Summer Vacation

This summer we spent our holiday in Sweden, starting with a few days in Leksand in Dalarna visiting PG and Agnetas summer house. The weather was sunny and warm, swedish summer at its best.
Here you can see the new extention of the house all painted and done. The new bathroom (inside the extention) looks great and is very comfortable to use.


I don´t know if you remember, but behind where Jim is sitting on the photo (below), there use to be a lot of bushes. Dad has now cleared all that, saving only a few rasberry bushes, wich makes it look much more open and clean. He and Agneta have some ideas of maybe building a deck where they can put the table and chairs, instead of on the grass. I think that would look very nice especially since you can get a glimps of the Siljan lake from there.
Jim loves his computer and of course he brought the laptop even on his holiday in the country side.



Jim sneaked round to the back of the house and found the hidden stash of beer. He looked a bit surprised when I cought him, haha. But what is a bbq without the beer right?



The first swim of the summer! Or when it comes to me it would be more correct to say the first dip in the water this summer. I don´t think going under the water for two seconds count for a swim. But Jim loves any lake or sea regardless of the temperature. Dad tried to convince us that it was 25 degrees celsius in the water but we all know that wasn´t true. I would say it was around 20 degrees, a bit too cold for me and I think David thought that too. But Jim and dad swam for ages.




We don´t want you to think that the whole week was just leisure and fun. No, we also did some work on the house. (Somehow we have to pay for the room and the food, haha.) One project was painting the front of the house. Dad and Jim started with scraping of old paint before we could start putting new paint on. The result was really successful. We also oiled the steps.





Once the entrance was finished dad thought we should take down the Rowan tree wich was blocking some of the view of the lake from the dining room. During the spring he has taken down a lot of trees to get better sun and better view from the garden. In the last picture where Jim is holding a rope you can see that dad has cleared away a lot of bushes, where he want to put down a wooden deck.




We were suppose to go to Göta Kanal the week after Leksand, but because of really bad weather we postponed our trip one week. We were a bit worried that we wouldn´t be able to go which would have meant spending two weeks of holiday at home not doing much. We followed the weather report every day and decided to go one week later. The weather was both good and bad, with two days of quite a lot of rain, one day cloudy and two sunny days.

The canal is 190 km long and has in total 58 locks. The build was commenced in 1810 and the canal opened in 1832. If you want to know more about Göta Kanal you can visit this website: Göta Kanal

We started our cycling tour in Töreboda, doing about 50 km the first day. Jim was the map reader. We would have preferred bringing our own bikes but they weren´t allowed on the train unfortunatly. Instead we used the bikes that were included in the package, with only three gears. That would have been fine for going just along the canal, with easy riding and no hills. However, we had a few days in the forest and the bikes we rented wasn´t the best suited for that kind of bicycling. But we got use to them and after five days we had manage to do a total of 200 km.




Along the canal there are many cute houses and cafés, like this one.


The first day was wet, with a lot of rain on our way to Forsvik, where we were staying for a few nights.



A quick lunch break before the rain started again.
Every day we got breakfast in the morning, got given a lunch parcel to bring on the trip and then dinner when we got back in the evenings. It was well organised and good food.

There weren´t too many boats on the canal at this time of summer, I can imagine there would be more at the peak of summer, in July. But we still got to see a few boats going throuh locks and bridges.



We are now only a few kilometers from Forsvik where we are stying the night, and the rain came poring down. We had to stop and get cover underneeth some trees. The bike bags we got for this trip needed protection from the rain because they weren´t fully waterproof.


After doing 50 km the first day we finaly arrived in Forsvik, with sore bums and legs. The white house in the background is the restaurant where we had our dinner. We had a nice evening and the sun came out just as we came to Forsvik.






The second day was spent in the national park of Tiveden. Again we cycled about 50 km and we had more luck with the weather; no rain!





During the first part of the tour this day we had to pass a militairy area where you could hear a lot of shot guns going off. This is a sign saying this is a road for "tanks" but then it has a bike sign below it???


This is a charcoal stack in the middle of the forest.


In Forsvik we had our own room and kitchen. We were the only people staying at Sköna rum wich gave us the place to ourselves. We could watch TV in the evening and spend half an hour in the shower getting warmed up after a wet and cold day.




Day three was sunny and warm. The trip of the day was going in to Karlsborg and spend the day there. Only 20 km this day. We had lunch at Idas Brygga (Idas jetty) before we visited Karlsborgs fort.





Inside the fort area there were groups of soldiers practicing, and you could hear gunshots in the distance.



In the evening we returned to Forsvik just in time to see a boat going through the lock.





Day four. A long day back to Töreboda, about 50 km. After two days of good weather it was time for rain again. Here we are stopping for a break eating cookies.


In the distance you can see a light brown dear. We were surprised it stayed where it was when we were going past. It was just lying down next to a rock.



The last day was sunny and warm. We went along the canal the whole day, going from Töreboda to Sjötorp and back. We passed many locks, had many breaks and got burned in the sun. It was a slow nice day, and even though we did 40 km it didn´t feel tiering because the ride was flat along the canal.



There is a tractor in the background, chasing us with his crass cutters out.



The below picture looks a bit funny. Even more funny is that I actually thought this was just one truck and not two... realise how easy it would be, like a train that you don´t have to turn around if you want to go the other direction.



After coming back to Töreboda we returned the bikes and took the train back home to Stockholm. We are both pleased with our holiday, despite the rain, but it´s always good to come home.