We arrived to the castle in the dark afternoon and unfortunately I had no Tele lense, so I missed the opportunity to shoot the most gorgeous huge full moon over the lake.

We just sat there for a long time, playing Eva Cassidy’s Songbird CD in the car and it was so magical and romantic..

©Lifecruiser Love Swedish Castles
 

Hotels like the George hotel Edinburgh has to offer are plentiful, so you will always have somewhere to relax at night after a long day’s sightseeing. Here are some of the best bits of Edinburgh to keep you busy:

Old Town

Photo by Carlo Cravero

The historic Old Town district of Edinburgh is famous not only for its architecture, but also for the quality and variety of its restaurants, cafes and whisky shops. Walk down the Royal Mile on your visit to the Old Town and you won’t be disappointed.

Edinburgh Castle

Photo by Jacob Earl

This is easily the most recognisable thing about Edinburgh. The city’s castle sits atop Castle Rock, which forms part of an extinct volcano, looming over the city from above. It really gives you a sense of heritage when you visit this beautiful building.

Holyrood Park

Photo by Bernt Rostad

For a bit of a break from all the hustle and bustle of the city, you can visit Holyrood Park on the eastern city borders. The park has a range of climbing areas, a few challenging peaks with some great views from the top.

Royal Observatory

Photo by Ulle B.

If you fancy gazing up at the stars for a few hours or even simply listening to a few talks on astronomy, pay the Royal Observatory a visit. There are also exhibitions held regularly at the Royal Observatory for you and all the family to enjoy.

Arthur’s Seat

Photo by Boon Low

Referring back to the volcanic presence in Edinburgh, Arthur’s Seat is another must-visit attraction in the area. This place is what makes Edinburgh really unique – it is an extinct volcano found in Holyrood Park to the east of the city, which makes Edinburgh the only city in the world to have a volcano within its boundaries.

©Lifecruiser Love Edinburgh
 

Earlier UK Travel post by Lifecruiser:

UK Travel: Swedes Love London

I succeeded to catch a double bee in one photo: a bumblebee and an ordinary bee in the same flower getting themselves some nectar.

We had a nice walk around the park – which is dated back to the second half of the 17th century. You can see a glimpse of the Ulriksdal Palace in the background.

Lifecruiser Love Stockholm Photos
 

Today there will be a lot of blue-yellow flags waved all over the country of Sweden, for sure. Also a lot of folk costumes will be worn, even if that has decreased over the years becoming more out of fashion.

Yes, we too will be there somewhere among all the cheerful Swedes, making a toast to old Sweden.

This year Make Music Stockholm will be participating in the celebrations which means that there will be a lot of music around in lots of places of the city center.

Tips of places to head for to celebrate in Stockholm City, the capital of Sweden:

• Stockholm Palace which is open with free entrance and full program
• A Taste of Stockholm Food and Drink Festival in Kungsträdgården
• Swedish National Day Festivity Program at Skansen
• Rålambshovsparken (picnic, culture events, sports activities)

You can get more detailed information about the Swedish National Day in the earlier posts below, why we celebrate it, our national anthem (Thou ancient, Thou free), photos and more.

Cheers & Happy National Day to all of Sweden – and to all the Swedes abroad!

Lifecruiser ♥ Sweden

Earlier posts about the Swedish National Day with more info:

Happy National Day Sweden
National Day Celebration Stockholm 2009
National Cheers to Sweden
Swedish National Day Celebration
National Day of Sweden

Those different experiences from trips that for different reasons stays in our memories until eternity, for totally different reasons.

Not necessary so remarkable, just the ones given us most pleasure right in that moment. Often it is the mood you are in that defines a success, right?

1. Most spectacular: Wet kiss at Iguazu Falls
2. Best beach water: Elafonisi, Crete
3. Biggest beach: Monte Gordo, Algarve, Portugal
4. Best B&B: Steinway playing, Scotland
5. Best hotel: Hotel Vanity Golf, Majorca, Spain
6. Best hostel: Wombats City Hostel, Vienna, Austria
7. Most unique roadtrip: 4620 km roadtrip to Spain
8. Dearest memory: French Riviera blog meetup
9. Biggest blog meetup: Oslo blog gathering, Norway
10. Best tour experience: Iceland excursions
11. Love memory 1: Proposal in Paris
12. Love memory 2: Honeymoon, Crete, Greece
13. Winner: Our engagement beach, Gotland, Sweden

You might wonder why the engagement beach are a winner?

It’s impossible to beat a fabulous island beach like that, especially deeply in love, in February changing rings in minus degrees, very windy with sand blowing into the Champagne glasses, totally alone under the stars – it felt like we were alone in the universe!

Recently we also made a Lifecruiser Travel brief list where you can have an overview over Lifecruiser trips we’ve done before.

Lifecruiser ♥ Memorable Trips

Haga Palace were built in 1802-1804 and were during the 19th century home for different persons from the Swedish royal family. Our current King Carl XVI Gustaf did spend his first years there together with his 3 older sisters, popular called the Haga princessess, while Stockholm Palace were renovated.

It has been used as a foreign guest residence by the government, but is right now being renovated. The Swedish government is giving back Haga Palace to our Swedish Crown Princess Victoria and her fiance as a wedding gift. They are getting married in June.

They are moving the walking path which up to now has been passing by very close to the palace and will be behind fences to protect the princess. Later it will be possible to stroll by down at the lake instead.

There is a pavilion nearby: Gustav III’s Pavilion, built 1787 with instructions from our favorite Swedish King, Gustav III and an excellent example of the European neoclassicism of the late 1700′s.

Despite the fact that this is a pavilion and not really a palace, it belongs to the 10 Swedish Royal Palaces.

Up on a hill with a view over the lake, The Temple of The Echo was built in 1790 as an outdoor summer dining hall, especially King Gustav III loved to dine outdoors. Who doesn’t – and with that surroundings!

Today the Echo Temple is a very romantic place where you even can be married. If you’re already married, like we are, I recommend standing in the temple shouting to each other: I love you! Listen to the echo…

Our favorite building in Hagaparken though is: The Copper Tents from the year of 1787, so colorful and different from our other buildings we use to have in Sweden with those marvelous decor painted copper facades.

It was from the beginning stables and lodgings for the guards, but today it’s a park museum, a cafe and a restaurant which is an excellent place to rest after a walk in the park.

The Haga Park is part of the worlds first National City Park together with other park areas of Stockholm and really worth a visit, there is more to it than we’ve mentioned here.

Our tip is: go there in the summertime when you can have a romantic picnic in the park without freezing your butt off… *giggles*

Click to see Lifecruiser Haga Park photo slideshow.

Lifecruiser ♥ Haga
 

It simply were the only nearby place that had the special supermodel we wanted, so off we went to the Swedish town of Västerås.

It was a bit late on the day so we had some kind of race against the time, since we wanted to take some photos in Västerås before the sun went down, which it does very early in the afternoon at that time of the year.

Västerås Old Town

Västerås is one of Sweden’s oldest towns, which tracks back to the end of 13th century, but even the vikings were there before that. There are still some old buildings left in the town, even though many of them are gone.

Known for gherkins

For us Swedes nowadays though, Västerås is mostly known because a special kind of midget gherkin (Cucumis sativus) or cucumber, were grown here from the 18th century and forward. It was a German gardener, Bernhard Johan Bohnsack that started it. The gherkin was sold all over Sweden and even to parts of Europe and is mostly used to be pickled.

That’s also how the town got it’s Swedish nickname Gurksta’n (The Gherkin town).

Västerås Castle

Västerås Castle is where the famous Swedish King Gustav Vasa held the reformation parliament in the year of 1527, that made Sweden switch from Catholicism to Protestant.

The Starred Cathedral

Västerås has a beautiful old Cathedral dated back to the 13th century that is worth a visit, you can see it in the end of the street picture below.

It’s very beautifully situated with the creek floating by below. The Cathedral has got 3 stars in Guide Michelin.

Inside there is another Swedish King buried: Erik XIV (dead by arsenic poisoning!). It’s said that because the sarchophagus were too short they had to chop off his feet & put them aside his body…!!!

His current sarchophagus is made of black Carrera marble from Italy.

The Black Creek recreation area

It might be hard to believe when seeing these winter scenes, but it’s very popular during the summer, when the area around the creek, Svartån, is filled with strolling people, choosing between different cafés and restaurants.

Boat life around lake Mälaren

Right outside the town is the lake Mälaren with hundreds of islands in the archipelago and there is a very active boat life in the summertime – as everywhere around Mälaren or the Baltic Sea.

Shopping: H&M’s hometown

There are some shopping that can be done here, the Swedish company H&M was even founded in Västerås. Some specialist boutiques & large shopping arcades, even though we did not have time for it.

Photo slideshow of Västerås

It were getting darker, we had to rush our photo session there, but still, it will give you a pretty good picture of how this Swedish town looks like.

Slideshow with all the photos from Västerås town:

Unusual treehouse hotel

Thinking of going there? Where to stay? Our tip is: the unusual Hotel Woodpecker in the old oak tree!

Roadtrip mission completed

Did we get our wanted vacuum cleaner? Yes! And we’re very happy with it, because it’s quite the opposite from our old one that just did blow around the dust: it’s actually working!

Very efficiently, we have to watch out or we’ll be sucked up too! *giggles*

Lifecruiser ♥ Swedish Roadtrips
 

Let the Champagne flood into the New Year of 2010!

Cheers my dears!!!!

Lifecruiser ♥ Fireworks
 

Hässelby Castle were built in the 17th century by the Swedish kings architect Simon de la Vallee for the owner Karl Bonde, who often were seen together with Sweden’s national poet, Carl Michael Bellman. Known for his songs and big influence of Swedish music.

Karl Bonde’s family owned it until 1931 when Stockholm City bought it plus the belonging land to build the suburbs Vällingby and Hässelby – where I grew up.

My funniest memory of this castle is the first time me and one of my childhood friends should take a look inside the castle, at visiting time in the mid 70′s. First you had to listen to a piano concert, before the guiding around.

Neither one of us were any fans of classical music, we were about 13-15 years old and here he was, the extremely serious classic piano player, who really acted like Animal in the Muppet Show, hammering the piano like crazy man, with his hair shaking.

We did break down and started to giggle. There we were, the only youngsters with only grown ups, very serious looking audience staring harsh at us when giggling. And we just couldn’t stop.

You see, my friend had a VERY contagious laugh, so I decided to move away from here to be able to stop giggling. Only problem was: she followed!

Needless to say: we got kicked out of the castle! *giggles*

The small baroque garden were put back in it’s original style in the beginning of the 60′s, following the original drawings. When I saw it this Thursday though, I thought that it was not quite as well maintained as I remember it from the first half of the 70′s.

Oh, and why were not the fountains filled with water and turned on? I enjoyed them so much when I was a kid! I do hope it was just temporarily empty.

From 1995 the Finnish company Fazer AB started Hässelby Slott hotel and conference center and there is also a hostel in another building as well as a Spa.

Have a look at the other photos of the castle:

Lifecruiser ♥ Hässelby Castle