Have you ever tried....

....to spend money and failed?

Well we did today as this part of Sweden appears to be almost a cashless society, we came loaded with SEK (Swedish Krona) and no matter how hard we tried we were only able to pay cash equivalent to 16.9% of our total spend today - I sense that we will be exchanging a lump of SEK for Euros when we move on.

In comparison to Copenhagen, Malmo appears to be a more modern city (at least in the areas we ventured today), if not more modern the buildings are of a different style and far nicer maintained and the city was devoid of the crowds that we encountered in Copenhagen. One thing we have noticed was in Copenhagen people in the street gave you no attention whereas here you tend to get stared at by passers by - it could be because of the kookaburra style hat I was wearing which was enough for one gentleman in a shop to ask if we came from Australia. Over here not many people wear head coverings even in the hot sun.

There are fewer of the tourist attractions than in other cities we have visited nevertheless there are numerous buildings which catch the eye and there is also a waterway that almost surrounds Centrum which is situated very close to the harbour.

Having spent almost a day in and around the centre of the city we feel comfortable that we have the lay of the land. The city is dominated by 3 squares off which run pedestrian shopping strips and what is noticeable is the lack of tourist souvenirs shops in the centre - we saw one only and that was a part of a convenience type store.

There are however numerous shops dedicated to Swedish designed items many of which we would love to be able to bring home.

The Big Mac index for Malmo is $9.50 and prices for coffee and food are less than the equivalent in Denmark.

Who has the answer to the following.?

The gentleman who thought we were Australian told us he had visited Auckland some 30 years ago and his son took him to see a tree that was dedicated to a rock group (he couldn’t tell us the name of the group or any more than that). Any ideas what he talking about?