Åre, December 2005.
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Snowboarding in Sweden is great. Like Norway, flights and accommodation are cheap but eating and drinking is also relatively well priced, which together with its beginner-friendly slopes and good snow coverage made it a good choice for my sister’s first snowboarding trip. We set off from Blackpool’s tiny airport early on Saturday for our Ryan Air transfer to Stansted. Our connection went smoothly and by sunset we were descending towards Stockholm. As dusk fell, Sweden’s feathery coastline was a brilliant white under the full moon, which looked spectacular from the air. As usual, Ryan Air was good value. Our flights cost just £50 each, though if you’re booking a DIY connection through Stansted, you’ll be charged the full price for equipment carriage on *each* leg (£32 return). Like Torp, which serves Oslo, Skavsta is actually a little over an hour out of the city but is served by regular coach connections. Flybussarna offer comfortable coach transfers at £20 return. Unfortunately, in this case, we had to share the coach with some drunk German teens. We arrived at Stockholm city terminal around 7PM and walked the short distance to the central train station to wait for the night-train to Åre. Stockholm Central is a pleasant enough place to pass the time with a few bars, basic shops and fast-food outlets. If you fancy more authentic Swedish fair, there are also a few stalls selling everything from raw fish to chocolate and mulled wine.
The first thing I noticed about Sweden is that it seems more cheerful than its serious neighbors. Like Oslo, Stockholm is a neat and pretty city but unlike its neighbor to the west, it has flair. Picturesque waterways criss-cross the city and art and design are everywhere you go. My one complaint about Stockholm would be that its residents seem to delight in shoulder-barging you out of the way. I never stopped being batted around by wannabe Vikings wielding suitcases. Our train arrived at 10:30PM, spot on time and we boarded and quickly found our little sleeper cabin. My initial impression was that the room was small, too small, but once our bags were squared away, it was actually quite comfortable. The snowy landscape started to slip by; pine forests, little wooden houses and icy lakes, all of which looked spectacular under the full-moon. Despite the wonderful scenery, after a full day of traveling, we were thankful for the rest and crashed pretty quickly. While it was comfortable, the sleeper-train was also the most expensive part of our journey: A private cabin that sleeps three costs around £100 each return, though you can get a couchette for a fraction of that. Either way tickets can be booked through the Skistar website or directly with SJ, the Swedish rail operator.
We arrived in Åre around 8AM and found a large but picturesque resort that sits below a looming round-shouldered peak. Like many Scandinavian resorts, Åre lacks the wow-factor of the Alps or even Norway’s Hemsedal, though it has a vertical descent of over 1000M. We chose to stay in the bus linked resort of Duved which is 10 minutes further down the line. Duved looks just like a scaled down version of the main village, though it’s a bit quieter and *a lot* cheaper. Our cabin was about five minutes from the button-lift and was perhaps the nicest ski-resort accommodation that I’ve stayed in. The cabin included a big-screen TV, DVD player, decent cooking facilities, sauna, drying room and equipment locker. The cabin sleeps up to six people and costs just £50 per-week in low season! The village had plenty of restaurants and a few bars and clubs, though if you’re looking for Aprés Ski, Åre By is really the place to be. Both villages have ICA supermarkets where food costs roughly the same as the UK and Internet coverage is widespread through the Swedish provider ‘Home Run’ (for us hard-core geeks). We had a bit of a shock when buying booze at the supermarket. Alcohol is expensive throughout Scandinavia, but in Sweden buying booze is made deliberately unpleasant. If you can find a supermarket with a spirits section, it will look like a pack of tramps have had their way. A half-full brandy bottle here, a near-empty vodka bottle there… It turns out that to stop the population drinking themselves to death during the long winter months, the state only allows you to buy a couple of shots at once. You can buy regular bottles of spirits but they have to be ordered from the supermarket in advance. On the bright side, beer can be bought freely in Sweden and although it’s mostly pretty weak, it’s pretty good value. Plus you can always stick a bottle of vodka in your suitcase before you leave :-)
At sunrise on Monday we hit the slopes and I began teaching my sister. She struggled at first, taking a few tumbles on a hard piste, which dented her confidence (and her backside). A couple of inches of fresh snow fell on Monday night though and the next morning it was a completely different story. Kath mastered basic turns and coming to a controlled stop, all in a single morning. I guess it’s easy to forget how important fresh powder is to a beginner! On Wednesday I set off to explore the slopes, starting with the five Duved pistes. There were some fun blues and challenging reds, but a lot of the runs were only accessible by T-Bar, which can be a pain for my fellow snowboarders. If you dislike T-Bars, Hamreliften should be avoided at all costs. The bloody thing goes round corners and even down-hill at one point! Mid-week, I took the ski-bus over to Åre By to explore their slopes and it was amazing. The view from the top of Sjarnbacken across the frozen valley to the distant peaks is truly breathtaking, especially in early afternoon as the sun begins to set. You really feel like you’re at the top of the world, which you pretty much are. I can only assume that the summit view is even better, though the summit is only accessible via the Gondola, which wasn’t running during our visit. Nevertheless, Åre offered by far the best set of runs I’ve come across in Scandenavia. By Thursday afternoon it was time for us to head home. We returned from the slopes around sunset, had a few beers in the Hotel Renen bar before boarding our sleeper train and checking into our cabin. Our transfers ran like clockwork and by dawn the next day we were descending back into Stansted just in time for Christmas.