Karlstad

After my last post, I walked over to O'Leary's Sports Bar. It's a nice restaurant filled with memorabilia from Massachusetts. One wall had an advertisement promoting Ted Williams Root Beer. Another had an newspaper article telling about the retirement of Carl Yeztremski's number (he played for the Boston's Red Sox). Because this is Sweden, they were showing British Football matches on the numerous television screens they had on the walls. Food wise, I was very pleased. I ordered they Celtics Bar-b-que hamburger with fries. The burger was large and so was the order of fries. Beer wise, I wasn't impressed with their selection of international brews. I had a Newcastle Brown Ale and a local brand export lager. They were nice. It ended up being a nice meal and I'd recommend the place if you're ever in Stockholm. After this fine meal, I chilled in my hotel room till I crashed.

The next morning, it was time to depart Stockholm. I quickly packed my bag and left it outside my hotel room for pick-up. Because it was Sunday, we left later than usual. Gripsholm Castle doesn't open till 11 a.m. on Sundays. The castle was originally built by the Lord Chancellor of Sweden back in the 13th or 14th century. Later, King Gustav Vasa bought it and changed it into a royal residence. The castle is filled with portraits of royalty and other nobles. It has something like 4,000 such portraits and is the largest such collection in the world. The people who run the castle provided us a guide who showed us around the castle. She was fantastic. If you ever visit Mariefred, this castle is worth visiting.

Also, at Mariefred is the Mariefred railway. It's a small train that runs on small gauge track. It's a beautiful train and looks like it would be a lot of fun to ride. It actually runs all the way to where you could catch the modern trains to Stockholm so it actually serves a legitimate purpose besides providing a neat experience to those lucky enough to ride it.

Once people were done seeing Gripsholm Castle, it was time to continue our journey on to Karlstad where we spent the night. It's a nice enough town and on our way to Norway. At Karlstad, we checked into a hotel that had been a former prison. It supposedly housed some of Sweden's most notorious criminals. Its a neat hotel.

This morning, we depart for Lillehammer, Norway. Stay tuned for further updates. Cheers all!