Hi!Already quite some time ago (beginning of september), my parents came over to visit us, for a day or 10. They arrived on a friday, we rented a car, on saturday (nicely sized opel), and drove up with all four of us to lake Vattern (see picture). It's one of the biggest lakes in Sweden, and has some beautiful surroundings where you can enjoy hiking. Just what we did! We stayed in a 'stuga' on a camping in Vadstena, which is on the east-coast. Vadstena itself is a nice little town, not incredibly much to do, but they do have nice little streets, a big church and a handful of historical buildings. Perfect for a saturday afternoon. In the evening the weather started to change: huge clouds, heavy rain, strong winds. I was very happy we were not those people having their bike-holiday and trying to put up their tent as soon as possible in this heavy storm... Still raining on sunday, but still went to a closeby nature reserve for a ~10km hike. Really nice surroundings, forest, rock, steep slopes, water. Unfortunately not only water from the lake: it was really raining cats and dogs when we were nearing the end of our hike. Good thing we already noticed there was a small bar where we could warm up with some hot chocolate with whipped cream, while enjoying a sticky 'kladdkaka' or 'blabarspaj'. After we already needed to hurry so Lianne and I could catch the train, resulting in my parents bringing us almost halfway to stockholm by car already... Anyway, that was the weekend for us. My parents drove a lot more around the lake, up to north and west of it, to return the next weekend back in Stockholm, where we did a short sightseeing of Stockholm and also went with the 'Waxholmsbolaget' to one of the islands in the Archipelago, Grinda. About 1,5 hr by boat, and a nicely sized island for a 1-day walk. It was a beautiful day, and very nice walk, with great views over some of the other islands . All in all, we had fun, and enjoyed the nature and surroundings! Enjoy the pictures.
Till next time,
Jeroen
