2026 Scandinavian Tour - October - Day 15 - Drive to Malmo.

 September 17, 2026

Well, I’m writing this from the 11th floor of a Hyatt property in Malmo.  The view is amazing overlooking the sea between Malmo and Copenhagen.  I did pretty good on this one using points to secure the room a while back.  It will be nice before we start flying towards home.  The Wayments will fly all the way home tomorrow.  We will fly to Ireland (Dublin) and stay one night there then try to fly stand-by on United the next morning.  It’s always and adventure.  But we seem to always make it.  I have a big day Sunday…so I need to get home.

We were on the road around 8:45 AM and immediately headed to see the Stockholm Temple.  The traffic getting out of town was a little busy, but not too bad.  I think it took about 25 minutes to arrive at the temple only to find it all closed up, surrounded by scaffolding.  You could barely tell it was a temple.  We were saddened to see this.  We knew it was closed for remodeling…but had NO IDEA to what degree.  It looks like it has a bit more time to go.  The area around the temple was quite pretty all covered with trees and such.  It sits right by a train station.  So I would assume it is fairly easy to get to from central Stockholm.

After a quick stop for pictures, we headed to Malmo.  The 7 hour journey seemed to go quite quickly…at least for me.  We stopped once for gas and lunch.  We stopped again for gas just a block or two from the hotel that we are in.  One anxious moment occurred while driving.  A little rock hit the windshield and put a little pock mark in the window.  I figured it would be my luck that I’d get billed for something like that.  But, after dropping the girls off at the hotel, which was tricky to find with no visible signage on the large building saying Story Hotel, Kim and I drove 3 minutes to Sixt, the rental car agency.  We drove into the garage.  But there were no folks there to check in cars.  We just kept driving until the 5th floor where we had picked the car up.  Fortunately there was an electric car space, so I took it..even though ours was a gas guzzler.  We then went down to the office and asked if we did the right thing.  They clerk said, yes, asked for the keys and told us we’d have an invoice in 30 minutes.  Well, that was around 3:30 PM.  I did not get an invoice until around 5:30 PM and I was sweating that they would bill me more.  But at least for now, the invoice is what I had expected.  So fingers crossed nothing more comes.

After checking the car in, Kim and I walked back to the hotel only to run into the girls coming to find us.  So we turned around and started walking around.  I suggested that we go to the train station to determine where the trains that we will want in the morning run and what they are called.  A ticket agent there gave us all the info we needed.  I think that we are set.  After that, we started walking around the central part of town.  It was really cool.  Multiple plazas, lots of stores and restaurants.  We ended up at Surf Burger eating burgers, fries, onion rings with 3 other people drinking beer and their small dog who just stared us down until he got some meat.  I just shake my head when I think that people have to bring their animals with them to go get something.  Bizarre.  Anyway, we had a great meal.  We then headed back to the hotel.  Kim was tired, so he went to his room.  Denise, Ilene and I took our 100 SEK coupons to the 14th floor to enjoy the complimentary coupons.  Denise and Ilene ordered a really good dessert that cost 140 SEK (~$15).  Subtracting the 100 SEK coupong, it would only be 40 SEK.  So we get up to the bar to pay for the two desserts and the guy says that they are only good for drinks!  What?  So we got hit with a $15 bill each for something we would not have purchased.  Well, we took some Ginger Beer and Fanta orange drinks nonetheless to our rooms.  I seem to always get burned by this stuff.

Well, the trip with Kim and Ilene has been fun.  We have seen so much.  It seems like a blur.  Ilene’s pharmacy has saved me in keeping my cold that came on hard at bay.  I’m amazed how it has come and gone.  Way to go Ilene.  And lastly, kudos to them for using their phones to navigate us in Stockholm.  They did an amazing job keeping us going in the right direction.  It’s always fun traveling with them.  Such good friends.

Some pictures of our day:

Our dessert on the 14th floor at the end of the day.

Just kicking back at the end our day high up in the hotel.

Bikes everywhere in Europe!  Between bikes and public transportation, why would you ever need to drive.

A nice lighthouse here in Malmo near our hotel…the Story Hotel by Hyatt.  Great place.

Just below our window.

Our hotel.

We saw this windmill while driving.

I bought a very good hot dog at the Circle K…Kinda like a Maverick back home…when we stopped for gas.  Denise looks like she has a halo.  She is an angel.  So I’m not surprised.  She got some interesting taquitos.

I’ve wanted to show this.  On our rental car windshield was a clock with an arm that you can adjust.  At certain parking lots, you pull in, set the time on this clock and then you only have so many hours to stay parked there from that time.  Totally on the honor system.  But I’ve never seen anything like that.

The Stockholm Sweden Temple.

This is the chapel that sat across the street from the temple.

One of the squares that we walked through killing time in Malmo.

This was one of the older looking shops that the girls had to go into.  I never understand why as there is NO MORE ROOM in suitcases.  Just crazy.  I keep telling Ilene that charity shops would like her old stuff and she could fill the suit case with new stuff.

This is Denise’s new hobby.  So she was excited to see this and see what they were asking for each.  $20 for each angel.

I loved this when I saw it.  So I took a picture of it.  Then…

I couldn’t resist.  I had to join and be the drummer (but I left my drum home).

It started to rain a bit and my wife turned into a ‘bag lady’.  I think that’s here…I’ll have to zoom in.

Our dinner mate waiting for his next piece of meat.  Crazy that you’d bring your dog and have them sit up and eat with you.  I just scratch my head.

Ilene finishing the day with the hard stuff.  We had to use that 100 SEK coupon.  Stick it to ‘em!!!

2026 Scandinavian Tour - October - Day 14 - Stockholm

 September 16, 2026

We woke up this morning, having slept pretty well in our double sized bed. The funny thing is one of us has to sleep against the wall and if you have to go to the bathroom, you have to high hurdle over the other person.  It’s kind of tough in the middle of the night but all good.  We are enjoying our time so far here in Stockholm.

We started the day by eating our muffins that we had bought at the store the previous night.  We then met Kim and Ilene in the lobby and headed out to go to the ABBA museum in Stockholm central.  It took us about 40 minutes of taking the metro train and a bus to arrive at the museum.  We then had a 15 minute wait until the museum opened.  Once inside we were submersed into the world of ABBA, their history, their music and their fame.  We spent about two hours reading and listening and enjoying the music and background of ABBA.  We watched some movies about them.  We read many things about their history and saw a lot of their memorabilia concerning their lives.  But one of the funnest things that we did was to go into a booth where there was a microphone and you selected a particular song and then you had the opportunity to sing that song.   It was a ton of fun singing it.   I swear I made a version of their song that would go to the top of the charts. Another fun thing was they had a stage where all four Abba singers were up there in a virtual type thing and a person could stand in making a fifth person in the group.  Ilene went up there and did that.  That was kind of fun for her to be able to dance and sing and be a part of the other four people up there on the stage.  In the end we did have a lot of fun, enjoying ABBA, their history and music.

Our next adventure was to walk to the National Museum.  I had read previously the night before that the museum was free to go into.  However, that was not the case.  They charge $16 per person to get in.  Not cheap.  Heck, Abba was $30 per person.  It’s only my kids inheritance…what the heck…right?  To get to the National Ferry, we had to walk to a ferry and take the ferry to the island called Skeppsholmen.  From there we could walk across the island, over a bridge to the National Museum.   On our walk there we were getting kind of hungry since it was after noon.   As we walked, we found a café that we went into and sat down and had a sandwich. The food was really good in this little café, and we enjoyed sitting down and resting our legs and visiting with each other. 

After eating, we went to the National Museum and spent a couple of hours there.  We were looking at paintings that ranges from the 17th century the 20th century seeing all kinds of art.   I find the oldesst art most interesting because I’m always amazed at what they could do back when they had so few resources like they have in the more modern times.   It’s also amazing to me that they cannot represent men or women without being half clothed.  I don’t know what that period in the 17th century was like, but they certainly like painting part of their bodies unclothed.   As we concluded our tour of the National Museum, I wondered what we would do next as it was about only 3:30 PM.  I sat down and asked ChatGPT what public bus or train would be best to take to see the city.   ChatGPT gave me a couple options and I presented that to Denise, Kim and Ilene.   We decided we would do that.  We ended up on a tram.  It took us kind of around the city a little bit… at least around the water… and dropped us off at the end of the line.  This was on the island of Djurgarden.  We had been in the area before because this was where the ABBA museum was.  It was a pretty place with sail boats and marinas.  We encountered a lady that happened to be American that had lived in Sweden for about 14 years. She gave us some good ideas on what to go and do and see.  So tried to do what she suggested.   We ended at a garden shop café where they apparently have tea, coffee, and these pastries at the end ofthe day   We end up getting a little cinnamon roll and sat down and visited again.  There happened to be small birds flying around trying to get your food.  As we finished our roll and the eatery began to close, I took some crumbs and put them in my hand.  The birds literally came up and ate out of my hands.  It was really interesting and fun.   After stopping there, we decided we were going to find the dinner place the American lady suggested.  It was a nice walk and took us to a place quite near where a funicular was taking people up to a zoo like exhibit.  Unfortunately, it was closed.  Next time I guess.  Our waitress told us that it is really nice there and that we have to do it next time.   Our dinner was amazing and quite fancy.  Denise and Ilene were ademant about getting Swedish meatballs once again.  Kim and I ended up a seafood soup like thing.  It’s hard to describe.  But it was really good.  They provided very good bread, water with lemons…almost American like.  

After dinner, we headed back to our hotel taking the trolley and then the metro which dropped us off near the store where we could get some pastries and stuff for tomorrow’s breakfast.  We plan to leave early to drive to the Stockholm Temple and then make the 7 hour drive back to Malmo.  Yuck…we begin our journey home.

More pictures:

My seafood dinner at Wärdshuset Ulla Winbladh AB.  That was the name of the fancy restaurant.

A nice location to eat.  Can you see what’s missing?  They made me take off my sweatshirt.

Nice area.

This as the garden center where we enjoyed our rolls and fought birds.

One of the parks we walked through.

On our walk to the National Museum, I found a toilet out in the open.  I couldn’t pass on it.

Believe it or not, we were right by their amusement park.  Guess who this about killed.  She was in such a bad mood that we would not make time to go in and ride the rides.  We stayed by one in Copenhagen and now one in Stockholm.  Go figure.

Some crazy ABBA Museum pictures.  We had a lot of fun there.

This is the old white piano that the men wrote their songs on.  They bought a house looking over a lake and there they wrote a lot of their music.

Our daily breakfast.  Yum.

Happy ABBA customers.

2026 Scandinavian Tour - October - Day 13 - Vadstena to Stockholm

 September 15, 2026

Wow…half of September is gone.  Hard to believe.  

I took a lot of medicine last night before going to bed. As a result, after falling asleep, I slept quite well until 6 o’clock in the morning. We got up, ate our pastries, cleaned the house.  Our stay in this house was very nice. It was clean. The host was prompt in getting back to us when we had questions.

Our first stop of the day was at Berg Locks.  This turned out to be quite amazing. There is a canal called the Gota Channel that crosses the entire country of Sweden.  And that canal requires locks to raise and lower the small ships or boats as they traverse the canal.   The gates that hold or release the water are made of wood. They have determined that metal gates do not last as long as wooden gates.  There are 58 locks total along this canal and at Berg, these locks are called the staircase locks because there are many of them that slowly elevate and lower the ships or boats as they travel the canal.  We enjoyed this stop immensely as the area was pretty. The locks were very interesting and there were other things to do like mini golf, play on the fields, swim or boat in the marina and so on.   Lots of things that people can do in this area.  We enjoyed it.

Our next stop was a two hour journey away.  We decided to go see a castle that was fairly close to Stockholm. The castle is named Gripsholm castle. It is in Mariefred.  The grounds there were absolutely beautiful with the sun radiating against the castle.  It made everything look so pretty.  It sat on a small island with water all around.   I hope the pictures turn out as pretty as the site was.  We then headed to an eatery for lunch in Mariefred.  We shared a hot beef sandwich that was amazing!

After visiting the castle and having lunch, we headed towards Stockholm to find our hotel the Avanti Apartment Hotel. The journey was good and we were able to find it quite easily.  However, the apartment is much like  a student dorm.  It’s ok.  We will only be sleeping here.  But it is run down a bit.

After getting settled for a few minutes, we headed to the metro to catch the metro train to Stockholm.  We wanted to go see the old city of Stockholm and the train took us right there.  We walked around the old city of Stockholm, seeing the Royale Palace, a couple of cathedrals and just enjoying the uniqueness of the architecture.  At first glance, we thought perhaps we were in Italy with colorful houses on narrow streets.  Denise‘s friend had recommended a place to get Swedish meatballs.  So we set out to find this place.  Sometimes our GPS’s do not work like we hope them too. We ended up walking for maybe 15 minutes when we realized that we had put in the wrong restaurant.  So after correcting that, we ended up doing basically a big loop…kinda like being lost in the forest.  We thought it was kind of funny and we eventually found the restaurant real close from where we had started from.  But we saw lots of nice things on our walk.  The restaurant was a very upscale restaurant.   When we went in the maître’d asked if we had a booking which we did not.  He then told us that the next guest would be there around 7 PM.   It was 5:30 PM so he asked us if we could eat quickly and if so, we could have a table.   So we did.  The food was yummy.   It was very good but the price was quite high for what we got.  Such is the case when you’re in big cities and touristy areas.  After dinner, we walked back to the train station and caught the train back to the stop closest to our hotel.  The walk to the hotel is about a 10 minute walk.  We stopped in a ICA market to get some things for in the morning and to have some ice cream to top our day off.  It’s been a good day. 

Here are some pictures:

Tired of my sweatshirt yet?  I get so many great stares by people over here.  One guy, sitting outside at a restaurant, yelled something at me and the group started laughing.  Unfortunately, it was in Swedish.  I just gave him a thumbs up as I walked by.

The crown on the Royale Palace gate.

A few shots of the Royale Palace.

These last pictures have been from inside the cathedral.  I did not go in this one as I’m a bit tired of old cathedrals.  But the others did and really liked what they saw.

We timed it just right to watch the changing of the guard…or the shifting of the guard.  I think each hour they shift from one station to the next.  But I could be wrong.

The organ inside the cathedral.  I believe these are Lutheran Cathedrals.  Lutheran seems to be a very prominent religion here.

This is the Stortorget Fountain.  It was on our list of things to see.  It must have some history that I’ll have to research otherwise it wasn’t much to see.

Old Stockholm is full of narrow streets like this with tons of restaurants and shops.  A nice place to see.

Us in front of Gripsholm Castle.

This is looking across the water from Gripsholm Castle into Mariefred and town center there.

I’m not sure what the building is across the water but it was quite majestic looking.  It looked nice from where we were.

Us at the Berg Locks.  You can see one of the locks behind us.

Gripsholm Castle entrance.

Berg Locks.

Us in front of Gripsholm Castle.

More shots of Gripsholm Castle.

Our first stop on our journey took us to Gota Canal.  We really wanted to go to the Berg Locks.  Anyway, we ended up on this small bridge that lifts up for boats traveling on Gota Canal.   We were about 30km away from Berg.

Nice video of the grounds where Gripsholm Castle is.