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Thinking about driving to Sweden for our summer holiday. Anyone done it? Would take ferry to Netherlands and stay with relatives overnight. Then its roughly 8hrs to copenhagen where we would spend a couple of days, then on to an Air BnB cabin on a lake somewhere in south of Sweden for a week then reverse. Does this sound do-able?
or is the timescle too tight?
Just an idea at the moment
Wife's scout group did it. The crap went in a minibus and trailer while the main group flew.
There's not much in Copenhagen (spent quite a lot of time there on business).
And the mermaid is really small and disappointing.
You do need to go north to Lego Land.
totally doable.
Took the overnight ferry from Harwich to Hook of Holland, drove through Germany and Denmark for a ferry to Norway 13 hours later. That was a bit tight, only just squeaked onto the ferry - mainly due to losing hours in Germany sat in queues for roadworks. Should have been a 9 hour drive.
Was thinking about using the two bridges (great belt and orsesund). Almost 300 Eur for both tolls return!
We did this when the kids were younger. Overnight ferry Hull-Rotterdam, disembarked at 9am then up to Billund in Denmark the same day. Copenhagen would add another couple of hours. Came back through Germany taking an extra ferry from southern Denmark.
The question is whether P&0 will still be running at that point. 🙂
PS If you have younger kids, Legoland in Billund is brilliant as a pit stop.
We did Harwich to Hook of Holland when driving to Denmark last summer and we're do it again this year. It's an easy drive especially at the weekend when no trucks are allowed on the autobarn.
Always wanted to do this. Personally I'd do the tunnel and drive through NL and make a trip of it, but only if I had the time!
I've done it a lot, my record is about 12 hours, Göteborg to Hook of Holland. Left at 7 pm, got to the ferry at 7am _NO_ traffic anywhere, at all. No roadworks either, never managed before or since. Usually takes 14-15 hours.
Have a look for deals on the bridges, i usually pay about €80-100 return for the Öresundsbron.
You could also look at using the ferries as well, they are a good way to break up the journey, especially with kids, Puttgarden/Rodby to get from Denmark to (almost) Copenhagen, cuts out one of the bridges. Then Helsingborg/Helsingor (depending on how far north you decide to go in Sweden) cuts out the other bridge...
Did Southampton to Copenhagen for a triathlon back in 2010ish. Went via the tunnel, Belgium, Germany, up through Denmark and over the Great belt bridge. Split into 2 days with a B&B stop near Hamburg. Shared the driving each day. Getting there was fine but became ill night before coming back and my co-driver had to drive the whole stint Copenhagen - Hamburg. She then became ill with the same bug and I had to Hamburg back to Southampton. That was a tough drive when still not 100%. Turned out the swim had been in polluted water after run off from torrential rain. German medication had the great name of Vommacure seem to remember.
Totally doable (did it when I moved).
Ferry from Harwich overnight to Hook of Holland and then head up to the ferry from Puttgarden, through/past Copenhagen. After that you have a choice of another ferry to Helsinborg or over the bridge to Malmö.
It's not a fast trip. I took a couple of days to do it and the distances are further than you think. Denmark is flat and so is, to some extent, Skåne. The West Coast (Gothenburg and north) is quite lovely, but you'll have another drive ahead of you. For reference, it takes six hours to drive to Gothenburg from Stockholm. Google maps says 7 hours or so for Malmö to Stockholm, but it felt a lot longer than that when I did it in the van.
The company I work for has its head office near Falun (3 hours north of Stockholm) and my Polish colleagues from Gdansk don't think twice about doing the drive when we are summoned for workshops or meetings.
Going over the Øresund Bridge would be a real eyeopener.
Thinking about driving to Sweden for our summer holiday. Anyone done it? Would take ferry to Netherlands and stay with relatives overnight.
If you're staying in the Netherlands you could look at using the tunnel. We're driving to Jutland this summer but will stop off at a Centerparcs near Eindhoven for a few days first. It's only about three hours from Calais so doable in a day from Bristol. On the way back we'll go straight to the Hook of Holland for the Harwich ferry.
Netherlands is like my second home as my wife is Dutch. We've driven there many many many times and tried every variation of the journey. Tunnel is pretty good tbh but the drive through Belgium and South Holland is sooooooo boring that these days its nicer to chill out on the longer Ferry trip to Hoek and then its a short and pleasent 2 hr hop to the North of Holland and the MIL
Possibly take the first ferry but really want to drive over the Öresundsbron - it just looks amazing. Will check for discounts thanks.
I guess unleaded is crazy expensive in Sweden - it is well over 2 EUR a litre in Netherlands right now
It's around 20,75 SEK at the moment, so about 1.70 a litre.
Speaking to my colleague in Sweden today, diesel is 30 Swedish crowns where he is.
It's 24 or 25 SEK in most places today.
It peaked at about 28 a couple of weeks ago, if he's still paying 30 he's being robbed blind.
Huh, wondered why you'd go via the Netherlands rather than direct to Goteborg from Newcastle/ Harwich... then learned that those ferries no longer run. Shame!
Ive done it twice. Driven Wolverhampton to Kiruna (its a long way) via Harwich to Esbjerg and back Via hook of Holland.
Driving over the Oresund Bridge is quite special, in that a tunnel pops you out onto a bridge in the middle of the sea.
It a joy driving on Swedish roads, especially when you get north of Stockholm.
We've done the drive from Rotterdam/Hook of Holland to Denmark many times, generally takes us 10 hours including stopping times. It's an easy journey for the most part although there seems to have been roadworks and delays round Hamburg for the last decade.
If going to Copenhagen then taking the ferry at Puttgarden and having that as one of your 'stops' is a nice timesaver.
We've been all the way up to Bergen with stops in Denmark in both directions in 16 days. Although we opted for the overnight ferry into Oslo from Copenhagen.
My opinion is it depends who you're travelling with, how much time you have to kill, and want to kill. Personally I'd use the train.
My only experience is with travelling further north in Sweden. For us it's about 2000km each way from the Amsterdam ferry port. NCL-Amsterdam ferry is a no brainer as getting down to Newcastle is easy and pleasant, wake up in the Netherlands ready to go. BUT then driving 2000km each way, disregarding any potential stopoffs at family and friends further south or anything even mildly interesting en route is just crushingly tedious. And, unlike a poster above, the roads in Sweden are life emptyingly dull. The safety stats are good, but other than Elk the main cause of fatalities on Swedish roads is death from boredom. For us driving 500km a day (with young kids), plus an overnight on each end of the trip on the ferry we'd be looking at eating up over a week in exceptionally boring circumstances. Personally I'd take the train every time as you can break it a few ways in interesting city centres (rather than service stations/motels) where necessary and using sleepers to get distance overnight. In the deep south you're probably looking at 1/3 less distance on the road so can be done in a couple of days if you fancy it but I'd still favour the train in theory.
Teenrat: Wolverhampton to Kiruna, ouch! What in god's name did you do there. It's either mining, army, test driving cars or possibly the ice hotel?
I used to get the ferry from Immingham to Gothenburg. It was the DFDS freight ferry that allowed drive on vehicles.
I am not sure it is still running or still allowing non freight. Worth a look.
No, not allowing anything other than commercial freight these days.
And there's definitely a lot of diminishing returns once you get either too far inland or much past Göteborg in the West of Stockholm in the East.
Unless you like a lot of nothing.
Sweden are life emptyingly dull
My experience too, mainly the one between Gothenburg and Stockholm that I used a lot whilst living there. Driving is to be commended though much better CO2 than flying!
I too had heard that the freight ferry maybe accepts drive ons but failed to discover how you go about achieving it
The freight services stopped accepting non-freight passengers at the same time as they stopped the Harwich Esbjerg ferry.
Immingham - Esbjerg would be perfect for us
Totally doable, I've driven from Rotterdam to Stockholm in a day, making use of the Puttgarden - Rødby ferry and Oresund bridge. It is a pretty special way to arrive into Sweden.
Also worth considering the Travemünde - Trelleborg ferry to cut out a lot of driving, though it doesn't really save time.
Teenrat: Wolverhampton to Kiruna, ouch! What in god’s name did you do there. It’s either mining, army, test driving cars or possibly the ice hotel?
My brother used to live there. Drove up there with him when he moved there, and back with him when he left.
Kiruna is a strange, isolated place.
Hamburg is better for traffic these days, tbh. Although there's a regular ferry that crosses the Elbe further up now if you don't fancy the gamble, and also fancy some non-Autobahn driving.
We've used the Kiel-Göteborg ferry a few times as well - it's incredibly relaxing and gets you into Göteborg just after rush hour.
Two weeks is loads of time, and with kids I'd go from NL to the Elbe ferry, up to Billund for a few days and have two days in Legoland and one at the forest park nearby. Next day would be my heading to Sweden - either by the quick ferry to Göteborg, or across to Århus then the ferry to Sjælland Odde and down to the Øresundsbroen. Copenhagen is pretty in places but I have never warmed to it. And it's not great for kids.
What is great for kids is Sweden's west coast - lovely sandy beaches turn rocky around Göteborg, Trollhattan has a great science museum and the SAAB one has a huge Scalextric track. Norden's Ark is a brilliant wildlife sanctuary where you can stay over if you like. We did in the off season and they just handed us the keys!
We've done many of the variations above and they are all good (but haven't done Kiruna - a colleague got the winter test driving stint).
Putgarten ferry is a very quick hop. Travemunde return is good for an overnight sleep and leaves an easy day drive to Rotterdam.
Find some of the Sweden A-Road not-quite-motorway stints easy but very slow going.
The quick ferry from Fredrikshamn in Denmark to Göteborg hasn't run in years, it just sits in port rotting away!
The regular ferry runs and that's a 3 and a half crossing.
I used to regularly drive from the UK to Göteborg Sweden and back every 2-3 months as part of my job.
Used to take the tunnel, head to Tilburg in the Netherlands for an over night stop, then crack on early the next morning crossing into Germany then heading north into Denmark and up to Fredrikshamn and get the ferry across to Göteborg arriving late evening.
Just checked... Q8 HVO is the most expensive, it's about 26kr just outside Uppsala. E85 is down below 20kr (which is nice), but still way above what it was his time last year. Most normal diesel is about 24kr and 95RON is about 20kr.
By the way, it really has to be said again that Sweden is a big place. Kiruna (as mentioned above) is a really, really long way from just about everywhere. Sundsvall seems a long way north to most people in Stockholm and event that is something like only a third of the way up the coast north. You still have Luleå, Umeå and Kalix to go before you reach Finland.
Dalarna is, I guess, about as far north as most people will go (apart from Åre or Idre) and that is about four hours away from Stockholm.
There’s not much in Copenhagen (spent quite a lot of time there on business).
And the mermaid is really small and disappointing.You do need to go north to Lego Land.
Wrong on both counts.
We did a few days in Copenhagen a few years back, did Tivoli Gardens, the aquarium and the mermaid (was a nice day so had a good walk and ride on the ferry) plus god knows what. It was a nice place to be and well worth it for the Carlsberg and Tuborg (turns out those Export adverts were a total lie, who guessed?).
Legoland is in Billund which is about half an hour from the main road to Odensee and Copenhagen (assuming you're taking the bridge to Malmo and not the ferry to Gothenburg), well to the west. It's definitely not somewhere I'd be trying to get back to from Copenhagen on the way there as its a 6 hour round trip!
By the way, it really has to be said again that Sweden is a big place.
Ok so it's what they call 'Northern' Sweden, even though it's in the middle, but when working in Sundsvall we were once diverted to Östersund due to fog, and we had a bus laid on. It was the nearest airport so clearly a significant town, but it must've been 3hrs of driving, with barely any junctions never mind villages or other towns. Just trees, the occasional lake, and @62.5966111,15.7036161,3a,75y,149.42h,90.61t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sCn9ZH4uiDlmxuq4jqfKl7Q!2e0!7i16384!8i8192">lots of this.
I'm actually not looking forward to Midsommar. We are planning on going to Östersund (from Uppsala) in the eNiro and that's a trip that will require a charge-stop to get there. Planning that into the drive will make a six+ hour trip a lot longer.
It's also going to be cold. Midsommar is a lie. It's not summer. Last time I was there I had never been so cold in June and it was blowing a near constant 11m/s. I had the option of a midnight skydive, but with my canopy at the time, I would have just gone backwards into the forest. At least this year I'm jumping a 150 sqft canopy and should be able to at least stay in the dropzone.
We had a midsummer a few years ago that was colder than NYE...
but it must’ve been 3hrs of driving, with barely any junctions never mind villages or other towns. Just trees, the occasional lake
Yep looks familiar at certain times. Stockholm to Falun in driving snow at midnight is er (un) inventful with the odd volvo charging by at what seemed like breakneck speed.