2026 Scandinavian Tour - October - Day 11 - Welcome to Sweden (Bosjokloster)

 September 13, 2026

Our cruise in Scandinavia has come to an end.  It has been a wonderful cruise hearing so many languages.  The cruise director welcomed the theater crowd in 5 languages each night.  He was amazing.  I’m amazed how many languages many of these people on the ship can speak.  I guess you have to as so many languages are spoken all around us.  English is always the common denominator.

We were up at the buffet eating at 7:30 AM.  We checked out of the room by 8 AM and were off the ship by 8:15.  It was an easy exit, no one in line to get off.  But at the bus stop, there was a pretty good line.  Fortunately the public buses take a lot of people and we easily got on the first bus.  After a 10 minute ride to the metro, we caught the M4 metro to Osterplot station.  From there we then caught a Swedish train to Malmo C, the central train station in Malmo Sweden.  The journey from the Osterplot station was about 50 minutes.  Once we arrived, we easily found the Sixt car rental office and acquired a car.  With all our gear, the is a bit tight.  However, we did it and off we went. 

Our first stop of the day was at an old viking fort in Trelleborg.  We found it easily and it was in the middle of the city.  It has one quarter of the existing fort.  There are only 6 of these in all of Sweden.  Vikings are a part of all of these countries history.  

We then left the fort and drove to a beautiful Lutheran church where Denise’s ancestors were once buried.  That was our first church stop.  Unfortunately, the Pastor was too busy with members of her congregation that she would not take time to retrieve her books that would possibly have names of Denise’s ancestors.  Bummer.  Anyway, after taking some pictures, off we went to another church out in the middle of no where.  At this church there was a beautiful graveyard.  So well taken care of.  The church was closed.  But we were able to walk around looking at headstones.  But none matched Denise’s records.  Most of the headstones had dates newer than the dates Denise was looking for.  So maybe their plots do not have headstones.  It was a nice stop nonetheless.

Next, we needed to find some lunch.  So we started driving to our BnB and when we came to the first significantly sized village, we found a place and stopped.  It was a small pub that was run by a guy from Lebanon.  We all oredered Gyros and frys.  They were amazingly tasty.

After lunch we headed to the BnB in Bosjokloster.  The info I read when I booked indicated that it was a castle.  It was an hour or so drive from where we got lunch.  But upon arrival we were astonished.  It is an old fort, castle-like, structure which we have the north corner of.  Denise is finally staying in an old castle.  Even the beds seem olden.  The bathrooms seem to have been built into closets.  As a matter of fact, I’ll be showering in the morning in the laundry room.  Pictures will show more than words.  People pay money to come on the park like grounds that sit on a lake region.  It is quite pretty.  

After settling in and getting some wash going, we set out to walk the grounds.  There is an exhibition of Ukranian quilts.  And Ilene and Denise enjoying quilting, it was fascinating to them.  From there we walked the grounds seeing the most amazing flowers with big bumble bees flying all around.  We walked into a forest like area where we came upon a zip-line among the trees that both Denise and Ilene rode.  That was pretty funny as it was a bit tough to get off the darn thing!  But they did it.   The grounds are really pretty.  An amazing first night in Sweden.

Some pictures:

I’m sitting in the church here at the castle/convent where we are staying for the night.  

This is a picture of the courtyard in the Bosjokloster castle.  Our windows look out over this.

Us walking in the park that is part of the grounds at Bosjokloster.

A happy zip liner.  I’m going to post a video of this down below.

The servant taking the princess back to the point where she can dismount her thrill ride.  Pretty fun.

This is where you are able to mount the seat on the zip line.

Such beautiful flowers all over the grounds here.  These are just a few.

They will actually give you oars and life vests so you can take boats out on the lake.  We did not do that.  But the sign nearby said that we could.

Nice view of the castle, which in times later, became a convent for nuns.

This is the kitchen in our flat here.  Really quite big.

This is one of the beautiful quilts made by Ukranian folks that live in this region.

Our living room area.  You can actually start a fire if you chose to do so.

Our lunch…a Gyro and fties.

The group at the restaurant at lunch time.

This is a shot of the church where we stopped to look for Denise’s ancestors.  It is a lovely cemetery.

Another shot of that same church and cemetery.

This is one of the streets we drove through on our journey.  It was a cute little street.

This was the Lutheran church, the first church that we stopped at looking for Denise’s ancestors.

This is the outside of that old Lutheran church.

A picture of Denise and I on the outside of the viking fort.

They had some authentic viking gear.  I’m always amazed how heavy it is.

Our train ride to Malmo.

Another shot of the courtyard….

A pretty view across the lake here in Bosjokloster.

Another view of the castle/convent.

Zip lining….

Kids having fun….