Murderous fun in Scandinavia

A tour from crime scene to crime scene doesn't sound much like a holiday. Unless, that is, you follow in the footsteps of famous fictional characters to the invented scenes of the crimes. As unusual as the driver is a unique souvenir at the end of the journey.

It's obvious who the culprit is, isn't it? Or does the trail lead nowhere? For crime fiction fans there is nothing better than losing yourself in gripping cases. From the sofa, you hunt murderers in your mind. Amateur detectives, however, usually only see crime scenes in their mind's eye. In summer, though, they can actually take a closer look at the settings of some of the best-known literary crimes. And even investigate for themselves along the way.

With special crime-fiction tours, Car Rouge whisks its guests away into a world of sinister machinations – which, fortunately, often take place in wonderful locations. One trip is dedicated to Agatha Christie and her fictional heroes in Southern England, another to Scandinavia and its famous writers. Swedish authors such as Stieg Larsson or Henning Mankell in particular captivate their fans with dark atmosphere and shocking crimes.

For these tours Car Rouge has found the perfect driver in Philipp Probst, as he is not only skilled at driving a coach but also at gripping storytelling. The Basel native is a journalist and author and most recently published his novel «Der Tod – live». It was he who launched the crime-fiction tours. Soon he will accompany travel groups in the footsteps of Mikael Blomkvist, Kurt Wallander & Co.

The nine-day tour starts in Basel and leads first via Hamburg to Copenhagen. In the Danish capital, Detective Sarah Lund from the TV series «The Killing» solves her cases. The journey continues to Ystad in Sweden. During a city tour through the cobbled streets lined with medieval timber houses, Wallander connoisseurs will surely recognise the police building, the detective's home and Fridolf's Café.

Three days are planned in Stockholm, as there is plenty for crime fans to discover there. Whether the «dead woman from the Göta Canal» is among the sights – the woman strangled on the «Diana» in the novel of the same name by Maj Sjöwall and Per Wahlöö – will become clear on a boat trip. But the travellers will certainly see several filming locations of the «Millennium» trilogy about the journalist Blomkvist and the hacker Lisbeth Salander.

But not everything on the trip revolves around crime fiction. Variety is provided by visits to various sights such as the Little Mermaid or Christiansborg Palace in Copenhagen, the Grönasens elk park with its photogenic residents or the ABBA Museum in Stockholm. And anyone who, alongside a taste for hard-boiled thrillers, would like to discover a romantic side will find plenty of opportunity in the scenery of several Inga Lindström productions.

For the grand finale, the coach heads back towards Switzerland via Kiel and Hildesheim. Incidentally, «finale» refers not only to the final stop: throughout the whole journey, tour guide Probst writes a live crime story, the progress of which he presents along the way and which he lets end in Basel. All guests are among the protagonists of the story. They can puzzle along and help shape it themselves. Will they unmask the culprit in the end? That depends on their detective skills. The coach trip provides plenty of inspiration from famous investigators in any case.

This article comes from the knecht reisen magazine "Reisewelten"