Our third full day in Paris (Friday the 5th), was getting towards the end of our visit there, mainly involving more sight seeing. We first of all headed out to the Moulin Rouge, the legendary caberet founded in 1889. Alice had gone to a show on her previous visit to Paris, so was very keen to get back there to see it again. The same show was on that she’d seen, so she couldn’t buy the DVD of it (they put it out on DVD when they change the show), but there were a few souvenir’s in the shop that she invested in!
Good to see the different areas of Paris, the red light district (around the Moulin Rouge) was certainly an eye opener, and that was at about 12 midday!! We stopped for a coffee at Le Chat Nori (French for The Black Cat) cafe, which was the location of the famous 19th century caberet of the same name which was closed in 1897, much to teh dissapointment of Picasso and other famous people who frequented the place when they visited Paris. Very comfortable, we asked the waiter if he spoke English, he said no, then asked us if we spoke French, we said no, we managed to get around that and ordered a coffee though.
We then headed to the Sacre Cour, a massive Catholic church up on a hill, with a fantastic view over Paris. Theres heaps of guys at the base who basically jump on you trying to tie some kind of bracelet on you, Alice and I managed to avoid them, but there were some people who got suckered in, and probably had to pay for crappy bracelets that they didn’t want to start with, suckers!! The view at the top is worth all of the stairs and climbing, once again, awesome photo opportunities for Alice to play around with her new camera.
After this we headed back towards the centre of Paris, through the Montmarte area, amazing architecture again, so much older than little old Australia!! Again, back to the hotel to rest up, ready for the evening.
Monday, 29 January 2007
Paris Part 1 By Dave
Our first full day in Paris started off as late as possible, then breakfast which consisted of a croissant (of course) and then the usual cereal, yoghurt, coffee, etc. We headed off to the Champs Elysee, wandering up and back, dropping into hideously priced places, just for a look-see!!
We got some CD’s burnt of our photos taken so far, from our camera memory cards, little were we to know that they only transferred half of the photos onto the CD, a fact that we weren’t to find out until we got home.
We also dropped into the Louis Vuitton store, their flagship store, which apparently used to have some huge handbags or something out the front. They need to work on their customer service, when Alice picked up a wallet or something to look at a bit closer, the security guard leaned over and told us in no uncertain terms that you weren’t allowed to touch the display, dunno how you’re supposed to get a closer look at things if you can’t pick them up, but they are French I guess!! What made it worse was that there was already someone there who had picked something up and was looking at it, consequently Louis Vuitton aren’t on our Christmas card list anymore!!
Renault had a shop open along here with a few cars and a Formula 1 car, pretty interesting to see, although there were so many people there it was hard to get a good look.
We eventually got up to the Arc de Triomphe Du Carrousel which was errected by Napoleon to celebrate his battlefield successes of 1805. The top of teh Arc used to be home to the ancient Greek sculpture 'The Horses of St Mark's' which Napoleon 'borrowed' from St Mark's in Venice, but returned after his defeat at Waterloo in 1815!! It now has a two-wheeled chariot drawn by 4 horses on the top (added in 1828) which celebrates Napoleon's dopwnfall!! The Arc is set in teh middle of the Jardin du Carrousel which is basically a roundabout full of crazyFrench drivers with a death wish!! For those that don’t know, apparently your insurance is null and void on the car if you have an accident there!! Plus you have to give way to people coming onto the roundabout, bit different to the rules back in Australia, although quite similar to the way some Adelaide drivers actually treat roundabouts back at home!!
We headed back down the other side of the street dropping into a few places, with much friendlier people working in there!! We had a baguette for lunch, we were in Paris after all!! Very nice, and got some French pastries as well, also very nice!! We stopped and had a coffee to recharge for a bit, then hit the Rue de Rivilie, a shopping strip that was a bit more realistic, very touristy though, but good to see none the less.
The next stop was the Cathedral De Notre Dame De Paris, amazing old place, although you’d think people could be a bit more respectful inside, after you’ve gone past numerous signs saying no photographs (pictorially, so easy to understand), to not stand there and blatantly take photos while they’re holding a service! Translated to the Cathedral of Our Lady of Paris, Notre Dame is kind of like our GPO in that distances from Paris to every part of metropolitan France are measured from place du Parvis Notre Dame - the square in front of the Basilica. It was actually really cool, we flucked it with our timing so there was actually a catholic service going on with singing and everything. It was really cool to see, although being that it was in another language (i dont even think it was in French) we didnt really understand much!! Amazing to see all the old architecture, and to read some of the history associated with this place, good to also see how the French hold their mass, we can now say we’ve been to a church service in the Notre Dame!!
We then headed back towards the hotel, stopping for dinner at an American restaurant. It was good to have a nice big burger, with a nice big beer (for me, Diet Coke for Al) for dinner after a fair bit of walking for the day. Then headed back to the hotel for a good sleep, after a long day, we were both very ready for sleep!!
The next day (Thursday the 4th), we headed to the Louvre in the morning, well probably midday by the time we got there, we were on holiday after all!! The sun was out, with a bit of wind blowing clouds around, so we got some good photos out the front with the big glass pyramid, very weird seeing something that modern in the middle of such history. The line ups to get into the museum were massive, as per usual, so we saw as much as we could, then moved on, via another baguette for lunch, to the Hotel des Invalides, and the Army Museum. This is where Napolean’s Tomb is, we went through the shop there, and then headed to the Tomb, only to find out that we had to go back to where we were before to get a ticket. We couldn’t really be bothered, considering we wouldn’t have had much time in there before it closed after lining up for the tickets.
We headed back to the hotel, grabbing a chocolate éclair each (well i had a coffee éclair and Al had a chocolate éclair ), have to get the real French feeling, very very nice, although very rich, wouldn’t have wanted it to be to much bigger! Dropped off the camera, then headed to Galleries Lafayette, a big shopping centre, spread over a couple of blocks with an absolutely awesome Christmas decoration in the big centre dome area. Very nice area, although reasonably similar to shopping centres back at home, guess it’s hard to do too much with shops isn’t it!?!
We managed to find an internet café, checking emails from home, and checking up on bombs that had been let off in Bangkok on New Years, we were scheduled to stop in Bangkok on the way back to Australia, so needed to check out what was happening there and decide whether to keep heading there or not. In the end we decided that we would still go there, just try and stay vigilant and all that kind of thing. Not sure what we’d pick up, but we made it home OK.
We tried searching out some Italian food, we’d both been hanging out for a good pasta or something like that since we’d been travelling, but hadn’t managed to find anything decently priced. We just headed back to the hotel, only to find out that directly across the road had awesome pizza, pasta, etc. Just what the doctor ordered!
We got some CD’s burnt of our photos taken so far, from our camera memory cards, little were we to know that they only transferred half of the photos onto the CD, a fact that we weren’t to find out until we got home.
We also dropped into the Louis Vuitton store, their flagship store, which apparently used to have some huge handbags or something out the front. They need to work on their customer service, when Alice picked up a wallet or something to look at a bit closer, the security guard leaned over and told us in no uncertain terms that you weren’t allowed to touch the display, dunno how you’re supposed to get a closer look at things if you can’t pick them up, but they are French I guess!! What made it worse was that there was already someone there who had picked something up and was looking at it, consequently Louis Vuitton aren’t on our Christmas card list anymore!!
Renault had a shop open along here with a few cars and a Formula 1 car, pretty interesting to see, although there were so many people there it was hard to get a good look.
We eventually got up to the Arc de Triomphe Du Carrousel which was errected by Napoleon to celebrate his battlefield successes of 1805. The top of teh Arc used to be home to the ancient Greek sculpture 'The Horses of St Mark's' which Napoleon 'borrowed' from St Mark's in Venice, but returned after his defeat at Waterloo in 1815!! It now has a two-wheeled chariot drawn by 4 horses on the top (added in 1828) which celebrates Napoleon's dopwnfall!! The Arc is set in teh middle of the Jardin du Carrousel which is basically a roundabout full of crazyFrench drivers with a death wish!! For those that don’t know, apparently your insurance is null and void on the car if you have an accident there!! Plus you have to give way to people coming onto the roundabout, bit different to the rules back in Australia, although quite similar to the way some Adelaide drivers actually treat roundabouts back at home!!
We headed back down the other side of the street dropping into a few places, with much friendlier people working in there!! We had a baguette for lunch, we were in Paris after all!! Very nice, and got some French pastries as well, also very nice!! We stopped and had a coffee to recharge for a bit, then hit the Rue de Rivilie, a shopping strip that was a bit more realistic, very touristy though, but good to see none the less.
The next stop was the Cathedral De Notre Dame De Paris, amazing old place, although you’d think people could be a bit more respectful inside, after you’ve gone past numerous signs saying no photographs (pictorially, so easy to understand), to not stand there and blatantly take photos while they’re holding a service! Translated to the Cathedral of Our Lady of Paris, Notre Dame is kind of like our GPO in that distances from Paris to every part of metropolitan France are measured from place du Parvis Notre Dame - the square in front of the Basilica. It was actually really cool, we flucked it with our timing so there was actually a catholic service going on with singing and everything. It was really cool to see, although being that it was in another language (i dont even think it was in French) we didnt really understand much!! Amazing to see all the old architecture, and to read some of the history associated with this place, good to also see how the French hold their mass, we can now say we’ve been to a church service in the Notre Dame!!
We then headed back towards the hotel, stopping for dinner at an American restaurant. It was good to have a nice big burger, with a nice big beer (for me, Diet Coke for Al) for dinner after a fair bit of walking for the day. Then headed back to the hotel for a good sleep, after a long day, we were both very ready for sleep!!
The next day (Thursday the 4th), we headed to the Louvre in the morning, well probably midday by the time we got there, we were on holiday after all!! The sun was out, with a bit of wind blowing clouds around, so we got some good photos out the front with the big glass pyramid, very weird seeing something that modern in the middle of such history. The line ups to get into the museum were massive, as per usual, so we saw as much as we could, then moved on, via another baguette for lunch, to the Hotel des Invalides, and the Army Museum. This is where Napolean’s Tomb is, we went through the shop there, and then headed to the Tomb, only to find out that we had to go back to where we were before to get a ticket. We couldn’t really be bothered, considering we wouldn’t have had much time in there before it closed after lining up for the tickets.
We headed back to the hotel, grabbing a chocolate éclair each (well i had a coffee éclair and Al had a chocolate éclair ), have to get the real French feeling, very very nice, although very rich, wouldn’t have wanted it to be to much bigger! Dropped off the camera, then headed to Galleries Lafayette, a big shopping centre, spread over a couple of blocks with an absolutely awesome Christmas decoration in the big centre dome area. Very nice area, although reasonably similar to shopping centres back at home, guess it’s hard to do too much with shops isn’t it!?!
We managed to find an internet café, checking emails from home, and checking up on bombs that had been let off in Bangkok on New Years, we were scheduled to stop in Bangkok on the way back to Australia, so needed to check out what was happening there and decide whether to keep heading there or not. In the end we decided that we would still go there, just try and stay vigilant and all that kind of thing. Not sure what we’d pick up, but we made it home OK.
We tried searching out some Italian food, we’d both been hanging out for a good pasta or something like that since we’d been travelling, but hadn’t managed to find anything decently priced. We just headed back to the hotel, only to find out that directly across the road had awesome pizza, pasta, etc. Just what the doctor ordered!
Onto Paris! By Dave
We had to catch a bus for an hour or so from Stockholm to the airport to go to France, so we had to get up reasonably early (for a holiday anyway!) to have breakfast, get to the bus station and find our bus. We just managed to sneak on to the bus, there were a few people heading to the airport, I think we were in the last 5 or so to get on, so the bus was jam-packed. During this bus ride we saw a moose cruising through a paddock just near the motorway, they are massive, and kind of dopey looking, although the way it was running with it’s head bobbing all over the place probably didn’t help!! Awesome to see, although it was a very quick look out the bus window.
Eventually got to the airport, RyanAir have a habit of flying out of smaller airports an hour or so out of main cities, cheaper I suppose! We had to pay a bit of excess baggage, but even with the buses, and baggage, the flights were still cheap. We had a bit of spare Swedish Kroner, so spent it on some souvenirs and a bit of food, unfortunately the chocolates that we got there, that we thought were Scandinavian only, seemed to pop up regularly in airports from here until Australia!!
It was a pretty uneventful flight got us to Beauvais, about 80km out of Paris, where we had to catch another bus for an hour or so to get in to our hotel, and then catch the Metro (very similar to the London tube) to get close enough to our hotel to walk! During the bus trip into Paris, we had to suspend a game that Alice picked up during her previous trips to Europe, similar to “Punch Buggy”, where you punch the other person when you see a VW Beetle, but with smart cars rather than Beetles. Alice was a bit upset when I got the upper hand (well and truly, might I add!!), so demanded that we suspend the game. She’ll say it was due to me cheating, but I just had the window seat!!
The view of Paris as we drove in on the bus (other than smart cars), was pretty unspectacular (especially after being in transit for about 4 hours or so), until the Eiffel Tower popped into view, amazing (for me, this is Dave writing!) to see something so recognisable suddenly there and dominating the skyline.
We eventually found the hotel, which was in a nice small, quiet street, looking out the window we could see the beam of light from the top of the Eiffel Tower, although you can probably see this from most areas of Paris!! We went out for a bit of a walk to find some food, ended up at what we thought would be a dodgy Chinese place heating food up in a microwave, but it was actually pretty good. We spent a fair bit of time walking around (about 2 hours all up), eventually ending up at the Eiffel Tower, all lit up, and with it sparkling for 10 minutes every hour. Very spectacular, well worth the walk, Alice had forgotten her big camera, but we still got some good shots of it, in between being hassled to buy souvenirs, illegally under the tower. We stayed there for about an hour or so, then headed back to the hotel to bed.
Eventually got to the airport, RyanAir have a habit of flying out of smaller airports an hour or so out of main cities, cheaper I suppose! We had to pay a bit of excess baggage, but even with the buses, and baggage, the flights were still cheap. We had a bit of spare Swedish Kroner, so spent it on some souvenirs and a bit of food, unfortunately the chocolates that we got there, that we thought were Scandinavian only, seemed to pop up regularly in airports from here until Australia!!
It was a pretty uneventful flight got us to Beauvais, about 80km out of Paris, where we had to catch another bus for an hour or so to get in to our hotel, and then catch the Metro (very similar to the London tube) to get close enough to our hotel to walk! During the bus trip into Paris, we had to suspend a game that Alice picked up during her previous trips to Europe, similar to “Punch Buggy”, where you punch the other person when you see a VW Beetle, but with smart cars rather than Beetles. Alice was a bit upset when I got the upper hand (well and truly, might I add!!), so demanded that we suspend the game. She’ll say it was due to me cheating, but I just had the window seat!!
The view of Paris as we drove in on the bus (other than smart cars), was pretty unspectacular (especially after being in transit for about 4 hours or so), until the Eiffel Tower popped into view, amazing (for me, this is Dave writing!) to see something so recognisable suddenly there and dominating the skyline.
We eventually found the hotel, which was in a nice small, quiet street, looking out the window we could see the beam of light from the top of the Eiffel Tower, although you can probably see this from most areas of Paris!! We went out for a bit of a walk to find some food, ended up at what we thought would be a dodgy Chinese place heating food up in a microwave, but it was actually pretty good. We spent a fair bit of time walking around (about 2 hours all up), eventually ending up at the Eiffel Tower, all lit up, and with it sparkling for 10 minutes every hour. Very spectacular, well worth the walk, Alice had forgotten her big camera, but we still got some good shots of it, in between being hassled to buy souvenirs, illegally under the tower. We stayed there for about an hour or so, then headed back to the hotel to bed.
Tuesday, 2 January 2007
Edsbyn with Gunnar!
We had an early start to get to Gunnar's sister's house in Gavle for lunch on our way to Edsbyn. A quick driving tour of Stockholm and then north to Gavle. We met Orsa (Gunnar's sister), her husband Henrik and their 3 kids Carl, Bjorn and Sarah. Orsa cooked us up a massive meal of chicken, rice, salad, bread, followed by sweets of ice cream and almond cookies. It was delicious and just what we needed after our morning of driving. Quick coffee, then we were off to continue the journey.
We got to Edsbyn and went to Gunnar's parents house which is where we were going to be staying while there. They were very welcoming and made us some gingerbread cookies (another Nordic specialty) and got us to try a special Swedish drink called Glugg. It is served warm and was like mulled wine (so think hot red wine and its similar to that!!) i thought it was terrible, but they seem to enjoy it!!
It was decided that Dave and i would spend our first night in the cabin. Gunnar and his dad (Rolf) hand built a 14m2 wooded cabin out on their property near a large lake. It is miles away from all civilisation and is amazing. I took about a million photos so you will see just how wonderful it was. Gunnar's mum was really worried about me staying there because I'm a city girl, but i don't think she realised how tough they breed us down in Australia!! We made up a pack for food, water, torches, sleeping bags and pillows and set off. The original plan was that we would ski there, but because this is the mildest winter on record so there is no snow so we drove! easier, but definitely more boring!! The cabin was pretty freezing when we got there but we put the fire on straight away and it warmed up pretty quickly. There is no electricity there, so it was all about the fire! Gunnar left us after dinner so it was just me and Dave and the animals! Last winter Gunnar said he found wolf tracks on the porch of the cabin, and back in about 2000 i think it was, they saw a massive bear walking past while they were inside having coffee!! Dave and i had no exciting encounters with any wildlife though, i was disappointed!! We had a great sleep although it had got quite cold by the time we woke up as the fire had gone out. Didn't take long for Dave to fix the situation though and we were having breakfast in the warmth in no time!! We had an amazing view from the loft window as well because the sun doesn't fully come up in winter, its like sunrise pretty much all the time, maybe a little brighter. So there was mist and the sun peaking through the trees and silence, bliss!!
It was also my birthday!!!
Yay!! I was very spoilt with Dave making me breakfast as well as giving me a gorgeous Tiffany & Co necklace and pendant for my present, with the promise of a dinner out in Paris as well!! Very exciting and very spoilt!! I also got about a 1000 sms's from home wishing me happy birthday or happy new years!! It was strange getting drunken messages at breakfast, but i guess it wasn't breakfast in Australia, so it wasn't as bad as it sounds!!
After breakfast we went for a walk down to the lake. It was completely frozen, you could see that the layer of ice was about 20 - 25 cm thick. We were able to walk on it which was a very different experience, but a great one! I got some fantastic photos which i cant wait to show you all when i get home. It was a bit scary though because every so often you would hear a big cracking noise, which was the ice actually cracking!! apparently when the lake has only been frozen for a week or two, the ice is still settling so is cracks and re-freezes. Gunnar arrived while we were playing on the ice lake and assured us that these cracks were nothing to worry about!!! A few times when the ice cracked you could even feel it vibrating and moving!! scary but great at the same time!!
We had some coffee with Gunnar and he bought me a birthday cake and they both sang for me!!! We packed up the cabin. We went for a drive through Edsbyn and through Gunnar's parents forest. It was pretty cool, but very cold!! Then it was time for lunch (i swear, all we did when we stayed with people was eat and drink coffee!!). Gunnar's mum made us a big meal of potato bake, cold meats, several types of salad and special Swedish bread which is basically exactly the same a ryvita biscuits!! Dessert was ice-cream and lingon berries, which are small red berries which grow in their area and are slightly bitter tasting, but when served with the ice cream, were absolutely delicious!! Of course, we then had coffee!!!
That afternoon was spent on the Internet organising the trip from Edsbyn to the airport, and from the airport in France to the hotel in Paris. We got really cheap flights to Paris so it doesn't land at the main airport there, so we needed to figure out what we were doing!! We also got a walking tour of Gunnar's parents farm which was pretty interesting. His family have been farming the same land since the 1500's!!!
That evening Gunnar prepared us a big 3 course meal!! We weren't really hungry but it was so yum looking we ate it!! We had a Swedish entree which was some type of prawn stuff with toast. not really sure what it was but it was good!! then we had steak and veg for mains (much like home which was a good change!!) and ice cream and cloud berries (another local berry - delicious!) and coffee for dessert!
That evening we didn't do much, watched the Robbie Williams concert on TV and watched Black Adder before heading out to see the town fire works display for new years eve. Even though Edsbyn is a pretty small town they had great fireworks!! We were very impressed. They have a tradition of doing a poetry reading first, then the fireworks. There wasn't really a countdown like we have, but i don't know if that was disorganisation or if they just don't do one?? We celebrated with a bottle of champagne which went down well with all the wine we had before we went out!! It was so cold, around 5 below, so we needed all that booze to keep warm!!
Gunnar had bought some of his own fireworks for us to let off after the main ones, so we headed back to the house and set them off in the backyard. They were great fun and i got to light them because it was my birthday!! Dave has a great video of it on his camera which you can see when we get back!
Today when we woke up and looked out the window we saw everything was white!! it had finally snowed!! yay!! Admittedly it was a pretty small amount of snow, but there was enough to cover everything in white!! we quickly got dressed and ran outside and spent the next hour or so just messing around!! we built a snowman which was so much fun!! in our haste to get out there we forgot to grab gloves, so our hands were pretty red and sore by the time we were rescued by Rolf (Gunnar's dad) bringing out a pair of gloves for me and mittens for Dave!! We threw lots of snowballs and made lots of patterns in the snow and had a great time!!
Then it was breakfast, packing, a quick drive through the town for a look before we headed back into Stockholm ready to catch our flight to Paris tomorrow morning.
We got to Edsbyn and went to Gunnar's parents house which is where we were going to be staying while there. They were very welcoming and made us some gingerbread cookies (another Nordic specialty) and got us to try a special Swedish drink called Glugg. It is served warm and was like mulled wine (so think hot red wine and its similar to that!!) i thought it was terrible, but they seem to enjoy it!!
It was decided that Dave and i would spend our first night in the cabin. Gunnar and his dad (Rolf) hand built a 14m2 wooded cabin out on their property near a large lake. It is miles away from all civilisation and is amazing. I took about a million photos so you will see just how wonderful it was. Gunnar's mum was really worried about me staying there because I'm a city girl, but i don't think she realised how tough they breed us down in Australia!! We made up a pack for food, water, torches, sleeping bags and pillows and set off. The original plan was that we would ski there, but because this is the mildest winter on record so there is no snow so we drove! easier, but definitely more boring!! The cabin was pretty freezing when we got there but we put the fire on straight away and it warmed up pretty quickly. There is no electricity there, so it was all about the fire! Gunnar left us after dinner so it was just me and Dave and the animals! Last winter Gunnar said he found wolf tracks on the porch of the cabin, and back in about 2000 i think it was, they saw a massive bear walking past while they were inside having coffee!! Dave and i had no exciting encounters with any wildlife though, i was disappointed!! We had a great sleep although it had got quite cold by the time we woke up as the fire had gone out. Didn't take long for Dave to fix the situation though and we were having breakfast in the warmth in no time!! We had an amazing view from the loft window as well because the sun doesn't fully come up in winter, its like sunrise pretty much all the time, maybe a little brighter. So there was mist and the sun peaking through the trees and silence, bliss!!
It was also my birthday!!!
Yay!! I was very spoilt with Dave making me breakfast as well as giving me a gorgeous Tiffany & Co necklace and pendant for my present, with the promise of a dinner out in Paris as well!! Very exciting and very spoilt!! I also got about a 1000 sms's from home wishing me happy birthday or happy new years!! It was strange getting drunken messages at breakfast, but i guess it wasn't breakfast in Australia, so it wasn't as bad as it sounds!!
After breakfast we went for a walk down to the lake. It was completely frozen, you could see that the layer of ice was about 20 - 25 cm thick. We were able to walk on it which was a very different experience, but a great one! I got some fantastic photos which i cant wait to show you all when i get home. It was a bit scary though because every so often you would hear a big cracking noise, which was the ice actually cracking!! apparently when the lake has only been frozen for a week or two, the ice is still settling so is cracks and re-freezes. Gunnar arrived while we were playing on the ice lake and assured us that these cracks were nothing to worry about!!! A few times when the ice cracked you could even feel it vibrating and moving!! scary but great at the same time!!
We had some coffee with Gunnar and he bought me a birthday cake and they both sang for me!!! We packed up the cabin. We went for a drive through Edsbyn and through Gunnar's parents forest. It was pretty cool, but very cold!! Then it was time for lunch (i swear, all we did when we stayed with people was eat and drink coffee!!). Gunnar's mum made us a big meal of potato bake, cold meats, several types of salad and special Swedish bread which is basically exactly the same a ryvita biscuits!! Dessert was ice-cream and lingon berries, which are small red berries which grow in their area and are slightly bitter tasting, but when served with the ice cream, were absolutely delicious!! Of course, we then had coffee!!!
That afternoon was spent on the Internet organising the trip from Edsbyn to the airport, and from the airport in France to the hotel in Paris. We got really cheap flights to Paris so it doesn't land at the main airport there, so we needed to figure out what we were doing!! We also got a walking tour of Gunnar's parents farm which was pretty interesting. His family have been farming the same land since the 1500's!!!
That evening Gunnar prepared us a big 3 course meal!! We weren't really hungry but it was so yum looking we ate it!! We had a Swedish entree which was some type of prawn stuff with toast. not really sure what it was but it was good!! then we had steak and veg for mains (much like home which was a good change!!) and ice cream and cloud berries (another local berry - delicious!) and coffee for dessert!
That evening we didn't do much, watched the Robbie Williams concert on TV and watched Black Adder before heading out to see the town fire works display for new years eve. Even though Edsbyn is a pretty small town they had great fireworks!! We were very impressed. They have a tradition of doing a poetry reading first, then the fireworks. There wasn't really a countdown like we have, but i don't know if that was disorganisation or if they just don't do one?? We celebrated with a bottle of champagne which went down well with all the wine we had before we went out!! It was so cold, around 5 below, so we needed all that booze to keep warm!!
Gunnar had bought some of his own fireworks for us to let off after the main ones, so we headed back to the house and set them off in the backyard. They were great fun and i got to light them because it was my birthday!! Dave has a great video of it on his camera which you can see when we get back!
Today when we woke up and looked out the window we saw everything was white!! it had finally snowed!! yay!! Admittedly it was a pretty small amount of snow, but there was enough to cover everything in white!! we quickly got dressed and ran outside and spent the next hour or so just messing around!! we built a snowman which was so much fun!! in our haste to get out there we forgot to grab gloves, so our hands were pretty red and sore by the time we were rescued by Rolf (Gunnar's dad) bringing out a pair of gloves for me and mittens for Dave!! We threw lots of snowballs and made lots of patterns in the snow and had a great time!!
Then it was breakfast, packing, a quick drive through the town for a look before we headed back into Stockholm ready to catch our flight to Paris tomorrow morning.
Stockholm - Fave City so Far!!
As per usual we only had one full day here in Stockholm so we had to super organised to fit in everything there is to see is this amazingly gorgeous city. I have to say that i was really only coming to Stockholm as a stop on the way to visit another of Dave's trainees, but this really has turned out to be my favourite city so far. I cant wait for you to see the photos, although I'm sure they wont do the place justice.
We had a buffet breakfast included in our hotel charge so we got up to a full spread of eggs (soft boiled, hard boiled or scrambled), bacon, fruit, cereal, smoothies, juices, tea, coffee and a waffle making machine!!! it was the perfect way to start the day!! several coffees later we headed out to see what Stockholm had to offer.
First stop was Kungliga Slottet, the royal castle, which was built in 1697 after the first castle built on the site was burnt down. It took 57 years to complete so they either had council workers doing the work, or else lots of breaks must have been taken!! It does have 608 rooms though so it is quite large!! In fact it is the worlds largest royal castle still used for its original purpose!!
Next we went to Storkyrkan, which is a cathedral where Sweden's monarch used to be crowned. It was built in 1306 and inside features the most amazing architecture, paintings and sculptures as well as many royal crypts, this really left us with no where to walk except all over royals of the past!! The alter is over 350 years old and made of silver while the pulpit is the most extravagant i have ever seen (and i have seen a lot of European cathedrals!!) and was built in the 1700's. All in all it was very impressive but i don't know if our photo's will turn out as it was really dark, but we have some postcards anyway.
After the cathedral we wandered through the Gamlastan, which is the old town. It was the best part of the city with really old buildings really showing how different Sweden is from many other European cities. We were ready for coffee by this time so we found a little cafe which lead us down a flight of stairs into the cellar section (converted into a cafe of course!) but it was dim, lit only by candles and felt very Swedish! Our coffee came in soup bowl size mugs, although i don't think they were mugs as they had no handles, come to think of it, they probably were just soup bowls!! We also discovered that here in Sweden they don't put chocolate powder on cappuccino's. they put cinnamon on instead - learnt that the hard way!! Evidently, I'm not a huge fan of cinnamon!!
We headed along the river up towards a lookout point. We hunted around for a way up for free (Lonely Planet told us there was a free way!!) but failed to find it, so we paid to go up in the lift and got an amazing view of the city from 38 m up. This probably doesn't sound very high, but it was actually on the side of a hill almost so it was high enough to get a fantastic view. I was a bit worried as the lift seemed really old (in fact it was built in 1936 so it was old!) but then i learnt that this lift actually replaced the last lift which was from 1881, so then i though maybe it wasn't so old after all!!! The lift took us up onto a bridge, and then at the other end we found the free way up was actually a massive amount of stairs!!
We walked off the other end of the bridge but instead of going down the stairs (the lift fee was one way!!) we walked onto the top of the hill and found an outdoor ice skating rink and another neighbourhood to investigate. It was getting dark by this time (it was 3pm after all!!) so we walked back up to the bridge on the lookout for a night time view of the city. It looked amazing, all lit up and with a lot of Xmas lights still up.
We went down the (free) stairs and headed back through the old town, stopping to take a photo of the largest Xmas tree in Stockholm!! We then went shopping in the city centre, at Sture Gallerian, which is like an up market Westfield with lots of designers (i bought some cool new sunnies by Stella McCartney!) and along the Biblioteksgatan which is a shopping mall which has a red carpet going down the middle!! Dave got some cool new Diesel stuff in their sales so he was pretty stoked as well!!
Then we headed back to the hotel, grabbing a traditional Swedish hot dog form a street vendor along the way!! We were meeting up with Gunnar (the trainee from Dave's parents place) for dinner and so grabbed a drink while we waited for him to arrive.
We got to the restaurant for dinner at around 8:30 after a quick trip on the metro and Gunnar getting us lost a couple of times!!! We had some fabulous Indian food, not some actually, a lot of fabulous Indian food. After dinner we went for a walk up to the top of Skinnarviksparken which is another lookout, but much higher and from a different angle to the one we went to during the day. The view from here was spectacular, but it was also freezing!! We were able to see all the sights we had visited during the day from this point and it was good to see just how much we managed to fit in!!
Then it was time to head back to the hotel to pack and get ready for our long drive out to Edsbyn (about 3 hours) where we were staying with his family for the next 2 nights.
We had a buffet breakfast included in our hotel charge so we got up to a full spread of eggs (soft boiled, hard boiled or scrambled), bacon, fruit, cereal, smoothies, juices, tea, coffee and a waffle making machine!!! it was the perfect way to start the day!! several coffees later we headed out to see what Stockholm had to offer.
First stop was Kungliga Slottet, the royal castle, which was built in 1697 after the first castle built on the site was burnt down. It took 57 years to complete so they either had council workers doing the work, or else lots of breaks must have been taken!! It does have 608 rooms though so it is quite large!! In fact it is the worlds largest royal castle still used for its original purpose!!
Next we went to Storkyrkan, which is a cathedral where Sweden's monarch used to be crowned. It was built in 1306 and inside features the most amazing architecture, paintings and sculptures as well as many royal crypts, this really left us with no where to walk except all over royals of the past!! The alter is over 350 years old and made of silver while the pulpit is the most extravagant i have ever seen (and i have seen a lot of European cathedrals!!) and was built in the 1700's. All in all it was very impressive but i don't know if our photo's will turn out as it was really dark, but we have some postcards anyway.
After the cathedral we wandered through the Gamlastan, which is the old town. It was the best part of the city with really old buildings really showing how different Sweden is from many other European cities. We were ready for coffee by this time so we found a little cafe which lead us down a flight of stairs into the cellar section (converted into a cafe of course!) but it was dim, lit only by candles and felt very Swedish! Our coffee came in soup bowl size mugs, although i don't think they were mugs as they had no handles, come to think of it, they probably were just soup bowls!! We also discovered that here in Sweden they don't put chocolate powder on cappuccino's. they put cinnamon on instead - learnt that the hard way!! Evidently, I'm not a huge fan of cinnamon!!
We headed along the river up towards a lookout point. We hunted around for a way up for free (Lonely Planet told us there was a free way!!) but failed to find it, so we paid to go up in the lift and got an amazing view of the city from 38 m up. This probably doesn't sound very high, but it was actually on the side of a hill almost so it was high enough to get a fantastic view. I was a bit worried as the lift seemed really old (in fact it was built in 1936 so it was old!) but then i learnt that this lift actually replaced the last lift which was from 1881, so then i though maybe it wasn't so old after all!!! The lift took us up onto a bridge, and then at the other end we found the free way up was actually a massive amount of stairs!!
We walked off the other end of the bridge but instead of going down the stairs (the lift fee was one way!!) we walked onto the top of the hill and found an outdoor ice skating rink and another neighbourhood to investigate. It was getting dark by this time (it was 3pm after all!!) so we walked back up to the bridge on the lookout for a night time view of the city. It looked amazing, all lit up and with a lot of Xmas lights still up.
We went down the (free) stairs and headed back through the old town, stopping to take a photo of the largest Xmas tree in Stockholm!! We then went shopping in the city centre, at Sture Gallerian, which is like an up market Westfield with lots of designers (i bought some cool new sunnies by Stella McCartney!) and along the Biblioteksgatan which is a shopping mall which has a red carpet going down the middle!! Dave got some cool new Diesel stuff in their sales so he was pretty stoked as well!!
Then we headed back to the hotel, grabbing a traditional Swedish hot dog form a street vendor along the way!! We were meeting up with Gunnar (the trainee from Dave's parents place) for dinner and so grabbed a drink while we waited for him to arrive.
We got to the restaurant for dinner at around 8:30 after a quick trip on the metro and Gunnar getting us lost a couple of times!!! We had some fabulous Indian food, not some actually, a lot of fabulous Indian food. After dinner we went for a walk up to the top of Skinnarviksparken which is another lookout, but much higher and from a different angle to the one we went to during the day. The view from here was spectacular, but it was also freezing!! We were able to see all the sights we had visited during the day from this point and it was good to see just how much we managed to fit in!!
Then it was time to head back to the hotel to pack and get ready for our long drive out to Edsbyn (about 3 hours) where we were staying with his family for the next 2 nights.
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