Flight plans no longer in jeopardy by the rolling strikes of British Airways staff (at least at this end), and no hint of ash in the sky, I landed in Kastrup Airport, Denmark, the major airport for the Øresund Region of Copenhagen and Malmö, Sweden. Another 35 minute train ride across the Øresundsbron – spanning 490m across the Øresund Strait linking the Baltic Sea to the North Sea – and I was in Malmö, Sweden.
(I’d like to thank contacts from the Swedish Tourism Office who supplied this photo. I knew there was no way I’d be able to find a way to get a similar shot)
Catching the train from Kastrup was so easy to do. Ticket counters are situated just beyond passport control, and escalators taking you down to a waiting platform are well signposted. Within minutes, just long enough to revel in the fact I was in Denmark, the train arrived whisking passengers onto Malmö.
The first thing I noticed as the train slowed to a stop were the big, bold bicycle images on each of the doors. I knew the region’s reputation for being bicycle-friendly, but this was clearly a sign that I had entered a cycling utopia. As I would soon witness for myself, for every one person in a private car, there were probably 50 on bicycle.
It was sunny when I arrived, so the chance to catch a glimpse of the large offshore windfarm was in my favour. I did. And it was merely a glimpse, thanks to the commitment of highspeed trains as part of the public transportation infrastructure.
Structurally impressive and aesthetically pleasing, the Øresundsbron stands as an engineering masterpiece, connecting hundreds of years of common history and language, and transforming this area of southern Sweden and eastern Denmark into a significant transnational economic region since it opened in 2000.
I knew Denmark and Sweden were quite similar in many ways. Both have similar historical paths to their modern political and social structures. Both are welfare-states, both have well-developed democratic structures, both are rooted in old monarchies, and both are geographically small with a strong sense of social equality and just distribution. Yet, I also knew that despite these similarities, overcoming the challenges of nationalistic sentiments on both sides of the bridge has proven much more difficult. In particular, each country’s divergent interpretations of diversity and multiculturalism. Danish public policy has traditionally focussed on homogeneity and Sweden’s emphasis has been multiculturalism.
Crossing the Øresundsbron I couldn’t help think how these two countries have been enemies, trading partners, and at times, even part of the same country, and now, for better or worse, firmly attached by this fixed-link.
Filed under: Gender and Geography - The Travel Muse Tagged: | Øresundsbron, Copenhagen, Kastrup Airport, Lund, Malmö, Sweden
