On our way to Abisko, northern Sweden, a massive early-morning thunderstorm in Brussels was the start of a 28-hour travel delay: we missed our next flight with a margin of just 10 minutes, and as such ended up too late for the last flight of the day to the little airport of Kiruna. Most of that delay was spent at Stockholm Arlanda, the giant travel hub just north of Swedish capital. There, we had to put up quite the fight to keep the delay at 28 hours only, as the initial proposition was closer to 72…

Now, students and I were not there to sit around and do nothing, we were travelling north for plants and nature! So, after the airline put is in the very agreeable ‘Comfort Hotel’ on the airport grounds to bridge the gap, we brought up a map of the airport and looked for an escape into the Swedish countryside. Now, Arlanda turned out to be remarkably suitable for such a plan. In less than half an hour of improvised hiking, we had left the concrete nothingness of the airport and wandered into increasingly amazing nature.

And so it happened that our layover at Stockholm Arlanda was used learning Swedish plants, chasing insects and discovering wildlife. In the end, the perfect start for the students for their month of botanizing in Abisko. The mood was set. The trip was going to be epic.

Top row: picturesque Swedish countryside house, some ‘true’ Swedish heathland, and a remarkably biodiverse lake.

Second row: relatively epic forest landscapes – Swedish strongsuit.

Third row: flowers on the airport concrete, a wagtail and Lythrum salicaria at the lake side.

Bottom row: very fluffy fields of Trifolium arvense, more Swedish heathland, and the cherry on top: an adder!