"Travel time from Sweden to Constantinople" Topic

Has anyone have a source for the travel time. In an other fourm we have gotten good esimates but a source of a real trip woul be nice.

Depends on your mode of transport …

and from where in Sweden you start …

Ship across the Baltic, up river on the Dneiper then overland to the Volga and down to the Black Sea. Then Ship to the Bosporus

Anywhere from fifteen minutes (13th Warrior) to a few chapters (the Long Ships)

It would depend also on season, weather (yes, I know they're related), and random events (What do you mean, you didn't see the rock that holed our boat?).

Just out of curiosity, what are the estimates from the other forum?

Check out "The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II" by Fernand Braudell. This has comparison data for land and sail/galley journeys across Europe – this would give a good approximation to the time period you are interested in.

I read the title as "time travel"! Does dyxlesia get worse in the middle ages?…

From the Hero boards from all the discussion got this chart

Finally had time to get back to this topic, and have been playing with ship speeds. Here's what I've kludged together based on the information provided in previous posts and conversations I've had with other people. Any feedback from the nautically-knowledgeable is much appreciated.

Ships Great Winds Good Winds Neutral Winds Bad Winds Real Bad Winds
Open Water 6 knots 4 knots 3 knots 2.5 knots 2 knots
Coastal/Islands 4 knots 3 knots 2.5 knots 2 knots 1 knot

Favorable Current => 1-2 knots faster
Unfavorable Current => 1-2 knots slower
Rough Water => 1-2 knots slower
Fast Ship, Light Cargo => 1-2 knots faster
Slow Ship, Heavy Cargo => 1-2 knots slower
Ships in open water with adequate crew can sail for 24 hours per day
Sailing along coasts/reefs, or without adequate crew, can sail 8-12 hours per day

Note: I realize that taking the modifiers too literally could result in excessive speeds, or retrograde speeds, but this is just to give the GM some basic guidelines.

This was a great link from cancer

link

Wombat and BigdamnHero came up with this

2 kmph upstream: is that assuming they're rowing, or just under wind? In Bengtsson's book they were under oar the whole way upriver. (Fictional yes, but obviously well-researched so I'm willing to give it some credit.)

10 kmph downstream: I usually hear 7-10 knots (13-19 kmph) cited as a decent cruising speed with a good wind/current. Is it slower here because of the confines of the river compared to open water? From the book, it also sounds like they did at least some rowing downstream too.

Me am infantry; me not know from boats.

Travel hours per day: 8 hours a day seems about right, particularly if you've been rowing all day. Maybe 10 if you've been under sail all day and have rations with you so you don't need to hunt/forage/trade/raid for dinner? But call it 8 for planning purposes.

The "Great Portage:" In the book, the area is described as dry ground with only a couple small lakes along the way. They were able to hire oxen from some farmers along the banks, so the portage took them 10 days.

There's also a second portage around around a series of nine rapids on the lower Dneiper south of the Samara River confluence. I've seen different estimates as to the length of this section, but it looks like it was 60-70 km total. So that would add several days to a week? (They didn't traverse this portion in the book.)

Hostile natives: the Kievan Rus was generally friendly to Norse traders, being of Norse descent themselves. The biggest danger seems to have been in the area around the rapids, where Pecheneg steppes nomads were a significant threat.

But did not some Rus write about this?

In 1714 the Swedish king Karl XII rode from Wallachia in Romania to Stralsund in 14 days changing horses daily. If you add a week that would be enough to include Istanbul to Sweden. It should be noted though that this is maximum speed by horse

thanks Travellera, that is a direct route in a age that you could get horses changed.

still looking for an acount of the trip.

Here you can see the route he took. In 2009 a group of Swedish military confirmed the possibility by making the same ride.

link

I don't believe there is any account of Scandinavians making the trip to Constantinople. What does exist is Ibn Fadlan's account of meeting with a Rus party on the Volga, and the burial of a chieftain:

PDF link

The Swedish Vikings left few reports of their activities beyond some carved stones.

Robert Low's 'Oathsworn' series of novels, and Tim Severin's 'Odinn's Child' trilogy feature imaginative versions of the Varangian road south.

As a matter of perspective, I wonder whether the 'miles per day' approach is very helpful. Varangian traders weren't racing. They stopped, they traded, they married two or three wives in Finnish and Slavic settlements. Their objective was to arrive before winter set in on the steppes, with a valuable cargo of northern furs.

"I don't believe there is any account of Scandinavians making the trip to Constantinople. What does exist is Ibn Fadlan's account of meeting with a Rus party on the Volga, and the burial of a chieftain:"

Varangian guards?

I read the title as "time travel"! Does dyxlesia get worse in the middle ages?…

I saw what you did there. Clever.