Sue the T-rex!

Over the past few years we have done a few trips "across the pond" to the US. And as we are kind of not looking forward to the actual traveling back and forth we decided to try to fly nonstop as much as possible. This is a good way to shorten the time you spend waiting in airports :-)
Chicago is one of the cities from where you can fly nonstop to Stockholm, so this is one of the places we have ended up a few times before flying home. Every time we decided to stay for 2-3 nights to be able to look around and rest a bit before flying.

Chicago is famous for many things, including the big lake, deep-dish pizza, the Chicago Cubs and Oprah. But one of my favorite things is to visit The Field museum and say hallo to Sue the T-rex! 

The Field museum is located in an area called The museum campus on South lake shore drive in the center of Chicago. Just as you can suspect from the name there are other museums in the area and it is super easy to get there by car, boat, bus or just walking. The Field museum was built in the 1890´s and focus in nature and culture. A few of the permanent exhibitions include The Ancient Americas, Hall of jades, Evolving planet, DNA discovery center and Inside ancient Egypt. They also feature a bunch of 3D movies and temporary exhibitions.

But our favorite, as most other visitors, is of course Sue the T-rex! She is the largest and most complete T-rex ever found and she is on display in the big entrance hall of the museum. You 
don´t have to buy a special ticket to see her and learn more about her.  When you move up to the first floor you get another view of Sue. She is magnificent and a bit scary!

It is actually her bones on display, well most of them are the real deal. The scull was to heavy so it´s a replica, but the real scull is on display close by and you are able to get really close only separated by glass. 

Every time we do a stopover in Chicago we visit Sue the T-rex and every time she just amazes us! Well worth a visit if you are in the neighborhood. Don´t forget to tell her we said Hi!

Farmers market

Beginning of autumn and Saturday, thats equals the possibility to visit a farmers market in Stockholm! We defied the rainy clouds in the sky and went exploring the different stalls selling everything from jams and honey to meat and vegetables.

Today we came home with Bordeaux potato, chantarelles, beetroot, lettuce, deer, pork chops and falukorv! All goodies come from local farmers and hunters.

So far we have already had a lovely mushroom risotto for lunch and are now looking forward to a nice dinner! Steak of deer, rosted potatoes and mushroom gravy.

A truly magical world!

This next tip is something that is truly magical and it always amazes us "nobody" ever heard of it.

When we say nobody ever heard of the park, this is of course not true. It´s a big park and a lot of people know about it, but not in Sweden were everybody instead is talking about the "big park outside of Paris".

Efteling is one of Europas biggest amusement parks and it opened 1952 in Kaatsheuvel a city in the middle of Holland. It´s about 1 h 15 mins drive from Amsterdam and the park is open all year around! You pay an entrance fee and the go wild in the park, all the attractions are included!

This park is big and consists of a few different parts, we highly recommend you stay the night and do the park in a least 2 days. This is not only so you don´t need to rush, but you will get a really cool experience in the hotel as well! And this park has something for everybody, don´t only bring the kids, bring grandma and grandpa!

The oldest part of the park is a fairytale forest where you walk around and explore. You will encounter Snow white and Little Red Riding Hood, but also stories like Long neck and The talking parrot. Some of the stories we know well and some are new to us not from Holland, but that doesn't really matter.

In some places the characters will move and even talk to you or react to something that you do, very exciting even for grown ups! Again, make sure you have a lot of time, especially when accompanied by kids!

In the late seventies and early eighties the park started adding attractions as the scary Haunted house, the thrilling roller coaster Python! (a personal favorite) or the slow ride on the Gondoletta boat-ride!

From then on the park has expanded the attractions, restaurants, added shows, a hotel and a golf corse. And the park continue to grow and renew it selfe, every visit is a little bit different!

A big attraction for every visitor is of course the talking paper gobblers! They are located all over the park and will ask you to please put the paper here. This is an perfect example of how they make a boring task exciting, of course you won´t see any trash close by :-)

Why should you stay the night as we recommended in the beginning? Well, first of you get early admission to the park, adding extra valuable time to spend before queues to the attractions get to long! 

Second of, spending a night at the Efteling hotel is an adventure in it self. (We have not slept in the other locations close to the park and can't really say anything about them) The hotel looks a little bonkers and contains a few things to explore once inside! You might have an extra guest in your room, or something might be forgotten in a cupboard... 

Of course the park in super child friendly and that goes from toddlers to older children. Well this is of course no surprise, but the even go the the extent of having something called baby switch several at attractions. If you are two adults with one small child that can't go on the attraction, only one adult needs to stay in line and wait. This is super amazing for those who can't bring grandma! 

On one of our visits, one in our group had injured her knee and needed crutches and a wheelchair to get around. As we flew in from abroad we borrowed a wheelchair free as charge from the park. Don't forget to book in advanced. Getting around in the park is really easy and staff is helpful. If you need extra assistance to go on rides, most of them have a wheelchair access entrance and you can bring 3 people with you. You might have an other kind of disability and the staff will help with that as well, but don't forget to read up on how you should prepare before go there because you will need a special declaration.

And what about food? The list of restaurants is long and you can choose from a light snack, a buffet or a sit down place. Pick and choose, but a final tip is you can´t go to Holland and not have Poffertjes!

All the pictures in this post is collected from Eftelings image library! 

Tour bus on land and water

Close to the end of the vacation and there is still some nice summer weather in Stockholm. Why not be a tourist in our home town.  Stockholm offers many guided tours; hop-on hop-off bus, boats and walking. If why one cannot decide, why not take the amphibious bus that goes both on land and in water?

We decided to try the Ocean bus tour. A 75 minutes tour with an amphibious bus. The tour starts on land close to the Opera with a view over the castle and parlament while waiting for the bus. The tour goes via the the more fashionable quarters of Stockholm towards the diplomatic city and museum park. The guiding is live, which is a pleasure compared to most other tours we done with prerecorded tapes and a monotonic voice. The information shared is up to date with a mix of serious and funny facts.

At the museum park it is time to enter the water. It feels wrong driving down in the water with a car. It becomes a bit bumpy just while we enter the water.  We sail along the fantastic Djurgården back towards the city. Passing Skansen, Vasa museum, ABBA museum, Gröna lund amusement park via the harbour where we get the amazing view of old town and the castle from the water. Along the fashionable Strandvägen and in its wharf we see many fantastic old boats.

We enter dry land where we went into the water and head back into the city center passing by the central shopping quarters.

The tour was gave something different from most other tours we have taken around the world. The live guiding make it more alive. Entering the water with a big bus is a special experience. The information is up to date and well mixed with music from Sweden with a relation to the places we pass. Some parts of the guiding is in swedish, but most are in english. Some of the swedish guiding is probably only interesting for Swedes, but unfortunately non swedish speaking will lose some relevant guiding. The tour pass by a limited number of landmarks. Because the tour is partly on water you will see some in the distance like the city hall and miss others, for instance the concert hall and central market place Hötorget. It is no big issue since you probably want to stroll in the city anyway and these places are easy to reach.

We recommend the tour. The mix of land and water with the same vehicle together with live guiding provides extra value.