Global Wanderer

25/1/26

A short post here, for a little town I had a short break in! My route was taking my from Gothenburg all the way down to Vienna in one hit – the journey, however, was to be broken up into a number of different train trips: Gothenburg to Copenhagen; Copenhagen to Fredericia; Fredericia to Flensburg; Flensburg to Hamburg; and finally, Hamburg to Vienna – it’s a long journey, I know!

I took the 6:55am train out of Gothenburg bound for Copenhagen. The Øresundståg trains run regularly between Copenhagen and Malmö, and once per hour between the Danish capital and Gothenburg – crossing the absolutely incredible Øresund fixed link in the process.

Pre-dawn at Gothenburg Central Station

The Øresund link is an engineering marvel – it combines a bridge and a tunnel to connect Denmark with Sweden, and provides a fixed rail-and-road route between Scandinavia and the rest of Europe, making it a real lifeline! The bridge runs from Malmö to Peberholm Island, an artificial island that was built during the construction of the link. Peberholm serves an important purpose, as its where the bridge meets a dive structure, and trains and road vehicles enter a tunnel beneath the Øresund, emerging by Copenhagen’s Kastrup Airport. Peberholm has also found a new life as a wildlife sanctuary!

The Øresund, as seen from the train!

Travelling across the Øresund was always on my Train Travel Bucket List, and so I spent most of the bridge crossing with my eyes unsurprisingly glued to the window. After a brief change of trains at Copenhagen’s Central Station, I was off again, this time headed for Fredericia!

Outside the railway station in Copenhagen

Trains heading from Copenhagen to mainland Europe have to cross two significant bridges spanning two important sections of water. The Great Belt Fixed Link and the Little Belt Fixed Link allow trains and cars to cross over the two ‘belts’ of water separating the Danish mainland – known as Jutland – from the islands of Funen (home to Odense) and Zealand (home to Copenhagen).

Fredericia lies on the Jutland side of the Little Belt, and is a quaint town of around 40,000. Given the train stopped there anyway, I decided to pad my connection out to a few hours, and have a bit of a wander (thank you, Interrail pass!). The train station was located about a 20 minute walk from the centre of town, and so I set off in a hurry, hoping to see as much as humanly possible before my next train (and importantly, find something to eat whilst I was out!).

The first thing I came across was an old medieval watchtower, looking out over the town’s waterways. Fredericia was actually once a fortress town, and despite having come a long way since then, still sports some reminders of its past, including that particular tower, and the town’s entrance gates.

The old fortifications outside of Fredericia

The streets of Fredericia are pretty, albeit incredibly quiet – which actually made for quite a nice walk around! I even managed to find a few interesting art installations, include a small statue of two penguins outside the brand-new city hall, a fabulous piece of street art on the side wall of a café, and probably the most strange, a statue of a goat next to one of the town’s parks!

Artwork spotted around town. I found the slightly aggressive-looking goat, quite interesting.

I was enjoying walking around town, but cognisant of my upcoming train, I decided to find food before heading back to the station. On the other side of the railway station, in the more ‘suburban’ part of the town, I found a small restaurant that resembled a diner/truck stop. Its selling point? Sausages!

Den Gyldne Kylling – a great place for a sausage-shaped refuel in Fredericia!

Boots adequately filled, I wandered back down to the station for my train to Flensburg. There, I would change trains and head down to finish the day off in Hamburg!