All the traveling Jason does for work can sometimes be hard for us. After waking up this morning in a beautiful and comfy hotel room, it definitely made those hard days seem a little bit easier. Jason has accumulated many hotel points and is a Diamond member with the Hilton chain of hotels. When he booked this trip, he had booked the Hilton Copenhagen Airport on points. In March the hotel changed hands from Hilton to Clarion, and Hilton was very loyal and we were very grateful that they promoted our reservation to the new hotel chain to keep our booking, and considered it prepaid. Yesterday on check in, they not only honoured the reservation as paid in full, but also upgraded us. Being a Diamond Hilton member has its perks, and lucky me gets to be along for the ride as we redeem some of them. We checked out of the hotel at about 8 am Copenhagen time, and walked back into the airport and down the stairs to the train station which is in the airport terminal. Talk about convenient. Today we will leave Denmark and head to Sweden. But our heart remain back home with all of you. As you can see I am wearing some serious Canadian Pride Today! Happy Canada Day! Our train arrived right on time at 8:33. And we boarded our carriage/car and took our seats. Today we are riding in first class. Treating ourselves to a comfortable ride to the capital of Sweden- STOCKHOLM. Though that first class ticket here for a 6 hour train ride, which included free WiFi and breakfast, is less than half the cost of a ride on VIARAIL from Windsor to Toronto. The more we ride the transportation systems here in Europe, the more expensive ours seem for far less luxury and service. Europe knows how to travel!!! We very quickly left Denmark, through a tunnel, which opened up in the middle of the water and became the famous Oresund Bridge, connects Denmark and Sweden. It took only 10 minutes to be in a brand new country. Hello Sweden. Anyone travelling in first class aboard a train that departs before 9 am is given one of the complimentary breakfast boxes. Some yogurt, muesli, some cheese, bread, ham and tomato, some apple juice and tea. Enough to not feel hungry anymore, but not enough to say we were full. Luckily we knew this ahead of time and had a quick bite at the hotel before we left. Here is a little picture of me enjoying our ride across the Swedish Countryside- which by the way way looks just like the north shore of Northern Ontario with all the rocks, trees and lakes in some areas. I would love to have taken photos from the train, but if anyone has seen the facebook live video I shot this morning, the train was moving way too fast to really take a picture of anything. But our train took us to the Stockholm area, where we did a quick bus transfer because of the train line being down, and then hopped on the Stockholm Metro to our hotel in Stockholm. The Hilton Slussen. Jason has done an amazing job choosing our hotels on this trip. They are gorgeous!!! This is our hotel here in Stockholm, and the view from our window which is incredible! That view is Gamla Stan. Or the Old Town. It is where to plan on spending some time today. First we went for a quick walk around to get a "lay of the land" and something to eat. And then we will go back for an evening tour tonight. Now that something to eat. Let's just say we started with a quick snack. In Sweden the locals are known to partake in something called FIKA. The stop for some coffee and some deliciousness bought at one of the bakeries. We decided to join them of course. At Brod & Salt we bought Kanel-Bulle. A Kanel-bulle is a Cinnamon Bun. And it is Delicious! It was just enough to hold off our hunger, and to let us explore a bit. After 2 hours of walking it was dinner time. And there was only one thing we wanted to eat for dinner- SWEDISH MEATBALLS! Served with Mashed Potatoes , Lingenberries, and Pickled Cucumber. Outstanding!!! My before and after photos! And we may be eating them again..... After dinner we waited in one of the squares for the tour we had booked. Jason has always wanted to do a Ghost Tour. I had the pleasure of attending one I loved with some girlfriends in Savannah, Ga, so I had high hopes that we would enjoy this one too. Callum the guide, from Stockholm Ghost Tours was energetic, and theatrical, but unfortunately the ghost and history part of the tour was not as wonderful as we hoped. We had fun, but just didn't leave with that , "we loved it" feeling. The tour did give us a chance to catch a few more pictures around Gamla Stan before heading back to the hotel tonight. The Royal Palace in Gamla StanIt has been a long day, and a lovely day. Our feet are now tired from walking on all the cobblestone, so we're sitting next to an amazing view of the sun setting over Stockholm from our hotel. Good night from Stockholm.
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