We knew we’d be doing a parkrun in a Scandinavian country today, but we didn’t know which parkrun. We’d previously been looking at Amager Strandpark and Amager Fælledpark, with my preference being the first of those two as it’d be closer, and I’ve heard good things about that one too. When we started to discuss when would be best to visit Malmö, if we decided we’d got time to, I suggested that Saturday after parkrun would probably be the best day. Carmen had a sudden thought that Malmö might have a parkrun, and sure enough it did, so plans started to evolve from there just a few days before our trip started.

There’s no pedestrian access to the Øresund bridge so that means you’ve got two options: train, or automobile (for us that meant a bus or taxi as we wouldn't be renting a car for this). The first site I found suggested that trains would be around £26 per person per journey, which would make it quite expensive. The bus on the other hand takes just over an hour, so not much slower, but is around £13 per person per trip. It wasn’t until I found that booking the train on the day can be cheaper that I found it may actually be possible to get return tickets for about £22 per person (300 SEK). That made a day trip to Sweden far more appealing.

In order to get to Sweden in time for the 09:30 parkrun start, we had to be up at 07:00, and out 30-40 minutes later. We got out towards the end of that limit, and didn’t have long to wait at Øresund for the metro. At Copenhagen Airport we rushed towards the platform for the train to Malmö, which I'd eyeballed on our way in a week ago. We both managed to buy tickets using the app just in time as the train arrived, and then found a seat on the near-empty train so we could both see the Øresund bridge as we crossed it.

As we got close to Hyllie, we’re told to have our passports or identification at the ready. We waited at the station for eight minutes, but nobody came to check before the train left. We wondered how that would impact us for the return journey…

Malmö Central was quiet, even though it was about 08:30. We walked for about thirty minutes to Ribersborg for the start of the parkrun. We could tell there were quite a few tourists here, and of the 128 runners, at least a third of us seemed to be in this category. After the briefing we made our way to the start and then set off along the fairly narrow path.

The path to start with is quite narrow, and follows the coast towards the south of the park. Around 1.5 kilometres into the route there’s a slight dip when there’s a left turn, and then it loops back on the other side of the park until you get to the equestrian area, at which point you then cross back onto the path you started on. I got there just before the tail walker passed in the opposite direction. I’d walked once at this point, around the three kilometre mark, and walked a few more times after this. I still managed to finish 12th with a time of 20:53. It would have been nice for a sub-20, but didn’t really have it in me today. Again.

I collected our bags, and double-checked my DSLR was still in mine before sitting on the grass verge to wait for Carmen to finish. We sat around dripping with sweat for a while after we both finished before walking to the first pier that has a large building on it. The piers in general here are used as open air baths - literally for people to swim in the sea from them. This pier has a café which we used to get a slice of cake and a mango smoothie.

We walked past several more piers after that, and then walked along one of the last ones to try and get a better view of the bridge. It then took about an hour to walk from there to Malmö Castle. This place played a large part in the defence of the Skåne region which was at one point part of Denmark, but eventually absorbed into Sweden.

To look around just the castle, it was 120 DKK for the two of us though you still had to go through all the exhibits to get there, just trying not to look at them as they’re not what we’d paid for. We went through some of the aquarium after dropping off our bags, and then took a more direct route but still saw some extra exhibits on the way there.

You can look around Cannons Tower, and then the castle exhibit itself, which is mostly the Kings rooms, and then an exhibit beneath that on prisoners, it’s use as a museum, and then as a refugee camp as the Second World War was coming to a close.

Our plan after that was to find the old town, and hopefully find a food truck selling Tunnbrödsrullen - a flatbread containing mashed potato and sausage. The route there took us through the King's Garden, and we spotted a busy square, so thought we’d check that out. On the corner of Gustav Square we found a souvenir shop where I bought us a fridge magnet each, and a pin badge for myself.

It was a slightly more direct route from there to Stortorget, having accidentally missed Lilla Torg to get there. We thought we’d found a suitable food stand, but found it to be falafel instead. We sat and examined the map, and struggled to find somewhere to get some. Unlike the Northern parts of Sweden where this food is common, in Malmö it’s falafel that’s more of a thing.

We headed back to the train station via the St. Peter's Church, and looked around the train station at the various food places there. We bought Börek and Toscabulle (Swedish pastry with almonds often eaten as fika) from the Co-Op and then found the train to Copenhagen around 15:20. It didn’t take long to eat our food on the train, and whilst our tickets were checked, at no point were our passports checked or asked for.

From the airport we jumped back on the M2 line, and went to Lidl to get some food for the final day in Copenhagen. The rest of the day was spent relaxing ahead of what would be a busy day tomorrow.