From Fjords to Pharaohs

[Wello]

It has been a year in the planning and we are on our way to our dream holiday through Sweden, Norway, Poland, Austria, Egypt and Italy.

The trip will involve seven airlines (Singapore, SAS, Wideroe, Norwegian, Austrian, Swiss and Egypt), two sleeping trains (SJ and OBB) and one coastal ferry (Havilia). Other than Singapore Airlines it will be a first for us with all the other companies.



I have really enjoyed reading other trip reports and this is my first time writing one so I hope you enjoy the ride. The plan is to add regular reports while I am away.

 

[VPS]

Looking forward to reading it. Good on you for doing a TR

Interested in your thoughts on Havila

 

[Wello]

I had enough velocity points for us to travel to Europe in J and enough KrisFlyer points to return in J. All other flights are in Y that we paid in cash. I really wanted to fly Qatar from Brisbane to Stockholm and was tracking availability for months where there would be periods of good availability and others when there was none. Unfortunately for our travel dates there was no availability. Although there was no availability for Qatar, I had no problem booking Singapore Airlines in J using my velocity points (317,000 points for two) from Brisbane to Copenhagen. Flights were booked on the Virgin website on the day the reward flights were released. We have been to Copenhagen before and loved it, but this time we are flying straight on to Stockholm using SAS. From Brisbane to Stockholm with stopovers it will be more than 30 hours before we get to our first hotel.

 

[Wello]

We were travelling out of Brisbane International Airport and there is still an ongoing upgrade happening and I noticed some improvements since I last travelled through there in October 2025. Check-in was quick and in the business class line, if you choose not to do the self check, they will do everything for you. The biggest difference at the airport was the security scanning was now upstairs and we no longer had to remove our iPads from our bags. There were no lineups and we went through very quickly. Customs are still downstairs and again there were no delays going through this section. From being dropped off by the Uber to having my first beer in the lounge was just 25 minutes.

The KrisFlyer lounge in Brisbane is small and was reasonably busy. Not a huge range of food and although not to my liking, Mrs Wello enjoyed what she ate. The bonus of the lounge was that you could see the plane we were flying on the tarmac.

 

[zig]

Looking forward to following your many modes of travel. I'm not a fan of overnight trains, but will be interested in your experiences.

 

[RooFlyer]

Looking forward to this @Wello . What did you use to produce your map?

 

[Wello]

Looking forward to this @Wello . What did you use to produce your map?

I was hoping no one would ask about the map as I did it months ago and took a screenshot of it and now can’t find where I created it. It was good as it allowed me to choose the mode of travel between the different locations.

 

[Wello]

Looking forward to following your many modes of travel. I'm not a fan of overnight trains, but will be interested in your experiences.

I did a test last year on the Spirit of the Outback when I needed to travel from Brisbane to Emerald and found that train a bit of a challenge to sleep on, so I am hoping for a better experience. The first train through Sweden to Norway was chosen due to the scenery during the daytime leg so hopefully that makes up for any issues sleeping.

 

[Wello]

The flight from Brisbane to Singapore was uneventful, other than the seatbelt signs constantly coming on and off, and we arrived in Singapore 30 minutes early. We headed to the Krysflyer business lounge as we had over four hours before our next flight to Copenhagen.

The one thing I like most about lounges is the ability to have a shower and feeling clean and refreshed before the next flight. So the first thing I did was book a shower. It was a 30 minute wait until the buzzer for the shower went off which we were happy with.

The trip of Copenhagen was again uneventful and unlike the first flight where the seatbelt signs were on and off regularly this flight was reasonably smooth and we arrived on time.

On arrival in Copenhagen I was expecting a delay through immigration with all the new processes that are being rolled out in Europe but there was no line and no extra questions asked or fingerprints taken. I was only asked why I was entering and how long I was staying. Passport was stamped and we were on our way.

After collecting our bags and walking through customs we had to drop our bags off at the SAS bag drop which is in the same terminal and just outside where we exited customs. I am not sure if we had been lucky at each airport so far but we had no wait and did the self drop off and went back through security into the terminal again without any waiting.

It is only a 75 minute flight from Copenhagen to Stockholm. We used SAS and on this short flight no food was provided in economy or could even be purchased. You were however given the choice of free water, coffee or tea. It was however interesting to see someone able to travel between countries with their cat. I have experienced dogs on planes in the USA but this is my first experience with a cat. I haven’t seen any animals on Virgin Australia but I am sure that will happen at some point.

Another first for me was that when we were taxing out from the airport we diverted to the side of the runway for a de-icing of the wings which I had a good view of from my window. It was actually a really pleasant flight, flying above the clouds with a blue sky which was a big contrast to the ground view.

A few photos of the flight from Copenhagen to Stockholm.