I looked at the map on the wall - not the Tunnelbana only one I'd been using, but SL's Rail Network Map, which covered all their services.

On this map, Mariatorget was marked as an interchange, with Stockholm Södra commuter station within walking distance.  That went straight into T-Centraalen, or rather, into Stockholm City station, which is a separate stop in the same place (I'll get into it later).  

It meant that while most of the train shuffled off and headed for the shuttle, I went up to the surface.  I was back in the same district I'd been in an hour before, but now I turned in the opposite direction, and I soon found myself on a delicious street.

Swedenborgsgatan - named after a scientist called Emanuel Swedenborg, and nothing to do with the country - is a long straight street that heads directly south and is lined with some of the tastiest smelling restaurants and cafes I'd encountered in a long time.  Admittedly, it was about dinner time, so my stomach was doing a lot of the thinking for me, but everywhere I walked I was hit with the scent of onions, or bread, or garlic.  My mouth became wet with saliva as I passed yet another trattoria pumping out a heady mix of flavours.

In the summer, Swedensborgsgatan is pedestrianised so that the restaurants can put tables out in the street.  It was lively and exciting, as Stockholmers knocked back glasses of wine and tucked into plates.  I wished I was brave enough to join them, to take a seat on a bistro chair and enjoy a glass of something cold, but I didn't dare.  I can't dine alone in a restaurant; I feel like I'm taking up space, that the staff are looking at me and wishing I was a nice drunken table for four who wanted starters and dessert and coffees.  I'm fat but not fat enough to spend that kind of money, and I wouldn't be able to relax.  I shuffled by and tried to get excited about the sandwich I had waiting for me in my hotel room.

The area around Stockholm Södra (Stockholm South) station had been comprehensively rebuilt in the late eighties and early 90s and it showed.  It had post modernism leaking out of every window and door, out of every pediment and curved glass roof.  It was like Canary Wharf or the World Financial Center in Manhattan, with soft pastels and odd detailing. 

Because I'd not planned on visiting Södra, I'd not done any research into it (yes folks, I do actually do research for this old nonsense).  It meant I didn't know what I'd be walking into.  Which is why I got down to the platform and said, out loud, "fuck me!"

The island platform was covered by a barrel-vaulted roof held up on brick columns and it was stunning.  It was like walking into a long, narrow corridor, but the high ceiling made it feel epic.  I walked down the centre, mouth agape, loving every inch of it.

It didn't need to be this good.  Södra's tracks had once been open to the elements, but they got rafted over to enable apartments to be built on top.  If you've been to, say, Birmingham New Street or London Victoria, you'll know how over-track developments can make a station feel dark and dingy.  Like the ceiling is about to come down on you.

Södra felt open and bright.  Even the fact that two of the platforms were out of use and unlit didn't make it oppressive.  It was big and bright and even the very 1980s pink and grey floor didn't make it feel dated.  

I was finishing my day with a delightful surprise.  Ok, so it wasn't a Tunnelbana station, but still.  It was great to end with a smile.

That's the end of Day One, and here's what's still to be visited on the Tunnelbana.  Thanks for sticking with it.

Sorry, I Cannot Hear You, I'm Kinda Busy

 

It's only occurred to me, as I sat down to write this particular post, quite how big a task this whole Stockholm trip was.  Or, more specifically, how big a task it's going to be writing it up.  Perhaps I should've done a spin-off blog rather than cluttering up this one?  Because this is the third post for Day One and it's a bit relentless.  Amsterdam was two days of travelling; Stockholm is five, plus a few tangents that I want to write about as well.  You're getting a massive "what I did on my holidays" essay and I don't blame you for switching off.  This is a 21st century front room slide show.

I should've known this because, by the time I left Örnsberg station, I was already beginning to flag a little.  It was my thirteenth station of the day and the pace was beginning to get to me.  The baking hot sun didn't help, and the deserted streets added to an air of general exhaustion.  It felt like the locals were sensibly inside while only Mad Dogs and Englishmen were out.  

I took advantage of a route between apartments to get a bit of shade, and then passed a neat square where a mum played with her toddler in a fountain.  It brought me out on a long straight road of commercial buildings, shops and cafes and hair salons wedged into the base of old homes, before a side turn into a pedestrian precinct for my next stop.

The pavement cafes were starting to fill up with customers for lunch.  These weren't the chic bistros we always imagine when we think of European street dining though, but more rough and ready cafes, with builders and workmen sat in groups tucking into pizzas and burgers.  Two young children tackled massive slabs of meat and bread while their mum leaned back and checked her phone.

"Aspudden" sounds like a euphemism for a sexual act I won't mention here because sometimes my mum reads this blog.  But you know what I'm talking about, you filthy article.

The Art at Aspudden had become something of a mascot for the area itself.

It's a bronze penguin with a box on its chest.  Why the box?  You'll have to ask the artist PG Thelander, though I think his answer would be along the lines of "why not the box?" which is no help to anyone.  It's certainly arresting to come to the foot of the escalators and have a penguin staring at you, unblinking.  For a brief moment, I was Gromit.

Rather than continue down the line and exit the station at Liljeholmen, I instead used it as a transfer spot.  The Red Line splits there and, having now completed the Norsborg branch, I thought I should polish off the Fruängen spur while I was here.  I swapped platforms and got the train right to the end of the line.

It's time for another apology, but for those of you who are of a rolling stock inclination.  In 2020, SL introduced a new class of trains, the C30, and for the time being they run exclusively on the Red Line.  I tried taking a picture of its front - an excitingly lit LED cabin that came bursting out of the dark - on several occasions, but it never came out as anything other than a blurry mess.  On top of that, when I was onboard, I idly checked out the ventilation grilles in search of the Easter Eggs the builders put in them.  In various places, the boring dots of the design have been replaced with Pac Man, or crowns, or hearts.  I never actually found any, but I thought, that's ok, I've got another day on the Red Line later in the week to have a look.

I'd not realised, however, that the engineering works that closed the Red Line between Slussen and T-Centralen had also broken the connection between the two sides for rolling stock purposes.  The northern branches were using the older C20 stock which, while very nice and all, didn't have the same futuristic feel of the C30s.  I can only apologise for the oversight of not getting any decent pictures of the trains on a train-themed blog, though in my defence I will point out that I've always maintained this is a blog about train stations, so really you should manage your expectations.

Fruängen's contribution to The Art programme is a pixelated mosaic of a child over the escalators.  To quote the artist, Fredrik Landergen: "I wanted us to remember that we all have a childhood within us.  But I also want to remind people that children are fragile and need someone to really love and care for them."  Perhaps it's because I'm not a parent, but my main train of thought was, why is that giant child staring at me and why won't he stop.

I enjoyed that Station Fruängen sign on the exterior, even if it did constitute yet another style and typeface.

I got a little disoriented leaving Fruängen's precinct, and walked in completely the wrong direction until I returned to Google Maps and reoriented myself.  The town lies to the south of the E20 motorway and I could only see one way of crossing it, which made going in the right direction kind of important.  I walked round the backs of the shops, onto a road that was being retarmacced (theoretically; as with all road projects across the world, the fences were in place, but there wasn't a single actual worker), then ducked into a hedge to find a footbridge.

Normally this is where I get creative with my writing as I try to convey the sense of terror as my vertigo kicks in while I use a footbridge.  It didn't happen at all here, because the bridge was generously proportioned with plenty of room to move about.  It seems my vertigo only kicks in when I'm on a very narrow bridge, which may be related to my claustrophobia; I tell you, I'm a petri dish of neuroses and an absolute joy to live with.

Almost immediately I was at Västertorp.  Like many of the stations, it's double ended, and while there's a larger entrance for the commercial district, this little back way had been provided for the residential district.

I will say that my efforts to take the picture below greatly amused some teenage girls who were going into the station.  Presumably they can set up an impeccably lit selfie without even having to think about it; phone out, fingers in a V, pout and you're done.  Some of us of a more elderly persuasion need a couple of tries to get it right.  Even if we have been taking selfies for longer than those girls have been on this earth.

This is also why I missed The Art at Västertorp.  It's some painted tile work at the passageway to the main entrance, and if you thought I was going to humiliate myself further in front of those girls by taking pictures of the wall in their vicinity you're very much mistaken.  They are vicious creatures.  Also, I was very tired by that point, and couldn't be bothered walking all the way to other end of the station.  I had a bleeding blister by now, though in fairness, I'd picked that up from wandering around Manchester Airport for two hours searching in vain for a seat that didn't come with an obligation to buy something.

Hägerstensåsen has a tremendous name which has allowed me to put my growing Alt code knowledge to full use, but, sadly, it has no art.  To symbolise this I have enclosed a picture of an empty platform which is, perhaps, art in itself, and SL should probably pay me for it.

The station is at the foot of a hill, and the next one, Telefonplan, is on the other side of the hill.  The Tunnelbana does a swift bit of tunnelling between the two, but us foolish bloggers who want to walk between them are forced to go up the hill and back down it again.  I paused outside for a Google Translate-assisted look at a noticeboard; there were a lot of ads for summer clubs for children, with handball and swimming, and a poster for a Language Cafe that was all in English so presumably if you didn't have a basic grasp you wouldn't even know where to go to practice.  There was also a missing cat, Tusse, though my sympathy for his owner was sadly undermined by the fact that they had put the Swedish for "runaway!" in big letters at the top, and the Swedish for "runaway!" is BORTSPRUNGEN.  I will now be using the word bortsprungen as an exclamation in my daily life because it is a superb word.

I walked through the quiet residential streets and ended up in a stretch of parkland with an amazing playground; lots of things to crawl and jump off.  Kids were using it enthusiastically while tired-looking relatives watched from benches.  Some giant red and orange eggs looked incongruous among the grasses, until I spotted a fallen tree had been carved into the shape of a crocodile, a little bit of imagination-sparking that I'm sure thrilled the children.

A set of metal steps took me down, down, down the far side of the hill, so low in fact that I ended up below the railway line.  The tracks came out of the hill on a viaduct and a skate park had been wedged into the gap beneath.  It had only one patron that day, a man who I would've politely said was old enough to know better; once you start going thin on top I think it's time to tuck the board away.  Skateboarding has never appealed to me because I am an extremely impatient person who hates the "learning" part of any skill.  It's bad enough having to put in hours and hours of effort to get a new talent without adding in the danger of cuts, grazes and fractured limbs every time you go wrong.  I'll stay at home with a nice book, thanks.

The area I was in now was called Telefonplan as this was the former home of the Ericsson corporation - yes, that one.  LM Ericsson was a pioneer in the construction of telephone equipment, starting in Sweden then moving to supply across the rest of the world.  This was where the company built a state of the art factory, opening in 1941.  Alongside was a town for its workers, known as LM City.

The tower of the factory still remains but, as you'd expect in the 21st century, it no longer operates.  Ericsson has experienced ups and downs over the decades; it was one of the earliest makers of mobiles (I was a huge fan, and the earliest pics on this blog were all taken with Sony Ericsson phones) but the smartphone era caught them out and they've retreated to technology research and networking.  They also own Red Bee Media, which you might recognise as the organisation responsible for getting television broadcasts into your home.

Telefonplan is now a massive redevelopment project with the industrial lands being covered with new apartment blocks.  The factory has been converted too, with a university moving into some of it, and it's a little disappointing.  It clearly had some style to it when it was built but now it looks mangled, like they forced it to acquiesce to something it didn't want.  It's obviously difficult to find new purposes for buildings that had one specific reason for existing, but I feel like this could've been executed with a bit more style.

The station itself isn't much longer for this world.  The city council already has a scheme to deck over the tracks to provide more building space; the plan is for offices and apartments to fill the space above.  This might provide some animation for the square opposite, which is currently an extremely bland square of nothing.  It looks like an architect's drawing only without the smiling ethnically diverse clientele and child holding a balloon.  Why is there always a child holding a balloon?

Bo Samuelson's artwork for the station is a lot of yellow tiles with pictures of local residents transferred onto the side.  I'm not a fan, though I admit it deserves better than this really terrible photograph.

Midsommarkransen, on the other hand, was far more my style.  For starters, we were underground again, which is always good, especially since I was hot and sweaty and the Tunnelbana's stations are always cool.  I hope they have a really good heating system for the Swedish winters, mind.

Secondly, The Art at Midsommarkransen is spectacular.  The station name literally means Midsummer Wreath, and so they constructed a large wooden garland suspended from the ceiling.  It was built by students Anna Flemström, Stina Zetterman and Hans Nilsson, with the help of local residents.

We're all thinking the same thing now, aren't we?

Midsommar is a fine and ancient Swedish custom that has been forever tainted by the American film industry; ironically, this is a fine and ancient custom of the American film industry.  I hope they laughed it off and didn't consider it a terrible afront or anything.  Although I couldn't decide if the gigantic wooden wreath was sinister simply because I'd once seen a horror film, or if it really did have a dark vibe to it.  It had folk nightmare overtones that I couldn't shake off.

Up top, however, Midsommarkransen was a lovely little district, with a tiny park and a busy precinct.  It was full of life, unlike the square at Telefonplan, though I'm sure that will come in time.

I was, by this point, exhausted.  I'd been up for hours and I'd walked miles.  This was my nineteenth station in a row.  I was dripping with sweat and, as I discovered when I went for a pee later, extremely dehydrated.  I nipped to the Coop in the square to buy a straight from the fridge Coke Zero and a sandwich, then headed back into the Tunnelbana.  I needed a nap to recover before I collected any more stations.  I had one thing to do before I went, though.

Uncanny, I'm sure you'll agree.