Michael Portillo embarks on a scenic thousand-mile rail journey from the Swedish capital, Stockholm, to Abisko in the northern reaches of the Arctic Circle, steered by his 1936 edition of Bradshaw’s Continental Railway Guide. In Stockholm, Michael braves a precarious tour of the city from its rooftops, before boarding a heritage tram to get the lowdown on 1930s Sweden from an expert. At the capital’s Royal Institute of Technology, Michael investigates transport of the future in a near vacuum tube. In Uppsala, he tours the historic university before boarding an exquisite steam train to Marielund, where he celebrates midsummer in true Abba style. He samples the best of Swedish fika and takes an icy dip one of the country’s 96,000 lakes.