lets start with last Saturday. We were in Bath.
Awoke to cold and wet, wet, wet. Went shopping (quickly) for me to buy Ian Rankin's latest novel: "In a House of Lies". Just released. Managed to pick it up from W.H Smiths half price-all 10 pounds (NZ$ 20). To date it has been. good read.
Anyway back to the travel story. Had to leave the accommodation at 11 am, so headed down to the train station. Stopped for a long coffee, then hit the station. Surprise, surprise our train isn't on the departure board. Checked with ticket office...it has been cancelled due to strike action. Thankfully they re-routed us with a 50 minute layover in Sainsbury. Luckily the train we were taking from there to Clapham Junction arrive 30 minutes early so re retreated to one of the carriages and ate lunch.
On arriving at Evan's place we met with Becky's parents. Very nice people. That evening we all went by overland train to Shoreditch for a a Burmese meal. Interesting?
Sunday: I cooked pancakes, bacon and blueberries for 6. As Evan said it was his first pancakes for 10 months. Seemed to go well considering the lack of equipment etc.
In the afternoon "she who can not be named" and I went for a walk along the bank of the Thames..crossed over into Chelsea and walked down to the Battersby bridge, then back to the apartment.
Cooked everybody enchiladas (double batch) for supper. The second batch were to be used for Becky's and Evans lunch the next day.
Monday: "she who can not be named" and I set of to Notting Hill and the Portobello markets. Nothing to really tempt us...just lots of tourist like us gawking. So, off to Oxford circus (we are really good with the tube etc nonplus Google maps). "She who can not be named" did a wee bit of shopping at this very large clothing store....mind boggling the amount of clothing being bought. I retreated to the in-house coffee shop to wait it out.
Got back to Evans, then we (minus Becky) went of to a local pub -The Ship for supper.
That's it - tomorrow we head to Sweden.
Tuesday: Evan and Becky had a 9 am flight so they headed off to Gatwick around 6 am. We slept in as our flight wasn't until 12;50 pm.
All went well. Flight was good. Being in row 4 we were quickly off the plane, immigration was stamp your passport and off you go.
The trip in from Arlanda airport was very quick-The Arlanda express goes from the airport to the central station in 20 minutes-hitting 187 amp. Which is fast.
Now things started to go a little of plan. Firstly trying to find the place to buy the 7 day transport pass -it took 2 attempts and a couple of flights of stairs. And, secondly the need to get a number, then wait until your number is called. Took a few minutes for us to work that out. But we got there in the end. By now it was rush hour. People everywhere, busy rushing to take the Tbana or trains and we had to find the right Tbana route to take. We got there, trip was quick. Exiting the station was our downfall...we missed a vital clue..take the lift to the right street..we didn't. We took the escalator and found our selves on the wrong street. Google maps were no help. In fact it took us around the block and we were faced with a steep climb. Language was getting a little rural by now. We sort help from what we thought was a local, turned out to be an American student. He did try to help us. After much huffing and frayed tempers we got there. Hurrah.
Ate local the night and was introduced to how expensive Sweden is SEK 182 for a hamburger -that is NZ$ 31 for one hamburger -fries were extra and coke ( a small coke wasNZ$6). Welcome to Sweden.
Wednesday: quick trip into downtown Stockholm for 2 hour:15 minutes boat tour of the bridges of Stockholm. It included Ficka ( a social event of sharing coffee and cinnamon bun). The trip as a welcome to Stockholm was well worth the cost as it gave a good introduction to the capital.
Old Stockholm -Gamalstan
In the afternoon we went on a walking tour of old Stockholm - Gamla Stan. Again very informative and yes to those who know I didn't say a thing. I just looked and listened.
The good thing about having Evan and Becky along is we got to eat at places we didn't know existed in parts of Stockholm we would not have visited. One of the places was a great Mexican selling street tacos...standing room only... very hard to get a table and especially a table for 4. I also learnt another valuable lesson -tax on beer -if you beer or wine is above 1% alcohol level you pay a 25% consumption tax...now that hurt. Now I understand why most locals were drinking tap water.
Thursday: Had a full day at Skansen -what a great museum..would recommend it. It contains 150 old building from around Sweden, with them representing the different regions of Sweden. They also had people dressed in the suitable time period and provided a great deal of interesting information.
Skansen also had a zoo that contained the animals of the regions. So we got to see brown bears, moose, otters etc
It was a full day but very enjoyable.
From Skansen we caught a ferry over to Gamla Stan (all part of ur 7 day travel pass).
That night Becky and Evan took us to another part of Stockholm -part Tbana and lots of walking. But once again well worth it.
Friday: Evan and Becky went up to Uppsala to walk down memory lane. We took a rural train and bus to Sigtuna. Sigtuna was established in 900 AD. Very quite, old place. But well worth the visit. Nice sunny, warm day. Why we even sat on the shores of Lake Malaren and tried to have Picks-Just coffee they didn't have the cinnamon buns -buggar. Coffee without a cinnamon roll just isn't the same.
The evening meal was pizza..once again a mystery tour courtesy of Becky and Evan. Just picture then striding off into the distance while the poor old folks are almost running to keep up with them. Just like running a marathon.
Saturday: Left Stockholm, picked our rental car and headed inland to Grangarden (birth place of my great grandfather Daniel Andersson). As it turned out Evan had a friend from Uppsala days living in a town near by -Lidvika. Evan had stayed there a couple of times..so quite a coincidence that he was only 10 minutes from Grangarde.
On our arrival at Johann's (Evan's friend) we found out we were elected for lunch. Swedish meatballs (they had been preparing them all morning). So at around 2 pm we had a full lunch. Johann's father and stepmother were gracious hosts. On learning of my quest, they swing into action, tried making phone calls to help me find my Great-Great grandfathers grave at the church. No luck.
The town was great, big church, lakes on both sides of a small piece of land. The graveyard was enormous. Very well cared for. The fall leaves were everywhere. I had a party of 4 helping me, which I am grateful for..but in the end gave up and drove back to Johann's parents house for Fika.. lovely.
We just talked to about 5.30 pm.
Still had 100 km's to drive for the nights stay..so off we went.
The roads in Sweden are great to drive, well signposted, on the freeway -110 amp. On the smaller rural roads -anywhere between 70 and 90 kph-with plenty of speed cameras (all well sign posted).
We stayed the night at Vasteras -great hotel. Very old (1900) but very well presented.
Tomorrow Uppsala.
Quick note: Evan is a great chauffeur and Becky a very good navigator -with the aid of Google.
The car a VW Tigan, I consider a very good car, if diesel.
Footnote: At Johann's we meet his little step sister and the Swedish tradition of candy day. Alice speaks very little or no English because she isn't old enough yet. She introduced us to a Swedish tradition Candy or sweets Saturday. Every Saturday kids buy big bags of sweets and eat it all day. Saturday is the only day. On average Swede consumers eat 17 Kg's of sweets every year. Alice was full of sugar and was into everything. She made us a card before we left - something we appreciated.
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