La saison des visites!

Starting in April, we were lucky to welcome many friends and family members in Stockholm. 

The first to come were my sister Emeline and her family ; they stayed for a couple of days in the city and we then took off together to Dalarna for an extended Easter week end. 

It was still very much winter when they came, but luckily the weather was mostly good and we could spend a lot of time outdoors.

Alexandre getting into photo-bombing ?

Ruben, Francois and Matthieu were able to have a joint birthdays celebration - Francois was born just two weeks after Ruben, and Matthieu one more week (and a few years..) later.

Emeline and family could not stay in the guest appartment in our building, and were staying not too close in Huvudstadt. They came on the sunday however to our neighbourhood, and we went for a nice albeit chilly walk in the forest on Bromma side.

On the monday afternoon, we met up after their day's visit and my work day in the very nice Kronobergsparken, where the cousins discovered some great Swedish leksaker (litterally 'play things').

 Then off to Rättvik ! Rättvik, the main town on Siljan lake, is the heart of Dalarna province, a famed part of Sweden (kind of the heart of Sweden ?) with rolling hills, lakes, forest, cute houses, and wooden horses (see below).

We had rented two stugor (bungalows) overlooking the lake and spent a good part of our first day exploring Rättvik shoreline, the ultra-long wooden jetty (one of the longest in the world - 628 meters long), a very nice playground, some beaches.. What came as a surprise was how much it was still winter there; the lake was still covered in ice, except for a small fringe by the shore.

The Långbryggan.

 One wonders about the length and then, walking on the pier, you realise that the lake is extremely shallow, so that one is mostly walking on sand.. The extended pier was the only way for the ferry to reach the city. And then, one gets to wonder why the city was built there ?..
Throwing rocks at the ice.

The cousins, coming from Brittany, were elated to see some snow.

And a Swedish feast for lunch - hot-dogs !

We walked to a lovely church by the water, with nice old fishing houses.

As the sun was nice and shining, and the water warm by the shore, we dipped our toes in the lake. Thomas and Eric, very bravely, managed to walk all the way to the ice, but the water was getting really really cold there - how did they even manage ? 

On the Saturday, we drove to the Dalarna horse factories in Nusnäs. It was very nice for the kids to see how the wood gets cut, turned into a horse, polished, and finally painted.

7 steps to paint a horse - as we bought a raw one for Alexandre to paint at home, this was very useful!

We then went to Orsa Grönklitt Björnpark, a large zoo with large animals - pumas, bears, tigers (big), wolves...

We also had a nice view over the surroundings and, surprisingly, over a ski resort next door which was still up and going. If we had known, we would have planned for a ski trip - maybe next year ?..

Enjoying the sun by our stugor.

And the sunset over lake Siljan. The whole area is a gigantic crater created by the impact of a meteorite over 350 million years ago - the crater is around 50 km in diameter and is the largest impact crater in Europe. One can see the south-western ring of hills delineating the crater on the other side of the lake.

Our last day together was the sunday. Time to pack up and go our separate ways... We went for a short hike north of Rättvik to see a small geyzer - the forest was very nice and we could have spent more time exploring the area..

We then visited Falun mine, which used to be one of Europe's largest copper mine aka Sweden treasure chest in the 17th century. The sand is still exploited to produce the famed 'Falun red' paint which is the typical paint for houses in Sweden.

We went underground and then visited the very nice museum where the kid could play as much as they like, including with some weird pretend-doctor things.

With this, it was sadly time to say good bye.. Til next time !

Back in Stockholm for easter Monday, we went to Globen for a view over the city and to discover the climbing gym near by. Globen hosts two big arenas, a big mall, the Globen itself aka "the world's largest spherical building".. not really a place for sight seeing, but for an outside elevator that was built on the side of globen and takes one to the top of the dome, with nice views over the city.
It is also endearingly futuristic looking.

And we had some nice views over Stockholm, for example to the North, towards Sodermalm.

And down !..

The climbing gym close by was very tiny - good to have checked it out, but we definitely prefer those that are close to Liljeholmen - Karbin is great with the kids and, without the kids (which is rare), Telefonplan is really good. We went climbing there quite regularly last winter - spring; this makes for a good sunday outing when outside it is cold or wet.

We then welcomed Emile, Noemie, Eugene and Gustave in Stockholm. They stayed for one week in the city and explored it quite extensively. On the saturday, we seized the opportunity of a special opening to visit together Stadshuset, the beautiful and surprising city hall of Stockhom. It was built in the 1910s in a style called 'romanticism', a very eclectic but beautiful combination of northern and oriental/ venetian architecture, with massive interiors halls and courtyards. Not sure how it functions as a city hall, but it is for sure nice to see.

On the sunday, we went to Solviksbadet for a beach-outing - not yet time to dip in the water !

 

The following week end, after Emile and Noemie had left, we met up with Cecile, Åkan and their kids to explore Lidingo. Lidingo is a large island on the Baltic very close to Stockholm, really a large suburb, but it also has some big parks. We walked around one of its lakes, Kottlasjön (.. and yes, even the islands have lakes around here...).

The weather was not great initially but luckily cleared up after lunch.

.. well, mostly cleared up !

And then Hadia came to visit ! This was an express - express week end, towards the end of her stay in Germany, before she was going to bo back to Paris and then continue on her next assignment in Mexico. I am very thankful that she came to see us in the midst of all of this !

We went downtown together to explore the city. We also went to our forest for a walk - spring was on its way !