When our mother turned 70 in 2024, my brothers and I wanted to celebrate her with a trip, like we did with our father in 2023. However, since she doesn’t like flying or going by boat, we planned a road trip. After countless (well, at least multiple) online meetings, planning and booking requests sent (and denied), we went on our way on July 26 for a nice long weekend together.
Saturday
It all started in Uppsala, where Peter picked up Mom at her house, took the bus down to the train station, and where Daniel met up. After a 40-minute train ride, they stepped off in Helenelund, where I was waiting with my car. With everyone gathered, we took off southbound on E4, the first stop being Norrköping.
The ride went smoothly with lots of talk and discussions. Daniel had brought muffins, and the traffic didn’t cause any trouble. We parked close to Platinum Cars Arena, where we were going soon. But first, some lunch at Tokio. Very nice sushi place, even though none of us actually ordered sushi 🙂
After everyone had finished their meal, we walked over to the football stadium again, for an immersive exhibition on Thutankanon. It started off with 4-5 displays with information and some objects.
One paragraph actually said, We don’t know much about Tutankhamun’s time in power (which was half his life), so I was wondering what the exhibition would be about then 🙂
After three small rooms with displays, we entered a larger room with projections on all four walls and the floor. You sat on small cubes. A long video (estimated 20 minutes) ran, without any clear start or finish.
Mostly cool effects and no actual content. It could have been better.
After the “immersive room”, another display, and then time for some VR. You sat down in a chair that could rotate (like an office chair) and then got a VR headset and headphones and watched
another movie for about 8 minutes. Pretty cool, but again, no real content.
This was followed by another room with some facts, and then the third and last technical experience, mobile VR. You got a VR headset and walked around in a room, visiting three different
events. First off, falling through the sky down into the sand, where you could walk around and see where the different tombs were positioned. Then we got transferred to a basecamp, with some tents, gadgets, and photos.
You could interact with some of them. Finally, we got down into the tomb and could see the casket that Tutankhamun was found in.
This last one was pretty cool, even though it was still missing some content. However, walking around with a VR headset is nice.
All in all, more about effects and technical experiences than information about Tutankhamun, but we enjoyed it and spent more than the recommended 90 minutes in there.
Back to the car and then off again along E4, this time with Jönköping as the goal. We stopped at Mjölby to get some ice cream, and Peter bought a bunch of candy from a big candy store.
Because of some road construction, it was a bit tricky to get to the hotel and the garage beneath it. I had to park and check the email I had gotten from the hotel a couple of days earlier, to see the specific instructions. In the end, I had to drive by a sign that said I wasn’t allowed there, but I had to, to get to where I was allowed to park 🙂
Check-in at Quality Hotel Match was smooth, we stayed on the 11th floor, with Peter and mom sharing a room, and Daniel and I in the other. We went down to the lobby and played some shuffleboard. There were some good hits, and some quite bad :p
As the time was closing in on 19, we walked down to the city and the water and the restaurant NEO, where we had a reservation. We got a table outside, which was really nice since it was quite warm and the cool breeze felt good.
We had a lovely server who, when Peter asked about today’s special, pronounced haricot verts exactly as it is written. I don’t blame her, I don’t eat it regularly either.
Great food, nice staff, and a lovely view of Munksjön. After desert and coffee, we took a detour back and ended up on the pier in Vättern. Nice view of the lake, the hillsides, and the town. When we got back to the hotel, we played some cards before getting to bed.
Sunday
Daniel woke up early and went to the gym. Figure the youngest of us would be most mature and responsible.
We met up in the hotel restaurant and had breakfast. They have a nice selection of food, and it was no issue getting full. When we were done, we headed down to the garage to take a tour with the car again, this time to Gränna. It was a bit tricky to find parking along the main street, but a block over, there was plenty of space. Free as well!
We entered Grenna Polkagriskokeri, where we had booked a session where we would be able to make our own polkagrisar (candy canes). First, we had to pick out a flavour (like 20 to choose from) and then one or two colours. We landed on Sour Tutti Frutti and the colors blue and green.
After we had put on aprons, hats, and rubber gloves, a staff member put on the batch on the stove and explained the process, what he would do, and what we would do. Quite interesting craftsmanship, and since they do this 50 times a day during high season, it’s quite impressive.
When the batch had heated up, it was put on a table where he added the colors. It got hardened quite quickly, and he worked it over and over to mix out the color and to keep it workable. Then he put the white part on a machine to work it over even more, and during this added the flavour. So the flavour sits in the white part of the candy, not the colored ones, contrary to what we all believed.
When the machine was done, he put the three different colored parts together and hence created the colored pattern and rolled them into four rolls, one per person. We got a roll each and kept rolling them, cutting them up into pieces, making canes in different shapes, clubs, and small bits. Quite stressful because if you stopped rolling, it flattened, which made it harder to roll again, and we had about 10 minutes before it got so hard that you couldn’t work it anymore.
Afterwards, it was packing. Putting them in small plastic bags or paper rolls and using a special machine to put on tape to seal the bags. All in all, a nice experience and fun to see the process. And all this in front of an audience. There were big glass windows that exposed the “kitchen” to all the store’s customers.
We left the shop to find ourselves some light lunch. The hotel breakfast, not too long ago, had made our stomachs rather full. Google found us Kaffestugan Grännaberget, which promised a great view combined with a suitable menu. However, to get up to the establishment, we had to climb a bunch of stairs, 243 steps to be exact. The view was worth it though, and the food was exactly what we were looking for. Some panini, a shrimp sandwich, and some toast. We had a short moment of light rain, which made some people head inside or put up parasols, but it was soon over.
We walked down the stairs again and back to the car, and drove back to Jönkölping and the hotel. Some construction along the way created a very long queue in the opposite direction, and we were just happy we had passed there earlier. Back at the hotel for a quick break and then off again towards the next activity. We walked to Kristinagården, where Anna from Chokladkällan had prepared a tasting of different chocolates. A nice history lesson about where chocolate comes from, and when it came to Sweden. And this, combined with trying out five different chocolates, some combined with other flavours as well. Like white chocolate with apples. Or some darker ones with tea. Or why not olives? We had calculated about an hour for this, but we spent over two hours together, asking questions and trying new sorts. It’s quite clear there is a difference between the “normal stuff” you buy at ICA (Marabou) and that with more quality. Might be time to start buying better chocolate.
During the walk back to the hotel, we started to regret that dinner was booked at 18:00 since no one was hungry yet. We called the restaurant and asked if we could push the reservation one hour, but they responded that the kitchen closed at 19:00. So we cancelled with our apologies and decided to play some games first and then find some other place later on. We ended up making a reservation at NÒR, the restaurant in the hotel, at 20:15.
The dinner was great, the staff was the right amount of friendly and fun, and they solved our three drink orders:
- Non-alcoholic cocktail without any sparkling
- Non-alcoholic cocktail with sparkling
- Non-alcoholic cocktail with sparkling and some ginger
We didn’t get any dessert, still full from during the day. So after the delicious meal, we went to the lobby for a short time, making the plans for the departure the following morning, and then got to bed.
Monday
After breakfast, it was time to move to the next city, so we jumped into the car at around 10 and left northbound on the west side of Vättern, towards Örebro. However, on the way, we stopped for a fika in Karlsborg, where Peter’s parents-in-law are in the process of moving to. His wife and children were also there, so it was nice to say hello and see the new house.
We couldn’t stay long because we, of course, had an agenda to stick to, even though Mom didn’t know what it was. So back on the road and towards Örebro. Just as we are going around the city (we would enter from the north), Mom says (sort of) that the one thing she knows about Örebro is Svampen. “What’s that?” says Daniel from the back seat, and we talked about it for a short bit of time, before parking just in front of it. The next stop was actually lunch there.
Took the elevator up, had to wait several minutes for someone to show up at the cashier, and dove into the buffet. Not that we were very hungry, but it was decent food and the view was quite nice, as well as the weather.
While walking around the tower and taking in the view, I heard a group discussing the football and hockey arenas. I couldn’t make them out either, but jokingly said something about it being the “important stuff”. The following conversation revealed that both I and a guy in the group were following Leksands IF 🙂
Just as we had finished eating, Marianne called. She is looking after my cats while I’m gone, and she discovered a dove inside my kitchen when she entered the apartment. There were some feathers on the floor, so apparently the cats and the bird had had some sort of fight. We discussed on what way would be easiest to get the bird out, and I started to think who I could call to assist. My fellow board member Binas, was home and could show up immediately, and they managed to get it out through the large kitchen window. I’ve been living in this apartment for eight years, and I’ve had the same setup with a net on my balcony all the time, and never seen a bird get trapped in there. And then it happens when I’m not home. Typical. Luckily, Marianne and Binas could solve it, and hopefully the bird will recover.
When that was sorted, we split up. Peter’s car had some troubles and the auto shop couldn’t look at it for a couple of weeks, so we went to move the car to another mechanic and check in at the hotel, while Mom and Daniel walked into the city and through Wadköping. Afterwards, we met up at Örebro Slott. We were aiming for a guided tour, so we got recommended to check out an exhibition about witches first, since it wasn’t covered in the tour. Quite dark stories, and frightening how close-minded people were back then. Or perhaps we have similar issues today with different “not-normal” minorities.
At 16, the guided tour started, and we headed down to the prison dungeons. It was a very handy sentence to give since you could say people died of “natural causes”, like starvation or sickness. They didn’t get their head chopped off. We continued up through the castle, looking at the walls, which told a story about how the castle had gotten additions throughout time, and a lot of paintings, and information about kings and queens and their relation to this castle.
When the tour was over, the museum closed, so we headed out looking for some ice cream. We still had quite some time before dinner. It took a few blocks before we found Örebro Saluhall, where they could offer us some. Mom tried to buy a coffee and didn’t want to let Daniel pay for it, so he sent her the amount via Swish afterwards. It’s all inclusive! We enjoyed our ice cream in the lovely weather for quite some time and then headed back to the hotel. We played another game of Camel Up, I won again, before taking a shower and a change of clothes.
We walked over to the restaurant Mojo, which happened to be just a few meters from where we ate our ice cream. We got our table and we had previously decided to order the “Sharingmenu”. It’s a sort of tapas place, so we got six dishes. A lot of food, and very good food as well! Nice weather and atmosphere, and just enjoying the night.
When we were done, we took a detour through the city park and found the canal, on the way back to the hotel. While walking through the park, a police car came driving through at quite high speed, while we saw and heard a couple of more with sirens a bit further away on the streets. Something had obviously happened somewhere. We stopped at the castle again, but on the other side of the water, and sat down on some benches, having a nice conversation about life. When the mosquito bites were too many, we went back to the hotel and played some cards before turning in.
Unfortunately, the AC in the building wasn’t doing much, so we had about 24,5 degrees in the bedroom, so we opened all windows and used a table fan to try and lower the temperature a bit. Not too bad, but the duvet wasn’t on much, that much I can say 🙂
In the middle of the night, it started pouring down outside, so I got up and closed the windows a bit, wouldn’t want to be responsible for any water damage to the room.
Tuesday
Last day! I packed all my stuff and had a slow breakfast before leaving to get the car, so we didn’t have to carry our luggage in the heavy rain. At 10, we left for Karlskoga and Boda Borg. It’s a 45-minute drive and probably the most demanding one because of the heavy rain. Had to slow down at times since I was afraid of aquaplaning. We did alright though, and arrived in time.
Boda Borg is a complex with a bunch (25 here) of quests, comprised of one to several rooms, containing different challenges. Usually, one challenge per room, and most of them are quite short (1-4 minutes). If you fail, you exit, let the room reset, and then try again. If you made it to the second room, you have to start over in the first room, but hopefully, you know now how to solve that one. If you solve the last room, you get a stamp on a piece of paper, which is your scorecard, so to speak.
I had seriously misjudged the level of physical activity. Not that it was exhausting, but a lot of movement and quite warm. Most of the other players had proper sports gear. At least we brothers got pretty sweaty, Mom (with her vest!) seemed to stay pretty cool.
We did a bunch of rooms, gave up on some, solved some, and got some stamps. In the beginning, it felt like Mom just tagged along, that we boys took over, but when we had a waterbreak after a couple of hours, she said, I would like to do some more! Fun! We thought we would stay here for 2-2,5 hours, but we got close to five before leaving.
We met up with Peter’s family in Örebro so he could go with them (in case the car got troubles again), and then we headed off to Uppsala. Mom, Daniel, and I stayed for 15 minutes in Hallstahammar to charge my battery so I could get home from Uppsala. When we got back home to our parents, Peter’s car had arrived, and both Daniel’s family and our Dad had joined up. We ordered pizza and had a last meal together with the whole extended family before taking a final picture, and I left for Stockholm.
All in all, a fantastic trip, lots of fun activities, great conversation, the right amount of teasing, and we had luck with the weather. It seems like Mom enjoyed it as well, which was the whole point.