Guest Blog: Sejour in Sweden

Yay for Guest Blogging!  I thought you might like a change from descriptions of the SUNNY SUMMER in the SUNNY Southern Hemisphere where it's WARM and, y'know, SUNNY.  Róisín, my favourite big sister, kindly supplied the story and photos of her recent trip en famille to Sweden.  Featuring: snow, cake, hilarious knitting/museum crossover, The Adorable Nephew.

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It’s too warm in Provence, let’s go somewhere cold – like Sweden. No it didn’t really happen that way but rather that we were invited to visit our kind friends the Berggrens in Linkoping. For me it was the first time in Sweden (and for Gregory), my only experience coming from an embarrassing combination of the Swedish chef and the Millenium trilogy… (at least I didn’t say ABBA!)

The first night we arrived late but woke up early to a beautiful view of the lake near Linköping. Apparently there was skating planned on the lake but the 15 cm of snow that fell during the night changed the plans and further snow fall during the day decided us to visit an airplane museum in Linköping –not necessarily my choice but you can imagine how happy Gregory was.

Our visit to the museum had been preceded a week earlier by the Linköping Knitting club, who decided to decorate the fuselages with their knitted inventions. I am not a museum expert (unlike LT) but it was certainly an original effect! This combined with the flight simulator and the fighter jet cockpit with helmet for small (and bigger) boys to enjoy made life almost too good to bear for some.

 

Our visit to Sweden also happily coincided with a three week period during which a special kind of cake (another oft visited LT theme) called Semla is eaten. Semla is like a type of brioche split in two with cream and almond paste in the middle. Our verdict: very good especially instead of lunch. We ate our Semla in the old centre of Linköping, one of those recreated 19^th century villages with artisans and people walking around in costume. The houses are all really pretty, mostly painted a bright red colour, a remnant from days of copper mining.

 

A visit to Sweden in winter wouldn’t be complete without some snow-associated activities so we all headed down to the lake to roll around in the snow. Gregory thought it was much like playing in sand and made ‘snow castles’. He also enjoyed sledding.

Given this is also a place for hints to lady travellers, may I just recommend cross country skiing for pregnant ladies. Provided there are no hills of course. Followed by a hot dog grilled on the beach by our accomplished host and his son….

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Thank you and a big MAH to Róisín for her survey of all the best Sweden has to offer.