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.

2026 Scandinavian Tour - October - Day 12 - Drive to Vadstena.

 September 14, 2026

Staying in a castle, convent, manor house, whatever you want to call it, was really a unique experience.  I’d definitely come back and even spend more time here.

I woke up around 3:30 AM and then my head cold took over a bit.  I really need something that can dry my head up at night so I can breathe better.  We shall see what I do tonight.

Today, we got up and were out the door by 9 AM.  Our plan took us to a National Park named Store Mosse.  It was a bit different from our national park.  It was a place to observe wildlife in a bog like area.  We walked to the visitor center where before you could enter you had to take your shoes off and put on slippers.  They did not want you walking on their wood floors.  But the idea of sharing someone’s slippers after they’ve been hiking all day in their boots…well not appealing.  We decided quickly that this was a place to go for walks and would need a lot of time which we did not have.  We are making our way towards Stockholm.

After leaving the national park, we drove to a little village named Granna.  It is a quaint village known for a type of candy that is made there.  It is called Polkagris and is like candy cane in the US.  Anyway, we bought a bunch to bring home to the grandkids.  While there, we went to a bakery to have a quick sandwich and a few pastries.  It was all yummy.  While walking back to our car, we ran into 2 sister missinoaries who were on their preparation day.  One of the girls grandmother was from Sweden.  And apparently her great uncle lived in Sweden still and they were walking around Granna with him and his wife.  It was fun to meet them.  Both girls were from the US. 

Our next stop on our journey was at a castle relic named Brahehus.  It was kind of just off the motorway and overlooked a lovely valley leading down to Lake Vattern.  Beautiful view it was there.  You’ll see in the pictures below.  The castle was small and the top floors and roof were gone.  But I’m sure it was impressive in its day.

We next headed to the city where we were going to stay the night, Vadstena.  In the heart of this city is a huge castle with a mote and everything.  We arrived at 3:30 PM and they closed the castle at 4 PM.  But they were very kind and said that we could take our time and could leave whenever we’d like…which we did.  Any more, I don’t know what to say about old castles.  You try to imagine life back in the 15 century living in such conditions.  I’m sure those who lived in such a building were spoiled in comparison to the peasants that lived outside.  You can tell that they were set up for very large feasts and hosting lots of people.  It was a very nice tour.

Finally, we arrived at our BnB…a farm house in the middle of farm country.  Our 3+ hours of driving today pretty much took us through farm land and lake country.  All very green, lots of trees and lots of water all around us.  Our home here is very nice.  I think we will be comfortable tonight.  Well, Denise and I will be.    Our traveling partners (Ilene) keeps losing things.  I keep teasing them that this is ok as they probably need to donate to charity shops to avoid having their suitcases and backpacks explode.  It’s fun to tease them and I hope Ilene does find her coat and battery pack to keep her phone charged.

For dinner, we went into town and found a pub like place.  Denise and I shared a Schnitzel plate.  It was really yummy.  We also got what he called a salted cucumber plate.  That turned out to be very small pickles that you dipped in an amazing soft cheese and honey.  It was so good.  

Well another day in the books and hoping to get a better nights rest.  Here are some pictures:

Entrance to our house in Vadstena.  Nice little country home.

Just up the road from our country house is this church.  People much come from all the farms to attend.

That’s looking up at the home we’re in.

A nice sunset in Vadstena.

This is a little plaza we we found a place open for dinner.  It’s Monday and everything seems so shut.

Another shot of the square in Vadstena.

A very full boot (trunk).

This is castle in Vadstena.  Pretty impressive.

The lake that comes up near the Vadstena Castle.

I love a good mote.  This one is cool.

This is the inner courtyard of the Vadstena Castle.

Another nice shot of the inner courtyard of the Vadstena Castle.

Denise and Ilene preaching to the peasants.

These were the pews in the chapel in the Vadstena Castle.

The organ in the Vadstena Castle chapel.

King and queen.

Me having a nice discussion with one of the castle’s occupants.

This is Braheus Castle.

All the pictures above are at Brahehus Castle.

The store in Granna where the polkagris candy was made and purchased.

Braheus Castle.

Trolls are everywhere.  This one is found in the visitor center at Store Mosse National Park.

The above pictures are in the National Park.

These are the slippers we put on to walk on their wood floors.

A map of the national park.

I meant to add these two photos of Kim and Ilene.  Great photos.