View Sweden through a keyhole (pictures!)

Our vacation in a nutshell.

- Someone took a sidestep in Store Mosse where we walked more than 3 km bare foot in peat bog, crossing the marsh on wooden planks that they had laid out, the second half of our walk we were forced to go barefooted (shoes tied around our necks) the boarding was flooded due to the heavy rains. At one point we were up to our ankles in murky water.....
It was Floris who attempted to canoe without a canoe; he slipped on the very slippery wood (literally only two feet wide) and plunged with one leg in the swamp, he was wet and dirty all the way up to his hip! We tried to comfort him as best as we could (couldn't really hug him because we couldn't stand close enough and well ..being all wet and dirty, rather unhuggable I must say).
We saw cranes feeding on the marshes near the visitor center!- Hiked through the gorge of Skuregatta (Tolkien territory and we forgot to bring our cameras!). It was so much fun to do, scramble over giant rocks, straddle fallen trees, sip from the stream, leave our names in the hidden guestbook under the rock somewhere in the middle of the gorge.... No pictures but if you scroll down here you'll get an idea.
- I had the chance to meet the wonderful Ilva over coffee! (Imagine, all the way from Italy and Holland and where do we plan to meet? Are we world citizens or what?) Besides seeing the sites my highlight in Stockholm was meeting Ilva, we set up a date at the corner of a big square in Stockholm and trusted our instinct to recognize each other. I mean come on, you can smell a fellow Daring Baker from a mile away right? Well, eventually, yes! Right from the start we chatted almost simultaneously (I think these four boys in my group didn't mind exploring Stockholm on their own that afternoon) and almost dashed to the first spot where we could have coffee and sit, plopped down and sat there talking for the rest of the afternoon! Amazing! As you can tell from reading her blog, she really is a thinking blogger in so many ways, thoughtful, reflecting, supportive and fun to be with! I had a wonderful afternoon Ilva! And to top that I am the proud owner of a Swedish apron Ilva brought me from her hometown. I can touch up on my Swedish now as there are all kinds of fruit and veggies depicted with their names in Swedish (which isn't all too far removed from Dutch, now the pronunciation...).

- clambered up a skiing hill and rolled down another...

- we loved our days in Stockholm, so much to do, so many things to see, I think we'll be back one day. Picture left is in Skansen on Djurgarten.

- we encountered a campsite from hell (and it had sufficient hell hounds to be named that way, one evening we came "home" from Stockholm to find 6! German Shepherd dogs who occupied the space next to our tent.... Suffice to say that we earned a world record tent packing the next morning. Out Out Out!

- it rained and rained but we managed to get some sun during the last week or so, even getting a little tan!

- of course there had to be some time dedicated to a garage visit again... we had a brand new car this time but communication between car lights and caravan lights failed at one point of time and as it is not a good idea to hang kids out of car windows to indicate which way you plan to go, it needed some fixing...

- of course I brought some minor shopping things back home *cough* almost all *cough* concerning food or food related items of some sort.