I just nailed down our first excursion outside of Copenhagen for our trip. We will arrive in Copenhagen on the morning of the 25th. On the morning of the 28th we are going to catch a train from Copenhagen, Denmark to Gothenburg, Sweden. If you are ever in this situation you should know that there are many train options between the two. You can use the Danish reservation site at dsb.dk, Eurorail at RailEurope (or a number of other sites), or Swedish Railways at sj.se. It turns out that even though you are on the same train the rates vary widely and seem to be changing constantly on the first and last option. We ended up going with the latter because kids under 15 ride free. Round trip tickets for all four of us were about US$200. A few days earlier they were only US$150 so buying early seems to be key.

In Gothenburg we will be staying at the Hotell Barken Viking. If that isn’t the coolest name for a hotel I don’t know what is. But wait, it gets better. This is no ordinary hotel. It is a ship. Unfortunately, it isn’t a Viking ship, as the name suggests, but it looks exciting anyway.

There are no pictures of the interior on the internet as it was just remodeled in May of 2008, but they sent us these pictures:

Just across the bridge from where the Barken Viking is docked is the main attraction for the day. While the wife and kids are off enjoying the summer in Gothenburg, I will be experiencing a music festival with a lineup one can only dream about.

If you were to ask me who are the current musical acts, never before seen live that I’d most like to see, I would answer In Flames and Dimmu Borgir. If you were to ask me who are the current musical acts, I have seen live before that I’d like to see again, I would answer Opeth and Dark Tranquility. If you were to ask me where would I like to see them, the answer would be in the heart of The Gothenburg Sound of course. It seems that all of these wishes are going to come true. And for icing on the cake, why not throw in a bunch of other great bands like Nightwish, Finntroll, Amon Amarth, and Soilwork too?

I have driven over 1,600 miles round trip to see Opeth on three occasions in Portland & Eugene, Oregon and Oakland, California, but this will be extra special seeing them in Sweden. Of course I won’t be able to understand any of Mikael’s usual between-songs banter in Swedish, but for this experience I can do without it.

This won’t be my first concert out of the United States. Last summer I got to see Rush on their home turf in Toronto, and that was a night I’ll never forget.

I should also thank Morten, from Copenhagen Insider, for answering all of my travel questions so quickly.

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Posted on June 18th, 2008 under Denmark • Tags: goteborg, gothenburg, hotell barken viking (hotel barque viking), metal, metaltown 2008, opeth, sweden. • RSS 2.0 feed • Leave a response, or trackback