Create Blog Posts “2025-06-22-traveling-to-abisko/index”

content/posts/2025-06-22-traveling-to-abisko/index.md

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+---
+title: "Traveling to Abisko "
+summary: My travel to Abisko
+showTableOfContents: true
+series:
+  - kungsleden25
+series_order: 2
+date: 2025-06-22T13:17:00.000Z
+draft: true
+heroStyle: background
+image: 1000002743.jpg
+---
+My travel to Abisko to start the hike had multiple stages.
+
+## Getting to the Plane
+
+I took the train at 4:30 am  from Saalfeld to Naumburg where I switched from the regional train to the ICE in Berlin where I then had to go to the BER.
+
+The first regional train started out fairly empty and was overall a pretty enjoyable ride, something I cannot say about the train to Berlin. It was filled with people desperately trying to get some sleep and while I found a place to sit the smell was quite horrible as the one closest to seemed to have come from heavy partying. 
+After arriving in Berlin Hauptbahnhof I took the S-Bahn to the airport ( quick note here - you'd think that there would be some political pressure to have a fast connection between the central station and the "shiny new" airport but the only trains going there were flux trains and the dedicated S Bahn Line took almost 50 minutes to arrive ).
+
+## The big plane kerfuffle 
+
+When arriving in Berlin Hauptbahnhof I got a quick but horrifying message:
+
+> Unfortunately your plane has been cancelled. We will try to find an alternative for you.
+
+That message was a truly big issue for me as I had a non rebook able(anymore) night train to catch in Stockholm. 
+
+So I was sitting on the S Bahn, being really stressed out and worried and texted around with my parents and friends regarding the cancellation. Thankfully shortly before finally arriving at the airport I got the message that I had been rebooked to a replacement flight and would now still get to Stockholm. What saved me there s that I usually plan for incredibly long transfer times and had planned almost 5 hours of wait in Stockholm that I would have used to take a train into Stockholm and explore a bit.
+
+So I arrived at the BER and checked my luggage in, after which I went through security (went almost without any issues I just had to explain that the vacuum sealed bags of nondescript white powder in my luggage are just oats with powdered milk and protein powder - I think the visible chocolate chunks convinced then) and got some food while waiting the few hours I had to wait for my first plane.
+
+BTW for how absurdly long it took to build BER it really isn't anything to write home about it and outside of general mediocre design for the general population going through it there was a lot of exposed paneling and wires everywhere.
+
+### BER -> CPH
+
+The plane was a old and small CRJ - 900. The ceiling height was tiny and I was unable to stand fully upright. I was seated right next to the engine but I got a window seat and the view of north eastern Germany was relatively pretty. We left Germany flying over the eastern part of the Darß and then over the Baltic towards CPH. On the approach we got some really nice views of the offshore Windparks and Malmö. 
+
+The flight was relatively calm and relaxed outside of some slight turbulence during the final landing approach.
+
+# Images here 
+
+### CPH -> ARN 
+
+After hastily marching through the airport(we had very little transfer time and the gate was at the other side of the airport) I got on the connecting plane ( a nice Airbus A320) which took me to Stockholm. 
+
+The flight was nice, with a complimentary coffee and we landed after some very slight turbulence in Stockholm. I once again had a window seat so I got some nice views of southern Sweden from above.
+
+# images here
+
+## The train ride
+
+After arriving in Stockholm I boarded the night train towards Abisko. The trains are fairly old and cramped but I had nice company for the evening and got a good night's sleep. The total ride time was a bit over 16 hours.
+
+I had the company of a bird watcher from Stockholm traveling to Abisko to find an Arctic Warbler and a teacher from Norway who works as a hut keeper at one of the stations along the kungsleden.
+
+#  more images 
+
+## Overall 
+
+Despite the somewhat stressful episode with the cancelled plane and having to get up extremely early I have very little to complain about my travel here.