Hmmm this does not look good either!

A shooting in peaceful Sweden, and we are scheduled to land in 36 hrs. More seasoned travellers would be freaking but we can take it in stride. Apparently shots were fired in the City Square of Malmo, read about it here.

Peaceful Malmo will be just that but it is a good bet that an increased police presence will be seen for a few weeks. Just another sight for the tourists.

Now the weather is not cooperating

Well this does not look good - three days of rain to start the trip. And the wind from the North Sea to boot! This has the other traveller - the love of my life paniced. "What will we wear", "I don't want to take a raincoat".

I guess we will manage - just don't ride the open topped buses and we should be OK. Don't wear open-toed sandals and we will get by.

Two days to go - getting a bang out of City cards

Museum/Transit cards:
This is the Berlin Museum Pass. Just one of many ways that tourists can get a bang for their bucks. It is one of three that offer most of the same thing - cheap or free entries to museums and sights. Some cards have free transit attached and they all offer something. The problem is that not all the museums are on one card, not all transit is on one card so tourists have to really check as to which card suits them best. 

The rule of thumb is that if you are doing more than three museums in your trip you can save. We have investigated and for our purposes the Berlin transit card will work, after we have used up our two days on the hoho bus, and then probably pay for the individual museums we want to enter. The one wrinkle is that despite the claim that you can 'skip the line' the most popular museums are 'time-dated'. Even if you have a 'skip the line' you still have to go to the box office to get a ticket with a time on it. Museums do this to stagger the number of people in the museum at any one time.

Each place we are going to, Malmo excepted, has a City card. A combination of transit and museums it is a job in itself to go through all of them. The savvy tourists will make themselves aware of them and then obtain them at the hotel they stay at or the local cornerstore.

Two days to go - planning the buses

Planning the buses:
As in all trips the first thing we do is to take the 'hoho' bus, usually on a two day ticket. This provides an easy way to travel the City and to see what is in the City that we may want to go back too. So the first day is riding and the second is visiting. The big problem is that not all bus companies are equal. Some have a boat trip added, some have different routes but you can bet they all have the same prices. 

The planning for these trips is to make a decision whether you buy the ticket before you go or just turn up at a stop and deal with the huckster (usually a student on commission). We have done it both ways, the convenient way - sometimes, is to buy before you go. But the drawback there is that the place to exchange the ticket voucher may not be at the bus stop you want to use. "Go to the main office" is the instruction. Losing time and energy finding that place. So much energy is expended pre-trip using google earth and google to determine the best company and the best price.

Three days to go

OK folks, we have been here before - the planning stage. This trip is the same as the last trip - a 'carry-on' exercise. Small suitcases means one thing, a female panic about packing! Without buying new suitcases, well at least one as mine is an older case and weighs 7lbs empty the travelling becomes one of "how many days are are there going to be before we hit a laundry?" Only being allowed 22lbs deciding on which clothes to pack becomes a major exercise based on an unknown - European weather.