Hotel Gute Visby

... held early August of every year.

It has been a very relaxing time here. Coming from Brussels and Berlin, I immediately felt calm and stress-free when I saw the sea. This is a very beautiful place and I highly recommend it for a relaxing vacation. It does take some effort to get here tho. I have had a wonderful time visiting with Lena; riding bikes, sharing meals, talking about our lives/parents/children/lovelives,having coffee, and swimming in the sea. Tusen takk. (I know it's ...

... for the day. We started at the library and from there made our down Strandvägen to a new corner of the wall surrounding the city that they have opened up to let people climb on top of. It was a short walk from tourist information and along the way we got some really nice views of Almedalen and the ocean. It wasn't so much climbing along the wall as climbing up to a look out spot, but it did show some really nice views of the city, including the ...

... annoying voice was sitting and fell asleep for the rest of the ride.

Once in Stockholm we decided that our time would best be spent in Gamla Stan and at the royal palace. We toured all of the museums located in the palace, and started out with the Royal Apartments. We picked the right time to go in there, at the same time as the changing of the guard. While everyone was converging outside, we got to wander around inside at our own leisure, not having to deal with ...

... and mini-golf, the kids were thoroughly spoiled and exhausted for the day, the sign of a good vacation stop. We finished off the evening by walking down to the shoreline to throw some rocks into the Baltic Sea and see if we can spot some passing ships. What a great day! Unfortunately, the ferry leaves at 7:20 tomorrow morning, so we need to pack things up tonight and set the alarm for 5 am. :(

Tomorrow is the longest travel day of our ...

... use some repair. There are no shoulders and the trees come right up next to the road. They don't believe in utilizing street lights or stop lights, just lots of roundabouts and add-on fog lamps. Oh, and no police - anywhere... except the one that gave Todd a parking ticket in Kalmar. At least that's what we think it is. Funny how Todd forgot to blog about that, eh?

We also just wanted to add that we miss you and hope everyone is doing well!

... everyone out for snacks and dessert around 9pm.Today was our last full day in Sweden. The kids seem to have had a great trip and some have already started talking about other trip they would like to go on and possible study abroad trips in the future. Tomorrow we head back out on a 2pm flight back to Boston. The kids will be free to call parents from the van and we will be back at the Met around 9pm.

... dotted here or there. Every where else we have been there is farm land, you may pass the occasional wooded area, but it has all been farm land and houses and you certainly see a lot more cars. The drive to Oskarshamn on the other side of Sweden took about 3hrs. This is where we would get the ferry over to Gotland. We turned up expecting to buy a ticket for the next morning and find somewhere to sleep, but it turned out a ferry was leaving soon, and there was still space left. So ...

... city avoiding the many people walking around. We biked down to the ocean and enjoyed the sun setting on the water. What a beautiful start to our trip to Gotland. The next day we awkoe and packed up our camp and headed to a lake about 25km away. We loaded up everything and were off to the grocery store to pick up some food and beers for the camping trip. The ride through the country side was uneventful until we got to the middle of ...

... us and hurried us through... it didn't look like any pedestrian ferry entrance that i had seen, we totally thought we were in the wrong place... they hurried us on and thats when we realized we were getting on the ferry through the undercarriage truck entrance!!! talk about just making it! had we missed that one, it would have been another 4 hours i think until the next ferry! quite the luck... --- our hostel was in the old prison right on the harbour. it was ...

... century. There are 92 medieval churches on Gotland and I try to visit as many as I can when I have the oppurtunity. So far I have visited 12, so I have a ways to go before seeing them all. Next to the church are ruins of an even older church. After visiting the church, we stopped by a small viking graveyard, which consisted of two "boat" graves. Boat graves usually indicate that someone of great power or respect was buried there. These gravesites date back to the Bronze Age.