Szczecin Glowny – Pasewalk – Stralsund Hbf – Rostock Hbf – Rostock Lütten Klein – Seehafen Fähre – Port of Trelleborg – Trelleborg Centralstation – Malmo C

Another early start today. I was out of my apartment by 7am, and made my way to the station, still slightly anxious about the connections I needed to make today. It was a huge relief when a German DB set pulled into the right platform at the right time!

I settle down to enjoy the first part of the journey, to Güstrow, where I would pick up a connection to Rostock. At least that is what I thought was doing…

The train conductor came along and looked at my pass. He spoke no English and I speak no German but he was very clearly an expert in dealing with this situation and found a way to ask me where I was going. I got out my Interrail planner which shows the journeys I have saved, and showed him my plan. He shook his head and essentially mimed that the line was closed. He gestured at me to wait while he made a phone call. After a couple of minutes taking with a colleague and typing into his phone, he printed something off on his ticket machine and handed it to me. It was a plan of the trains I needed to catch to get to Rostock. He suggested that I should catch the 8:19 not the 8:19 and wait longer in Stralsund than in Pasewalk.

Not only that, he then drew a picture in the air of Pasewalk station, explaining where I needed to go, and explained that the first class section was upstairs at the front of the train. All without a single word in English, and a big smile throughout. What amazing service!

When we arrived at Pasewalk he made sure I was pointed the right way before waving me off. Yes, I have written to his employer; the man is a complete legend.

I had a few minutes to update my rail planner in the app, before the train arrived. It’s a rule with Interrail that you need to have stored and activated any trip into your phone, before boarding, so this was important.

I had an hour and a quarter between trains at Stralsund. The town isn’t close to the station but the station itself was worth a good look, with perhaps the best mural I’ve ever seen, wrapped around all four sides of the main hall. On one side a view of the local area and on the other a wider view of the area. It’s a beautiful thing and I wasn’t the only person who was admiring it.

The next service took me to Rostock. The design of the station here is rather odd, not like anywhere else I can think of. I had a bus to catch from outside the main entrance, at least that is what Google Maps was telling me, though I couldn’t find a bus stop with the right service listed. fortunately they are all close together so I settled down somewhere I cool keep an eye on them all.

After 15 minutes, no bus had arrived and I was a little concerned as the next scheduled bus was not for another hour. I discovered that if I went a little further by by rail, I could get a bus directly to the terminal from Rostock Luetten Klein, and if that didn’t work it wasn’t an impossibly long walk.

This I did, though the bus arrived as I was getting off the train, so I just hopped onto it. I then quickly looked online to find out how I was meant to buy a ticket as I couldn’t see a machine on the bus, and hadn’t spotted one at the interchange. It turned out that there was a small machine near to the other door so I was able to get one.

I was in plenty of time to check in, and the ferry was running on time so I could finally relax. I found a small cafe inside the terminal, where I had about an hour to wait. There were about 20 foot passengers for this crossing and we were taken to the ferry by coach. I could see a set of stairs with a sign indicating this was the way to go, but once at the top it really wasn’t obvious what to do next. Thankfully one of the passengers had done this before and showed us the way onto the boat via one of the car decks, as there were no Stena staff around. I’m not sure anyone would have noticed if someone had just turned up and walked onto the boat.

Rostock is quite a major port. As well as ferries, there is a lot of boatbuilding and refitting going on here. I spotted river cruisers, militart craft, cruise liners and even an accommodation barge.

We also crossed one of the new hybrid ferries that has a rotor sail on top. It’s very odd looking but reportedly reduces fuel consumption by 4-5%.

I wasn’t overly impressed by the ferry itself. Given it was Stena Line, I expected a lot more, but the facilities were really basic; not a patch on Stena services from the UK to Ireland. The staff were friendly though, and I got a decent meal on board.

An interesting detail of this crossing is that it is one of the last ferry routes that can load a train. Sadly, passenger trains stopped a few years ago, but I’d glimpsed container wagons being shunted onboard at Rostock and as we disembarked at Trelleborg I got a good view of the loading area with an interesting set of sliding points to divert trains to the appropriate area of the ship.

The coach dropped us at the gate of the port, which was right next to the railway station. A train to Malmö was in the platform waiting for us and departed shortly after we arrived.

I’ve passed through Malmö station a couple of times and once even landed at the airport of the same name, but had never seen the city centre. My hotel was just a few minutes walk from the station and I had a really good chat with the manager on the desk on arriving. I really wanted to stretch my legs after a long day on the move and he suggested a walking route to me.

The city is surrounded by a ring of canals. There are a number of street sculptures including one of the bridges with bronze casts of the shoes of famous city residents, with each set of shoes pointing the part of the city the resident came from. Anita Ekberg was the most famous name that I spotted. In other areas I found some quite humorous sculptures, on different themes. I also peered through the window of the Disgusting Food Museum!

There is a large square in the city centre, but by now, it was gone 11pm and it was very quiet.

As I walked back to my hotel my attention was drawn to a beautifully decorated shop window. I’m not especially interested in hats but I thought this was a quite lovely display. A rather magnificent collection of coloured bottles also drew my eye as I passed a restaurant.

It looks like a really lovely city, and I didn’t see more than a fraction of it, but tomorrow I have another long journey so will have to come back some time.