In Linköping, our first destination in Sweden where we stayed overnight, we spent two nights in a hotel and headed the next day to Stockholm. The train we used was a SJ high speed train for which seat reservation was compulsory for Interrail/Eurail pass users. As we had used paper passes we could not make the seat reservation on SJ website or SJ app as pass users can only make seat reservation with a mobile pass electronically. Paper pass users can buy it by telephone, probably in person at a few stations or have to find some third-party website. This can be interrail.eu/eurail.com where a € 2,- booking charge was added on top of the reservation fee of SEK 65,- (approximately € 6,-) for a seat in a high-speed train. In the meantime the reservation fees of SJ were changed. We found out the SJ reservations can be bought on the website and app of Vy, the successor of the Norwegian State Railways which is also a train operator in Sweden under the brand Vy Norrtåg. I think there are a few more sites to buy SJ seat reservations. To make a seat reservations or buying tickets for a Swedish train, use vy.se. When using the Vy app, it has to be switched to Sweden (and not Norway) to use it in Sweden. Vy charged also a booking fee for SJ reservations, but it was with SEK 10,- only less than half that of Interrail/Eurail.
A few people from Sweden of our age (60+) with whom we had talked about train travel and interrailing (all of them had travelled by interrail about 40 years ago) had complained the railways in Sweden are not reliable and delays or train cancellations had to expected anytime. We did experience a few delays, but none in the south of Sweden the days before. The train from Linköping to Stockholm, coming from Malmö, had about 20 minutes delay and the bistro was closed due to personnel shortage.
When we reached Stockholm Central and left the station building a big crowd had gathered on the sidewalks of Vasagatan which was closed to any traffic and a parade was approaching from the south. Soon we found out that this was the Stockholm Pride Parade we had not been aware of. We made it across Vasagatan and to our hotel in Kungsgatan, a street which was already crowded by spectators waiting for the approaching parade. After checking in at the hotel we joined the spectators in Kungsgatan as the window of our hotel room led to a backyard. We had never seen the Vienna Prode Parade at home and what we saw here was amazing and for sure impossible in Austria. Groups of different communities and organisations, amongst them teachers, police officers (not the officers on duty for the security of the parade) wearing their uniforms, an army truck with a uniformed metal band followed by soldiers, a group of a synagogue community, employees of the British embassy and so on. The spectators seemed to represent the entire population: From young families with toddlers in baby-strollers to senior citizens with walking aids.
As we had been in Stockholm the year before there was no need to follow the usual tourists’ paths. We did some walking in the city centre, in the old town and took the commuter ferry (line 80 of Stockholm län trafik) to Ropsten. A one hour pleasant boat ride without annoying narration at the price of a bus or metro ticket. Back to the city centre we took the much faster metro.
Our destination in the North was Luleå where we had reserved a holiday home and a rental car for one week. We did not want to take the night train (which seemed to be a good decision as SJ had in 2025 quite often troubles running the night trains). When starting early in Stockholm it would have been possible to reach Luleå the same day, but we did not want to arrive in Luleå in the evening, as we had to get the car (more about this later), go shopping for food and drive to the holiday home outside the town. So we decided to make a stop-over in Umeå and continue next day to Luleå. The years before we had gathered enough bonus points with a hotel chain that we could spend a free night (including breakfast) there. The most convenient connection from Stockholm to Umeå was taking a SJ highspeed train to Sundsvall and changing there to Vy Norrtåg train. On Vy Norrtåg seat reservation is not compulsory and in fact not even possible, but Vy Norrtåg said on their homepage that trains can sell out and travellers should secure tickets well in advance. For Interrail/Eurail pass holders Vy Norrtåg issues some sort of reservations without seat assignments for free. Last year I got in this forum from
The next day we took again a Vy Norrtåg train with a scheduled arrival time in Luleå 12:14. But in Vännas where the train has to reverse it was not able to power up the train for going into the other direction. After about one and a half hour the driver was successful to bring the train to life and we could continue or trip. We could then observe how the Resplus Arrival Guarantee works: A number of passengers were to miss their connection to Haparanda in Boden to due the delay of our train. The train conductor discussed with them the issue and made for them arrangements to take a bus from Luleå to Haparanda to reach their final destination.
As mentioned before we had reserved a rental car in Luleå. On the websites of the international car rental companies as well on those of third party booking portals you find for several midsize towns in Sweden a rental station at the train station. The information given about this stations is sometimes strange, from open 24 hours every day to closed Mo – Su, 00:00 – 24:00. How it really works you can sometimes find out on a local website of the car rental company or by calling the rental station directly. Usually in such towns a car dealer has a rental desk in his shop and acts as agent for the car rental company. The rental station at the train station is unmanned, i.e. the car is parked near the train station and you get hopefully the information where the key can be collected. The year before we had received an email from the rental station the day before saying how to give credit card details to a financial service provider, upload photos of our driving licenses and sign the rental contract online. This year we had not got anything and I called the local rental station, i.e. the rental desk at the car dealer’s. We had made our travel plans in such a way that we would arrive during their business hours. I got the confirmation that anything is in best order, somebody is just driving the car to the train station, the key will be ready in a nearby hotel, and the paperwork we will get by email in time. It did not arrive in time, but that did not matter. The hotel receptionist asked for an id and handed us the keys, the car was parked on a space reserved for rental cars at the train station building and we got the expected email with the instructions for signing the rental agreement later in the afternoon.
The following week we spent in the holiday home located at a bay of the Baltic Sea south of Luleå. We used the car to get around in the area and made also a boat trip in the Luleå skärgård (archipelago).
