BG Report: Arctic Train to Stockholm
Complete guide to the “Arctic Train” Vy Nattåg
Watch on YouTube (22:30)
I took the Vy Nattåg “Arctic Train” from Narvik, Norway back down to Stockholm, Sweden. It was my second time on the overnight train, after doing the opposite direction three weeks earlier. This time, I was enjoying the scenery and the train as always, but also recording everything on the train to make a video for others who are thinking about taking this train.
And while on board filming my video guide to the Arctic Train, my BGs were actually quite good.
Fjord in Norway outside the train window
I’d recovered from the low blood sugar at the Narvik mall, and by the time the train left Narvik at 3:10 pm, being high was, again, the least of my worries. Just before 4, I was 67, a tad low.
We had a snack and later, around dinner time at 6 pm, it was 112, which is as perfect as it gets. Dinner was something I’d been drooling for ever since first having it on the way up: reindeer stew with potatoes and lingonberries. And a beer. Eating in the small restaurant car, I took my insulin and attacked this most Scandinavian of train dinners.
Amazingly, at 11:30, I was still perfect, at 109. In fact, it didn’t hold: one last check at 2 am showed I was low again, 58. I had more glucose and fell asleep as we pushed further south through Sweden.
A bit before 8 am the next morning, it was breakfast time and my BG was 88, another reading I could be proud of. We ate in the newer, larger restaurant car that had been attached overnight somewhere. It was tasty but I suspected that in the packaged food there were more carbs than you might think.
The train arrived at Stockholm around 9:30 am, and my travel partner and I found a cafe in an attempt to welcome ourselves to Stockholm, and to have a jolt of caffeine after the night on the train. Here, around 10:30 I checked out of curiosity and was 176 – very slightly high but really ok for a post-breakfast reading.
Stockholm cafe
So that means I managed to ride the whole way from northern Norway to southern Sweden without a single high reading, but still sample all the train had to offer. Awesome!!
