On Saturday morning, we caught a 9:30 train to Malmö, the last of our Swedish cities. We had thought about going on to Copenhagen but decided that Malmö merited a visit since its one of the top side-trip recommendations for people who are visiting Copenhagen. We met another girl there who had agreed to host us for one night. She gave us her keys and directions and told us that she couldn’t get out of working that day but we would meet her later in the evening. She quickly showed us a map and told us that we should go see the Twisting Tower.
Upon exiting the train station, we discovered an old post office building next door so we headed in that direction. It was right along the waterfront with a lighthouse and what we thought was the tower we should go see. The walk was quite breezy and we ended up carrying a lot of weight because we just packed a small bag to take to her apartment and left the rest of the heavy stuff in a locker at the train station. Best $7 spent on the whole trip for that locker. After walking along some boring roads lined with office buildings, we finally turned a corner and found ourselves facing the Twisting Tower and a skate park full of kids. The tower it turns out, was designed by the same guy, Santiago Calatrava of Valencia, Spain, who designed the complex of buildings in Valencia(See our photos for a refresher from October 2009). It was built because the locals felt like the city needed a landmark building again after their famous crane near the port was taken down nearly a decade ago. The building is now the home of the wealthy and prestigious, as it becomes the newfound symbol of the city.
After snapping a few photos, we headed back towards the train station because it bordered the old part of town we wanted to visit and it had some places to eat and we were starving. We passed the twisted gun statue on the way to eat. It was built as a symbol of non violence being a better diplomatic tool than violence. We chose a place that had wifi so we could look up some things to do in the city and found that the tourism office offered a card that provided free transport all day and free entry to some of the places we wanted to go. Our good weather seemed to be coming to an end after eating but we still bought the cards and headed off for Malmö’s castle. Along the way, we noticed the girl at the office who gave us the cards wrote the wrong dates on the card so we had to change them. The castle was near an old famous fish market that sells fresh fish caught in the sea next to the Malmö. They also have a few small fishermen’s houses from the early 20th century there. The castle offered an interesting history of the Danish/Swedish conflicts throughout the years and how Malmö had passed from one empire to the other on several occasions. There was also an exhibit about prisoners at the castle and a huge collection of photos that were taken of them and sent to the villages they settled in after serving their sentences.
We left the castle and walked towards a big windmill we had seen while touring the castle and looking out of the canon firing holes. It sits behind the castle in a large open field the locals seem to use for park activities like playing with pets, picnics, etc. We returned to the old town after wandering around the western part of the city. Our first stop was the main square just south of the train station. The city hall, an old hotel, St. Peter's Church, and some of Malmö's oldest buildings that dating back to the 14th century. The church is officially the oldest building dating back to 1300 and is built in a style called Baltic Brick Gothic. Unfortunately, it was closed and we were only able to take some pictures of the outside but the inside is supposed to be quite impressive. Izzy circled a few places on the tourist office map she wanted to see and one of the best spots we visited was probably the plaza at Lilla Torg. The buildings had a style that was very medieval and there were tons of restaurants and small craft shops lining the area around the square. From there, we headed south towards a chocolate factory that was on the map but after twenty minutes of aimless roaming around, we couldn't find it. We decided to take our stuff to our hosts' house and ended up having a great dinner at a local Caribbean style restaurant called Carib Kreole. We ended up sitting at the bar because the place was booked but the jerk chicken and red snapper were top notch. Unfortunately, our host never made it home because someone showed up late to work and she missed her train home so we had to stay at her place without her that night. We met her in the morning before going to Copenhagen and had some time to chat and really regretted that we weren't able to spend more time with her.
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