We arrived at Kate & Karls late evening just as the sun was going down and straightaway they took us down to their local lake, a 15 minute walk away, to watch the tail end of a beautiful sunset. It was lovely tranquil spot to sit with a glass of wine. Their house is near the small town of Gnesta, which is about an hours drive south west of Stockholm. Karl is half Swedish on his mothers side, and this was an area he came to on holiday a lot in his childhood and he still has relatives living close by today.
The house is at the end of a quiet lane and makes a lovely getaway haven for them and their now grown-up family. Our first day was spent ‘taking it easy’ around the house. There was a pile of freshly cut logs from a tree that had been felled recently, and Karl mentioned he was going to borrow a log splitter from his cousin so they can create a stock of firewood for the stove. Having missed having home projects to do, Colin was very keen to help out. Once the log splitter was up and running, there was a production line of Karl carrying logs to Colin, Colin splitting them on his new found boys toy, and Kate and I assisted with some button pressing and stacking the firewood in the woodstore. It was a warm day and Kate kept everyone fed and watered.
In the heat of the afternoon, we went back down to the lake with two inflatable paddle boards. We’d never tried these before, and after a demo by Karl & Kate it was our turn. Colin, always the star, was soon stood up on his board. I played it safe and stuck with the kneeling option. We all had a swim too - the water was nice and refreshing.
Back at the house, the last few logs were dealt with and we enjoyed a bar-b-q dinner while Kate & Karl admired their fully stacked woodshed.
The following day they took us to the Stendorren Nature Reserve, about a 40 minute drive away through green rolling countryside. Kate was shocked at how busy the car park was when we arrived, after commenting on how quiet it’s always been on previous visits. The weather was warm and sunny and with the summer holidays still going on it would be a perfect destination for the outdoor loving Swedes. The reserve covers an archipelago of small islands, which are joined together by suspension bridges. There are good walking trails and plenty of places to sit on rocks or access points to get into the water on kayaks. Karl had brought their inflatable kayak today. It was a bit more challenging to assemble than the SUP’s but Colin and I had a paddle around the nearby inlets first. The wind had picked up a bit by now, so we stayed close to the islands shore. There were larger boats moored in the sheltered spots, with the owners sunbathing, swimming and barbecuing next to them – not a bad lifestyle.
We headed back towards Gnesta, and called in at Sodertuna Slott (castle) for a bite to eat before returning to Kate & Karls place. It is a very grand old building set in nice gardens overlooking a lake. In the evening we got shouted by Karl to come and see who was in the garden. There was a female elk and her two youngsters helping themselves to the apples on their tree. The young ones moved onto the next doors garden to strip their trees, while mummy elk continued on Kate and Karl’s tree. There was a comedy moment when Kate and Karl got a bit too close to her and she had a little mock charge at them which sent them scuttling. We’d been hoping to see elk all over Scandinavia, but we weren’t expecting it to be such a close encounter. Their garden is also visited by hares and red squirrels. Kate puts nuts out for them each morning, and Stig the squirrel is now a regular visitor at breakfast time.
The following day we all headed into Stockholm on the train from Gnesta – just a half an hour journey on a clean modern train that runs on time – how novel - it will never catch on in the UK.
We walked from the central station to Djurgarden island where many of the main city museums are located. The Vasa Museum is one of Scandinavia’s most visited museums and has a fantastically preserved warship from 1628 on display. Before we entered the main museum our tickets gave us access to the Brickworks exhibition featuring LEGO models of eight world famous shipwrecks, including the Vasa. It also featured the Titanic and the most recent era one being a container ship that sank off the coast of New Zealand in 2011.
This was just a warm up for the real shipwreck – the Vasa is the only almost fully intact 17th century ship that has ever been salvaged. It was a 64-gun wooden warship that rather unfortunately sank on its maiden voyage after just 100 metres in 1628 in front of a large crowd in Stockholm harbour. This was due to its bad design being top heavy. It was finally salvaged in 1961 and has been painstakingly restored, with 98% of it being the original ship. The ship was decorated with hundreds of ornate carvings that they have even managed to identify the original colours of them. The detail on the ship is just incredible, with the museum taking visitors onto different levels to view it from different angles. There was also a film about the history of the Vasa and how it was salvaged. All in all a fabulous experience.
Back outside we continued on across the island past the Abba Museum. As Kate and Karl have visited this several times before, we earmarked it as one for us to do on our own when we returned in the following days. They took us up to Rosendals Tradgard where there are lovely gardens where flowers, vegetables, herbs and fruit are being grown. We visited a cafe here for a spot of lunch.
From there we walked back to the old town (Gamla Stan), past the Royal Palace where we timed it well to see the changing of the Guards. Gamla Stan has lots of narrow cobbled streets to wonder around and the main square has some attractive colourful townhouses. All very touristy but very nice. We walked back through the commercial part of the city and caught the train back to Gnesta. We really like Stockholm and were looking forward to seeing more of it over the next couple of days.
On our final evening with Kate and Karl we taught them the sophisticated game of seeing if you can get an After Eight mint from your forehead into your mouth without using your hands – now becoming a regular Dyson family activity. I have saved Kate and Karl’s dignity by not posting photos of them gurning, but there is a photo of Colin so you can get the gist of the skill involved.
We’d had a lovely few days with Kate and Karl and we thank them for their superb hospitality and all the thought they had put into showing us around their haunts in Sweden. It was time for us to leave them so they had time to get the house in order until they return in November for their next visit. While we’ve seen it in beautiful summer weather, we forget that it can get as cold as – 30°C here in the winter, so we know the firewood will be well used.
We headed to a motorhome parking area at an exhibition arena on the south of the city, which was conveniently located a 10 minute walk from a station that took us into the centre in 10 minutes. It was early afternoon by the time we got ourselves organised and back into the city. Kate had recommended a food hall (Ostermalms Saluhall) which is just the sort of place we love. We had lunch at one of the counters there - Colin even got a group of tourists taking a photo of his meatballs. With my dodgy hip jipping after all the walking of the previous day, we decided to do a boat tour around one of the many islands. We jumped on the first boat we saw, which we soon regretted - the weather was a bit cooler and overcast, so initially we were pleased to be indoors, but the audio guide wasn’t working for us, and the attendant on the boat didn’t seem very bothered, so we had no idea what we were sailing past. The only bit of audio guide we did manage to hear told us Swedish peoples favourite pizza is Margarita, and labradors are their favourite dogs – real groundbreaking stuff….
We had prebooked Abba Museum tickets for early evening, so we made our way back to Djurgarden island. We enjoyed the museum – Abba Arrival was the first album I ever bought, and Colin’s claim to fame is he saw them live in 1979 at Bingley Hall Stafford – but we both agreed a temporary Abba exhibition we’d been to in London on the South Bank a few years ago was better structured than this one which felt a bit dated in certain parts. I did get on stage with the avatars to sing Mamma Mia – thankfully Colin’s video of me didn’t come out properly.
When we left the museum we caught a shuttle boat back across to the old town. A restaurant we headed to on the edges of the old town had a queue out of the door, so we went to another one down the street and had a very mediocre dinner. With weary feet again we headed back to our car park to recharge for a third day in the city.
It was much brighter the following day, although heavy showers were forecast later, and after having a coffee and prerequisite cinnamon buns, we decided to get down with the kids and explore the city on one of the many e-scooters available. I was a little nervous I would cause an accident, so we had a little practice on a back street, where I did have a power surge, but felt confident enough I knew how to brake when required. We scooted (is that the right terminology?) to a trendy district, then headed to a park we’d passed on the boat ride the day before where we’d commented it looked like it would be nice to cycle around. It was very pleasant. We had hoped we’d see some of the Pride March that was going on that day but we didn’t cross it’s path. We parked up the scooters and caught the boat over to the old town again. We decided we’d try and get a better lunch than dinner of the previous night, and opted for a tourist restaurant on the main square which did the job. The forecast rain swept in while we were eating but had thankfully blown over by the time we left.
Our next port of call was the Fotografiska, a contemporary museum of photography, art and culture housed in an Art Nouveau building on the quayside of the Sodermalm district. We’d hopped back on e-scooters to get us there.Our favourite part was the exhibition of Shepard Farey works, an American street artist and activist. His portraits generally start with a photographic image, but he then overlays them with prints. The exhibition included portraits of many famous people from Barack Obama, Ali and pop musicians.
Some of the other exhibitions were a bit weird, but I liked the vivid colours of the Nature Portals exhibition which was projected onto the walls all around us with images of fantastical animals and plants.
We finished our visit in their café on the top floor which has terrific views over the water. The restaurant there is famous for its sustainable gastronomy and has a Michelin green star. The rain swept in again while we were there, but again our timings were good, and it had cleared up by the time we exited. We headed back through the old town and stopped on the edges to get a drink before heading home. It turned into a very entertaining couple of hours people watching. We were sat opposite a supposedly famous music pub, and there were lots of people coming and going into the place in various states of drunkenness. Then a policeman (well we think he was a real policeman) appeared on a segway. He pulled up outside the bar, got what looked like a carton of fruit juice out of his Polis box, then was joined by presumably the owner of the bar who brought him out a pint glass of water. Lots of people in and around the bar came out to talk to him and have photos with him. Then after about 15 minutes he was back on his segway heading off to presumably patrol the streets.
We left shortly after chuckling to ourselves as we headed back to Lo11y. We were really taken with Stockholm. It’s an easy city to get around, has so many varied districts, countless interesting museums and sites, and great bars and restaurants. It would be a great place to live and work.
It was time for us to move on and explore some of the smaller towns in Southern Sweden.
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