{"id":2878,"date":"2025-07-30T10:25:50","date_gmt":"2025-07-30T10:25:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/backeman.se\/?p=2878"},"modified":"2025-08-03T11:09:43","modified_gmt":"2025-08-03T11:09:43","slug":"roadtrip-in-sweden","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/backeman.se\/index.php\/2025\/07\/30\/roadtrip-in-sweden\/","title":{"rendered":"Roadtrip in Sweden"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

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<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Saturday<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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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 Norrk\u00f6ping.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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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 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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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 \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Back to the car and then off again along E4, this time with J\u00f6nk\u00f6ping as the goal. We stopped at Mj\u00f6lby to get some ice cream, and Peter bought a bunch of candy from a big candy store.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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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 \ud83d\ude42 <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Check-in at Quality Hotel Match<\/a> 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<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Great food, nice staff, and a lovely view of Munksj\u00f6n. After desert and coffee, we took a detour back and ended up on the pier in V\u00e4ttern. 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sunday<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Daniel woke up early and went to the gym. Figure the youngest of us would be most mature and responsible. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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 Gr\u00e4nna. It was a bit tricky to find parking along the main street, but a block over, there was plenty of space. Free as well!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We entered Grenna Polkagriskokeri<\/a>, 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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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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 Gr\u00e4nnaberget, 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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We walked down the stairs again and back to the car, and drove back to J\u00f6nk\u00f6lping 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 Kristinag\u00e5rden, where Anna from Chokladk\u00e4llan<\/a> 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.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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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 N\u00d2R, the restaurant in the hotel, at 20:15.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dinner was great, the staff was the right amount of friendly and fun, and they solved our three drink orders:<\/p>\n\n\n\n