[iPai]

Originally Posted by mpksuhas

Ok, great. Yes the crowd is really huge for summer festival and its a diffrent experience all together. Well, lomma beach is great. Hope you were able to see the yatches anchored at the left end (oresund) end of the beach (just after nude beach ) . Post your copenhagen pics too, its also a beautiful city. For Oslo did you take cruise of flight?

Yupp. Will post soon. StarVegaBond has inspired me big time!

For Oslo, we took a Bus man. An overnight journey to Oslo. While coming back it was a day journey and the landscapes were amazing! Oslo- Gothenburg - Lund - Malmo is the route.

[mpksuhas]

Originally Posted by iPai

Yupp. Will post soon. StarVegaBond has inspired me big time!

For Oslo, we took a Bus man. An overnight journey to Oslo. While coming back it was a day journey and the landscapes were amazing! Oslo- Gothenburg - Lund - Malmo is the route.

Ok. Great. I too had gone to Oslo while in Malmo, but had taken cruise from Copenhagen. Was like a package. Yes, can understand regarding landscapes it somehow seems like taken out of some story book do post the pics of that too soon.

[iPai]

Originally Posted by mpksuhas

Ok. Great. I too had gone to Oslo while in Malmo, but had taken cruise from Copenhagen. Was like a package. Yes, can understand regarding landscapes it somehow seems like taken out of some story book do post the pics of that too soon.

This one is taken at Bjarred. You can see the Oresund Bridge in the background

[StarVegabond]

Originally Posted by amitk26

If you are still there and plan to go to Copenhagen visit Tivoli this is first ever amusement park in world and Walt Disney got inspired by this to build Disneyland in USA.

Amitk, today is my last day of this trip, last 3 days have been hectic, hopefully today afternoon we will get some time to visit the town. I do not think we get time to visit Tivoli, but there is always next time

Originally Posted by WindRide

Pardon my ignorance, but what does "half under sea" mean? Vehicles need to drown into the sea?

It is a combination of a tunnel under the sea and a bridge over the sea.

Oresund Bridge info from wikipedia
Oresund Bridge - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Some Technical/Structural details of the bridge can be found here
Structurae [en]: Øresund Bridge (2000)

Some Technical/Structural details of the tunnel can be found here
Structurae [en]: Øresund Tunnel (2000)

Details about the Project can be found here
Oresund Bridge, Sweden / Denmark - Road Traffic Technology

I will post my photographs of the bridge in the evening

Originally Posted by addyhemmige

Nice write-up & pics Star. Nice of you to pen down your travelogue even on official duty. Just hope that your boss won't see this.

1. one of my several bosses (= customer) is travelling with me.

2. All work, No play makes Jack a dull boy

3. i do not work on a time-material billing, but based on Ethics (Doing right things when no one is watching) and Results (sales, margins), so untill these ar okay, everything else is okay

4. there are two reports running in parallel, one on outcomes of the several official meetings (for colleagues) which is internal to our company and second one is this one for family, friends and BHPians, this is open in the public forum. Actually this one is running behind very much, i am still on the first day of my trip, where as it is my last day today at Lund.

@iPai, @amitk, @mpksuhas
--------------------------
Feel free to post your snaps / description here unless you want to start your own thread/travelogue.

[StarVegabond]

Founded in 1925, Copenhagen Airport was one of the first civil airports in the world. One can read more about this airport in the below link

It all began in 1925 - Københavns Lufthavne

Here are few photogrpahs taken prior to landing & during landing

Just prior to landing


Immediately after landing


Some samps of Airtraffic Control



A small plate waiting to takeoff


Approaching airport terminal


Exiting the plane was very efficient, we were taken in a bus and dropped to a terminal gate. We were not required to do any immigration and customs as we had already done that Frankfurt. There was a display which told us on which belt our check-in luggage would arrive and in how
many minutes. Our luggage was to arrive after 21 minutes. We used to time to visit the rest rooms and to exchange the money.

We found an interesting advertisement of a leading Consulting, IT, Solutions company which told the viewers that even though they are the biggest animal in the world, they can still do everything that their customers want them to do. Below picture is part of the advertisment.



Our lauggage arrived soon and we were ready for the next journey.



It was already past 2 PM (it was about 1hours 20 minutes flight, plus about 20 minutes for de-boarding, luggage arrival). We moved to the food court on the first floor, had some burgers, fries and coke.

We had two options for the mode of travel to Lund, first by train, which takes about 45 minutes and train travels via Malmo south (first stop in sweden), Malmo and then Lund. The frequency of the train is every 20 minutes. We were told that tickets cost about 125 Swidish Kroners per person.

Second option was to take a taxi. We decided to take the taxi as my co-passenger had a large luggage.

In my next post i will upload the photographs of the tunnel and bridge shot by me.

[StarVegabond]

We exited the airport, Got into a Taxi, The driver was from Afganistan, he started talking to us in Urdu (=purified Hindi).

We looked at the map to go from Copenhagen airport to Lund. I have attached an image of the map here. Total distance is approx 51 KM.


We hit the highway E20


Soon we entered the Tunnel, It is an amazing feeling to know that we would be going underneth the SEA.



Soon the zipping car exited the tunnels and started climbing onto the bridge


Soon we crossed over from one country (Denmark) to another country (Sweden). There was no border control, no immegrations, no customs, no security, no conflict. It is practical, seemless and boundaryless. I hope the world would be once again like this in distinct future.

Next 2 photos show the view of the bridge and center point of the bridge



Next two photos show a collage of bridge/tunnel photographs found on world wide web. These are attached to just provide different perspectives on how majestic the structure really is.

[StarVegabond]

I attach here some pictures taken after the bridge till we reach our hotel in Lund

We approach the Toll Booth plus Customs


Imagine a Taxi from another country making toll payment automatically.
This needs very sophesticated payment and tolling systems.


Tetrapak is one of the symbols of Sweden, one of their campuses


A photograph of a church from a distance


and a house


Our car was a three point star 320D, the driver was from afghanistan.
he has been living in Denmark since his childhood. He was very fluent in urdu.


E20 is having a speed limit of 110 KMPH, but often overtakning would need the vehicle to go at 120 KMPH. later on i learnt that generally it is a practice not to fine till one is <130 KMPH.


I found Ice on the sides of the highway, It was said that this is the first time in last several years the winter has lasted this long.


We crossed over to E22 towards Lund


one more last photo before we reached the hotel. A combination of new construction along with the retained old structure. Later on we found similar structures all around Lund.

[StarVegabond]

After about 40 minutes drive since copenhagen airport, we reached hotel.
GPS in the taxi was of assistance as it provided all necessary guidance to the driver.

for interested souls, more info about the hotel can be found here.
First Hotel Planetstaden // LUND

As i was the first timer here, i am attaching some first impressions about the hotel lobby and the room.

Hotel Lobby and Reception as we enter


A tulip welcoming the guests


one of the lobby lounges, there are such 3 lounges


A compact room, view as we enter


A compact table, LCD and a lounge sofa chair


a toilet and shower room on the left side and an cupboard, a small enclosed kichen with needed gadgets viz Oven, water heater, refregirator on the right side.


Most important a king sized bed


Room was warm, clock was showing some time after 4 PM.
We decided to meet after 2 hours in the lobby. Two hours for resting our backs, getting refreshed, checking e-mails and getting ready to explore the further.

[StarVegabond]

Fatigue creeps into anyone after a long long journey

0.20 hours to airport
0.20 hours for checkin-immigration-customs-security
3.40 hours in the kingfisher lounge
8.30 hours in the Lufthansa flight to frankfurt
0.30 hours for immigration-security-walk to the gate
3.30 hours for coffee-conversation at frankfurt lounge
1.20 hours flight to Copenhagen
0.30 hours for getting the luggage-customs-money exchange
0.45 hours for lunch at copenhagen airport food court
0.40 hours drive from Copenhagen to Lund
0.15 hours for hotel checkin-getting into the rooms.

20.20 hours

best way to unwide is a long hot shower, that is exactly what i did after a brief rest to the back. The temperature settable shower was what i wanted. Nothing beats a hot shower after one experiences a 4 deg C external weather with cold winds.

I rate this as the small pleasure #1.

After getting ready, wanted to check the e-mails, soon hit the first roadblock. Laptop notebook batteries had drained. The power socket was different than the one in India. i realized that i had forgotten my universal power adapter back home. I contacted tghe reception, they told that they do not provide any adapters, suggested that i buy in in a shop in the town.

My co-passenger also called me to check whether i have any power adapter. We decided to go out to buy an adapter.

At 6 PM, we hit the road outside, then i realized problem no 2.
I had also forgotten my earplugs back home. I went in and got some cotton balls, which were not sufficient.

We walked for some 20 minutes (as per guidance from the reception) and reached the center point of the town. but all shops were already closed.
In this part of the world, most of the shops close by 6 PM as everyone want to enjoy life with thier family.

We decided to have our dinner, found a good Italian resturant "The Italia"
The freshly baked bread tarter, pasta were washed down using fermented grape juice and topped up with a tiramitu.

Walk back to the hotel appeared to be a long one. temperature was already in negative, streets were deserted, clock showed some time past 8:30 PM. We found a seven-eleven store open, but they did not have any adapter.

so we completed out 25 minutes back in -5 deg C and reached hotel.
I was worried about the Jetlag and not able to wake up next day in time.
We had next 4 days full of meetings, hence we had to be in well rested.
So booked a wakeup call for 7 AM and hit the bed.

[StarVegabond]

Next 4 days were as planned. reaching office by 8:30 AM, leaving office often past 6:30 PM, Drop the bags back to the room, walk 20 minutes to the town center, have our dinner and walk back in -5 deg C.

our probelm of power adapter was solved when one of my colleague offered his spare laptop charger to us. We used the USB cable to charge our phones. We (myself and my co-passenger) often exhanged lifelines during these 4 days. Having laptop notebooks from the same brand & same model helped.

i will not write about these 4 days schedule here, it would be often boring to go through the mundane details. Instead i will write about my learnings and some aspects of life in this part of the world. Ofcourse i will share some photographs of our visit to the attractions of this small town in the forthcoming posts.

[StarVegabond]

This post is for all those who secretly or openly want to fly a plane or want to learn how to fly a plane.

I read a short article in Lufthansa magazin about the Flying Simulator available in Berlin.

Boeing 737-700 cockpit at the Flight simulator center in Berlin


more info can be found here

Flugsimulator Berlin

As per Lufthansa magazine the cheapest tickets cost 159 Euros

[pranava999]

Wow quite a comprehensive thread covering a whole range of topics.Very insightful indeed. I see a hidden researcher is you sir!

[StarVegabond]

We were given a guide book and a map of the town by the hotel reception free of cost. It seems the local government prints this and provides it to all the hotels to distribute it to tourists/visitors.

I am capturing here the history of the town as mentioned in this book

Just before 1000 AD : Founding of Lund by the Danish King, Svend Tveskagg
1130s : Dedication of the High Altrar of the lund Cathedral
1350s : Lund was most important city in Denmark, boasting 27 churches, monasteries & just about every kind of commerce/crafts
1520s : The Reformation deals hard blow to Lund, with the destruction of all the churches and monasteries
1640s : Dedication of Lund University
1650s : The Battle of Lund, one of the bloodiest battles in Swedish military history
1850s : Completion of the Universitetshuset (main admin building of the university)
1860s : The first student spex show opens on the fate of Gerda, the daughter of the gaint
1970s: Dedication of the museum of cultural history (Kultren)
1950s : Creation of Tetrapak carton package. Tetrapak company opens in 1952
1960s : Mils Alwal invesnts the dialysis machine, an artificial kidney
1980s : Ideon, an incubator for the business and research opens
2000s : The dedication of the fars and Frosta Sparbank areana

Lund is on its way to become the cultural capital of Europe

I have attached wikipedia page here for people who want to know more about the history of Lund.

Lund - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

In the next post i will add some photographs of the monuments visited by us.

[StarVegabond]

We could visit the attractions of the town only after 6:30 PM everyday as work got over only by that time. so most of my snaps are not very bright. please excuse me for the same.

Main attraction of the town is Cathedral. I have added here the despctiopn found on www.

Lund's Cathedral, founded about 1080 by the Danish king Knut IV (St Knut or Canute), is the oldest and finest Romanesque church in Sweden. The present building dates from the 12th century. The twin towers, popularly known as the "Lads of Lund" (Lunna Påga), were formerly a prominent landmark. The Cathedral now stands in the heart of the town - a reminder of the fact that Lund was the oldest archiepiscopal see in Scandinavia, with authority over 27 churches and eight religious houses

Lundgard = old Lund garden,

North of the Lund Cathedral lies the Lundagård, a park which features prominently in the life of the University. In the park is the Kungshus (King's House) or Lundagårdshus, built in the 16th century as a residence for the Danish king Frederick II. King Charles XII of Sweden is said to have ridden up the spiral staircase in the palace when he took up his quarters in Lund after his campaigns in Europe. The Kungshus was occupied by the University until 1882, when the present University buildings nearby were built.

Kings House





Main adminstrative building of Lund University




some other buildings in Lund garden



Museum Building

In Lund's Tegnérsplats is the Museum of Cultural History (Kulturhistoriska Museet; popularly known simply as Kulturen), an open-air museum with farmhouses, pastors' houses and town houses from all over southern Sweden; particularly notable is an old church from Bosebo in Småland. There are also collections of pottery, porcelain, textiles and folk art. To the south, in Kraftstorget, are the Historical Museum and the Cathedral Museum

In Tegnérsplats, at the southeast corner of Lundagården, is a monument to the Swedish poet Esaias Tegnér (1782-1846), author of "Frithiof's Saga", a romantic cycle on an Old Norse theme. His house in Gråbrödergatan is now a museum.

Some buildings opposite Lund Garden



Bus Stand near Lund Cathedral


A School Building


Lund Railway Station



Some other church a bit away from the famous cathedral

[SmartCat]

The buildings/city look straight out of the WWII shooter game "Call of Duty".