Quite early morning with our usual breakfast. Then we took the subway to T-centralen from where we had a short walk to the small pier in front of the City Hall. We boarded the S/s Marifred for our 10 am trip to Mariefred on a real steam boat. The weather looked promising so we sat outside. After a while it got cold and we went inside instead. And had a look at the engine room.

   

The steam engine was a two cylinder engine with 280 Hp that would require a 1000 Hp diesel engine to get the same speed. Every 7th or 10th minute they had to shovel more coal into the oven.

At 12 am we entered the dining hall for lunch. Chie had a grilled salmon and white wine. I had steamer’s beef and a mineral water. Both were very nice. After lunch we relaxed in the dining hall until we arrived in Mariefred.

   

First stop in Mariefred the Hembygdsgården (Local Heritage Centre). We had coffee and a Festis with rhubarb pie and vanilla sauce. We also had a look at the room where the weavers made carpets and table cloths.

Then we continued with a quick look at a bazaar and then crossed the park to get to Gripsholms Slott (Gripsholm castle). We payed the entrance fee and went inside. And tried to stay away from all the kids having a guided tour for kids in the castle.

We walk around for about 45 minutes looking at all the wall and roof paintings, furniture, and more. Then we had to leave to catch the steam train to Läggesta. From where we took an ordinary train back to Stockholm.

   

Back in Stockholm we made a quick stop at Stadium on Drottninggatan for some final shopping. Chie bought S.O.C.’s training pants and two training t-shirts. We ended our day with a dinner at Restaurant Cypern on Valhallavägen 50. It was a great dinner with a marvelous starter, grilled goat cheese with herbs, tomato and onion.

Hot sandwich and salad for breakfast again. Yummy again. Then we went shopping again. First stop today was Ã…hlens where Chie found some things for her apartment. Next stop was Stadium next to NK where Chie tried on a pair of Adidas training pants but postpond the decision to buy or not for later. Then we went to NK but we did not find anything interesting there.

So we went to the Adidas shop on Kungsgatan instead but again nothing. Then we continued to Iris Hantverk on Kungsgatan 55 and after that some window shopping along Drottninggatan before taking the bus to Rosendals Trädgård.

At Rosendals TrädgÃ¥rd we met with the Fagerström’s family. Though we had a sandwich and salad before we had a “fika” with Fagerström’s.  It was the first time for Chie to meet Cornelia and Claudia but they seemed to get along quite well.

   

After Cornelia had finished the fika and got bored with us just sitting talking we went to the playground where Jonas and I and Cornelia played soccer and “gris”. Then Cornelia rode a modern variant of a seesaw. And then her parents did the same.

   

At 5 pm Fagerströms had to leave and so did we. We took the bus back to Sergels Torg and had a revisit to Åhlens where Chie found Cheap Monday pants. Nothing fit though so we went to Weekday instead. And tried some more Cheap Monday pants, but Chie postponed the decision to buy for another day.

At 7:30 pm we arrived at the Il forno da Pino to have dinner with Per-Ã…ke. It was OK but not great. Instead of having desert at the restaurant we continued to Jonas, a work colleague, who had a work (Jens) and an ex-work colleague (Magnus) at home for trying Whiskey. We had a great time hanging and talking. But at 11 pm we had to leave to get some sleep before our boat trip to Mariefred tomorrow.

Prepared a hot sandwich and salad for breakfast. We needed lots of energy for our shop-until-we-drop in Stockholm. First was a stop at Bengt & Lotta at Odenplan. Chie wanted to buy a pair of felt slippers for the winter in Tokyo. But Bengt & Lotta had closed for vacation and referred us to Svensk Hemslöjd on Sveavägen and Iris on Kungsgatan 55 instead.

   

We went in to a few shops on our way to Svens Hemslöjd because it was raining quite heavy for a while. But Svens Hemslöjd did not have the slippers. So we continued to Iris but took a wrong turn on Kungsgatan towards Stureplan. But that was OK, we took the opportunity to have lunch (not so good at Fogli or something like that) and to have a look at the Kosta Boda store, and I bought a shirt at the Shirt Factory in Sture Gallerian.

Then we caught a bus to and got of at Hötorget and walked the last 150 meters or so to Iris. We also checked a nice toy store called Krabat. Anyway, Chie found her felt slippers at Iris and many other things. Our shopping continued along Drottninggatan before we were exhausted and returned home.

At home we had not much time before we used the car to drive down to the small harbor in Stocksund. There we had dinner at the Hamnkrogen. It was a very impulsive decision to go to Hamnkrogen but we were surprised. The food was very good as was the service.

While we had our dinner the strange weather this summer prooved itself again. On one side of the restaurant it was pouring down while on the other side it did not rain at all. But there was a great double rainbow instead.

When we woke up the weather was better. So after breakfast we relaxed in the garden. Then we had meat pie for lunch before we started to head back to Stockholm. In Gävle we had a short break to take a shower at my mother’s apartment. Then we continued to Stockholm.

Once in Stockholm we unloaded and got ready for dinner. We decided to take the car and park it on Valhallavägen and then walk down to Stureplan for a dinner at Vapino (Italian fast food). However, it turned out that Valhallavägen was out of parking spaces, which is unusual. But this evening Iron Maiden had a show on Stadion.

We started to suspect that something was going on when we got closer to Stadion. The middle of Valhallavägen was covered with people in black t-shirts. Some of them you realy wondered what hole they have crawled out of, but they seemed nice enough.

   

We found a parking space on a side road and had a pizza and a salad at Vapiano. Then it was a short ride back home in Stocksund to relax and prepare for tomorrow.