Föräldrar i Sverige igen

During the long summer holidays, my parents came for a second visit to Sweden. Since their first visit in 2010 (see the full account here), many things has changed and this was reflected on the things we did during the vacations. Two major changes were that we moved into a house that are located out of the city and that we now have a car. We therefore spend more time away from the cities (we did much of the tourist things last time), and also traveled a bit more by car to see some of the things Sweden has to offer in the summer.

Below are a few pictures of their visit:

Room for our guests.

Very Local:

We had a few braais at our house.

Braaing some of the sausages that we made ourselves. 

A fire!

 We also spent some time on the river that we have access to.

Outing on the river.

Our house from the river.

When we have guests, we often use them for cheap labour (as we did when my sibling and her husband came to visit). This time I had a project to install a cat door in one of the basement windows. My dad and I thus removed a window, built a platform and a insulated wooden door to fit the window and installed the door into it.

Cat door from the inside.

Access to cat door from outside under the deck. 

(Side note: the cat door is an electronic door that locks during the night and they cannot go out. However they can always enter since it unlocks when the chip in their necks are scanned but this means only our cats can enter. We chose this place - under the deck - since it is a bit more protected from the wind, rain and snow. Also our doors are double and a single cat door becomes tricky to install. In the winter I will build a box onto the platform to keep the opening a bit more covered.)

We also had several long walks from the house enjoying the summer weather.

Local:

Moving a bit further we explored the town and the surrounding areas.

We went to a forest close by to pick mushrooms that we subsequently ate.

Finding the yellow gold.

Cooking the pickings.

Closest cities:

The closest cities to us is Gävle and Uppsala. We went to both for a few interesting activities.

Morning fika in Uppsala

Strolling past the castle

River and Cathedral. 

No visit to Sweden is complete without visiting IKEA. We spent some time strolling through the shop and also had an IKEA lunch. During our visit to IKEA we also visited several of the other shops in the surrounding area.

Lunch at IKEA

We also took a boat trip from Uppsala on Mälaren during one evening.

Departing.

View on the lake.

In Gävle we walked through the streets and enjoyed a street festival.

River running into the sea through Gävle. 

Driving around:

Having a car meant we could drive around an we visited several of the small towns and villages.

Österbybruk during a Sunday drive. 

Sculpture at Östhammar - at the Baltic sea. 

An interesting outing was when we visited Gårdsjö Älgpark. The park is located about an hour's drive from us and got to meet several of the residents (both human and elk). This visit is recommended for anyone who want to have a close encounter with these awesome beasts.

Feeding the small beast.

Female elk up close.

Male elk strolling past. 

The 10 days flew past very quickly and sadly the visit was over.

Next year, Carina's parents plan to come for a second visit (they have also been here while we were still city dwellers) during the summer while at the end of next year my parents plan to brave the Swedish winter. We are looking forward to both these visits and hope that this will inspire more friends and family from abroad to make the trip to us.

We are however already back to the salt mines and hope to surface again a bit during winter...

R&C

Estland

We recently hopped across the Baltic Sea to visit Talinn, the capital of Estonia (Estland in Afrikaans and Swedish). Talinn, although it also has a very modern and busy side, it still retains the original walled-in medieval town. This medieval old town was declared a world heritage site. Talinn was not bombed during the second world war and therefore much of the old town is untouched and the original medieval city wall is still mostly complete (something that is actually very rare in Europe). So this was indeed a very nice trip into the past.

We started off by taking the ferry from Stockholm (on which now seems to become my annual birthday boat trip, see previous post on the Helsinki trip). The ferry boat to Estland is a bit smaller than the one to Helsinki, but it was still a very nice experience. In Talinn we stayed in a hotel within the old town, which was an excellent choice. It is an old renovated merchant house in the heart of the old town, a short walk from the central plain. We spend quite a lot of time browsing the small shops, visiting historical sites, wall bastions, museums, churches, and of course restaurants. We visited two very nice restaurants in the old town that had a complete medieval enactment, with medieval decor; medieval attired staff and medieval food. This was really fun, and it felt if though you were swept back a few hundred years into a cozy jolly tavern. The old town was an exceptional experience and we had great fun, however, for a change of scenery to a more rural setting, we went on a short tram ride to the outskirts of the (modern) city to visit the open air museum. Much like Skansen in Stockholm (see previous post), this open-air museum also houses historical relocated houses from various rural areas in Estland. The winter was still in full swing outside of the hustle and bustle of the city and the various historical farms, schools and mills were fairytale pretty. We really enjoyed the trip to these two interesting locations in Estland where time seem to have stood still.  A visit to both these places is highly recommended!

Below are some pictures of the highlights. 

Baltic ferry to Estland

Settling-in in our cabin

Not quite spring yet - plowing through ice fields

Approaching Talinn through the ice fields

Main gate to the old town

Exploring all the small streets

View from the top of the old city wall

Viru Gates facing modern Talinn

Typical old town cobble stone street

In the first of the nice medieval restaurants (Olde Hansa)

Honey beer at Olde Hansa

Proper medieval food at Olde Hansa (Sausages of Bear, Wild Boar and Elk, sauerkraut, root vegetables, caramelized onion and forest berries)

Winter not quite over just outside of the city walls

Two the many wall-towers guarding the city that still remain today (Wikipedia - walls of Talinn)

Climbing to the top of Toompea (Upper Town) with the Russian Orthodox Cathedral built during the days of the Russian Empire

View of the old town and the bay area from Toompea hill

City wall and tower from outside

Climbing up in one of the towers (Epping Tower)

Trying out some (very heavy) armor in Epping Tower tower armory

Ronnie managing to put on even more of the heavy armor 

Having a beer and nice food in the second Medieval restaurant (Estlander)

On top of the Fat Margaret Tower which also house the Maritime Museum

The effect of having to pose for too many photos

Gluttoning-out at a chocolatiere

Archery in a truly Medieval setting

Pikk Hermann aka Lange Hermann aka Tall Hermann with the Estonian flag on top- Tower of the Toompea Castle situated next to the Estonian Parliament building. The flag displayed on Pikk Herman is a symbol of the government in force. The flag is raised every morning while the national anthem is playing. A museum features the recordings of the momentous event when the Estonian flag replaced the Russian flag on Pikk Hermann

Estonian open air museum - Farm cottage

Winter still in full swing here

Sleigh ride

Enjoying the nice rural settings

Back on the ferry on our way home

A nice final dinner on the ferry

Sunset over the Baltic sea

C&R