We Explore Djurgården

And stumble on a pleasant surprise...

It’s been a while since I’ve posted. The last we shared, the girls were off to their first day of school. I’m happy to report they love their new school. They are making friends, enjoying their new classes and after school activities. But in what will come as a shock to absolutely no-one, a big by product of mixing a large group of young kids who have been socially distancing for that last 18 months, is that everyone immediately got sick. Luckily it wasn’t COVID, just a garden variety cold. At one point 50% of our oldest Cinnamon Stick’s class was sick. True to form, our youngest got sick, then our oldest, then Mrs. CB, and finally me.

Two weeks later, and much better acquainted with the limits of Swedish cold medicine, we emerged almost fully healed. As our nanny used to say “We can do hard things!”

Today, I’d like to share an adventure we had before we were visited by the plague. We took an afternoon long hike in Djurgården. This is an area of Stockholm that is designated as public land and parks. My understanding is that it is technically owned by the Swedish crown. Although now it has its own administrative body in charge of maintaining and managing the land. It is affectionately called “The Green Lung” and you can see why based on this map:

That little yellow rivet is where we entered, and it is a short bus ride, or 20 min walk from our apartment. We wanted to explore it a bit and see what it was like. We found a great field of grass and trees. Our youngest Cinnamon Stick was thrilled to see that it was a popular place to walk dogs and she had her fill of petting our neighbors pets. It is an absolutely gorgeous area as you can see:

Now if you tell people you are going to Djurgården, they are going to assume Södra Djurgården, also known as Royal Djurgården. It is separated from Gärdet, where we started, by a narrow canal. And Royal Djurgården is the island that houses many popular Stockholm attractions such as Skansen, the Vasa Museum and the Nordic Museum. I secretly wanted to how far of a walk it was to get there.

We were pleasantly surprised that after a quick hour of child paced wandering, we made it to the canal crossing:

We decided to venture further south to see what adventures we could find. Not everyone had the energy:

Mrs. Cinnamon Bun recognized where we were and suggested we make for Rosendals Trädgård which is a lovely outdoor restaurant where she had attended a graduation party before the girls and I arrived in Stockholm. We could take a bus home from there. So we set off.

When we arrived, we were disappointed to see that we weren’t the only ones who had this idea:

But Mrs. CB did some sleuthing and determined that it wasn’t such a long wait. And it was a beautiful place to wait. We wandered the gardens and found a great picnic table to eat at.

Soon we were richly rewarded with food and drink.

The girls found an excellent playground nearby, while the adults enjoyed another beverage.

Not everyone had the energy to continue. But we had a secret power source. Soon everyone was in support of our continued hike.

What a lovely day! We will be back!

To be continued…