A Passage from Copenhagen to Sweden and Back.

September 8^th, 2019.

Copenhagen Central Station is the hub of the railway network serving Denmark as well as international destinations. It was sort of a beautiful mess for us to have to figure out from scratch. The type of inconvenience you don’t mind, pre-children.

Pulling out Kroners from the ATM proved a tick of a hassle, and I might add the exchange rates on currency compared to the US dollar seemed crazy. Though it’s all relative, from the jarring stance of a visitor, it’s hard math. What with free Danish healthcare, the US Dollar doesn’t go far.

Of our efforts to take a few-hour survey of Sweden, the train ticket purchasing process proved to be the most challenging aspect of in terms of language barrier. There was a lot of showing our hand as tourists as we confronted random strangers for advice and stood in lines of which we weren’t even sure were the proper lines to be standing in. But we made it.

We plopped down in the train car on the way to the Öresundståg stop in Sweden. The views of the vast Öresund Strait and Peberholm, a manufactured island, were devastatingly striking. As minuscules transitioned to Os with umlauts, we rode the Öresund Rail Bridge directly over all of it between Denmark and the Swedish coast.

The breathtaking bridge connecting the Scandinavian Peninsula with Western Europe was designed with intent to nudge Nordic noir into a globalization in Sweden’s decision to apply for membership of the EU.

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We approached the medieval, Romanesque Lund Cathedral in Lund, Sweden, as the hellish, churning guitars shredded from the vats and caldrons of Swedish Black Metal. Gothic choir stalls, stone sculptures, a glowing glass mosaic apse, and the largest pipe organ in all of Sweden. We got swept away to the altars and pulpits of the oldest Höör sandstone building in the country.

Lund Cathedral houses the Astronomical Clock, Horologium mirabile Lundense.

The clock displays a medieval concept of time, based on geocentricism, you know, when all the planets used to revolve around the earth. Ideas reflecting the universe and decorations of religious symbology adorn the tall and bright beast. The clock yields current time of day, the date, lunar phase, and position of the sun in the zodiac.

Twice daily, inner mechanisms of the antiquated yet meticulously winding clock chambers trigger a parade of statuettes of the Three Kings across the face of the vividly warm coloured, astronomical divide. A built-in organ plays a carol while the magi travel the land to deliver storied incense, spices and precious metals to the appreciative, swaddled babe.

Beneath the building, a crypt has existed since 1123. Sparsely lit by small, low windows and containing forty-one cross vaults of human remains. This is all supported by geometrically placed pillars. Finn, a Nordic giant, hugs one of these pillars. A ghoul spun him to stone for all eternity.

The sarcophagus of the final Archbishop of Lund, is located in the center.

We stood in an eerie wake as the fluid distant sounds of twin Ibenez Warlocks sung harmonically a medieval In dulci jubilo, soloing to the crackling cackles of the Swedish cryptkeeper beyond the final resting place.

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Explorers, Volume 3.