Crossing the Atlantic: Part Six

When I heard we were going to be in Denmark for another day, I decided I had to go and do SOMETHING exciting, so I went to Sweden (it's only half an hour or so away by train). The train was PACKED - full of people trying to get home any way they could.

Arriving at Malmø Central Station, I knew I wanted to go somewhere else, but I didn't know where. I've been to Malmø before (see June 2008 in the right-hand column), and although I really like it, I spent an entire day looking around it and I knew there wouldn't be much more to see.

Walking into the information office at the station, I saw a huge map of southern Sweden on the wall. I had a quick glance round to see where else I could go and still be able to get back to Copenhagen in good time. As I scanned the map, my eye caught the name "Ystad". Hmm. Ystad is the town where the Wallander books and films (by Henning Mankell) are (set/filmed). I'm a big fan of the series, but Ystad (or Oosh-tard, as Branagh and his buddies call it) did seem rather a long way away... I looked around and saw that the train to Ystad was about to leave the staion. I had to make a decision there and then. Oh, what the heck. I went to Ystad.


Arriving in Ystad (and still feeling like a bit of a geek), I sought out the tourist office. That wasn't actually hard, because it was opposite the train station. Although it was shut, they had left a lot of leaflets about the town out. One caught my eye:


I decided to jump on the geek bandwagon altogether and go with it (I hadn't got anything else to do, so why not?).

Ystad is a lovely looking town actually - with little cobbled streets and small houses (OK, this street isn't cobbled.):


I didn't go to EVERY place my guide suggested I should go to, but there were a couple I did check out:

Wallander's street:


Wallander's favourite café (where you can apparently buy a Wallander police blue pastry. Whatever that is. It doesn't sound particularly appetising. I never got to find out because by the time I got round to having my Wallander police blue pastry, it was shut.):


One final thing: what is it with this crazy continental tendency to shut every thing at about 2pm on a Saturday? To keep my spirits up, I decided it would be a nice touch to buy a Wallander book from Ystad. Could I find anywhere selling books at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon?

(No.)