I’ve been on holiday this week. As I work in the City Education organization we’ve got the same holiday schedule as schools and so I took the whole week off and it’s been nice. I haven’t done much but that’s all right too.

Last weekend me, hubby and youngest one took a long awaited cruise to Stockholm. We have these huge ferries that sail (run?) from Helsinki to Stockholm and back during the night and then you’ve got a day in the city there, for us Finns it’s Stockholm and for Swedes it’s Helsinki. They are called shopping cruises bc the ferry has a huge tax free shop and people buy a lot of alcohol from the ship. We buy a lot of candy and some cosmetics. I linked our ship Silja Serenade there, it’s been about ten years since we last took a Silja Line ship bc we’ve been using Viking Line since hubby did some work for them and got rewards.

In Stockholm we visited the Abba The Museum in Djurgården, it’s such an awesome place for one who has grown with their music. After the museum we took a ferry to Gamla Stan (Old City) which has one of the best scifi bookshops in Europe and it’s on our ’visit every time’-list. I bought only three books this time and one dvd. Oh and a wall calendar for next year. Then we walked to the newer city centre, the main shopping street has a nice candy store where you can buy traditional Swedish polkagrisar (= peppermint candy).
Mamma Mia Fika at Mr Cake Morning on the sea
Since I had already told hubby I wanted to have a coffee (fika) at Mr. Cake cafeteria we went there and luckily managed to enter at a time the queue wasn’t very long (a short while afterwards the queue went out of the door to the small square). From the cafeteria we walked back to the ferry and were there in good time, about an hour before the departing time, which was nice.
Hubby had Monday off work which was nice. After we had come home and let the cat out we unpacked our bags. Middlest son had left on Sunday to Tikkakoski for a flying thingy and came home on Tuesday. On Tuesday I did a short walk in the forest as we had walked about 15 km during the day in Stockholm and my legs were a bit stiff. On Wednesday it rained all day and I read all day, I finished ’The Shadow of what was lost’ by James Islington and felt sorry I had even started the book. I can’t recommend it to anybody. Oh and I did bake cinnamon buns, they were good.
In the forest Some rocks, people practice climbing on these Phlebia tremellosa aka Grannypants (in Finnish) A forest rose Great spotted woodpecker about 100m from my house
On Thursday my friend Mareetta and I drove to Tammisaari again. On our way there we did an expedition to a funny little shop called ’The Greenhouse effect’ which has all kinds of awesome stuff to buy and then we drove to Fiskars village. We had a very nice lunch in Tammisaari and then drove back via Fagervik (it dates back to the 17th century) and Kirkkonummi new library, only we didn’t go in this time. It looks like I’m going with Mareetta to Gothenburg in mid-November, it’ll be nice.
Fiskars Fagervik church Bruksträsket The church from the lake side
On Friday we had horrible weather, rain and very windy. I had my osteopathy therapy session in the city centre and then I met youngest son in the Eastern shopping mall, he needed new clothes and he wanted to buy new cell phone with his gift money from the confirmation day. In the evening we watched couple of episodes of Buffy with him.

Tomorrow I’m putting some bulbs on the ground so we’ll have tulips and crocuses next spring too.
Susanna what a tremendous busy week you had and all the fun stuff from Stockholm ( I remember Gamla Stan vividly) to of course AbbA museum ( ❤️) to forest therapy to time with your sons! Helsinki is definitely on my list and that cruise seems to be the ticket to go back to Stockholm for a revisit 👍❤️
TykkääLiked by 1 henkilö
A lot of people fly to Helsinki and make the cruise from here or they go to Tallinn and visit Helsinki from there. Just let me know when you’re coming 😀
TykkääLiked by 1 henkilö
I will ! I’m itching to go next year in the fall probably. 😁
TykkääLiked by 1 henkilö
Oh, it is ruska time again! Lovely forest walk! And I adore the fact that you can take an overnight ferry and have a day in Stockholm. Sounds fabulous!
TykkääLiked by 2 people
Oh yes, it’s a short and nice quick holiday 🙂
Ruska is one if my fave seasons here.
TykkääLiked by 2 people
great pics, glad your trip to Stockholm was fun 🙂 Fiskars village, is that named after the company or the other way round-i notice the doors are orange like the product range!
TykkääLiked by 1 henkilö
The Fiskars village grew next to the ironworks facility and factory, the workers lived next to the work place.
The orange color first on the scissors was an accident 🙂 and the doors are actually wood that’s lacquered and sun has deepened the colour.
https://www.businessinsider.com/history-of-iconic-fiskars-orange-scissors-2017-9
TykkääLiked by 1 henkilö