Big drive today, 475km will take us over 5.5 hours in the car.

Time for us to gas up at the bakery Janelle found along the way. Cheese buns, fancy pastries and chocolate dipped cookies fuel us to our first stop, the Omberg Ekopark.

It’s nice to get out of the car to stretch our legs for a two hour hike – I keep saying that word “hike” – to see some sights. A gentle trail today at 6.5 km and 220 meters of elevation. Don’t tell anyone, I’ve subscribed to a hiking app. <smh> shh, I don’t want to talk about it.

At the top of the hill we meet this local Swedish family with 3 young kids and their dog. Their oldest boy was thrilled to speak English with us which he learned all by himself from Social Media. He doesn’t learn English in class till next year!

Then Gränna. Non-stop candy making here; it almost puts Banff to shame. Although we didn’t have a chance to make our own candy, we made up for it in the shops.

So many flavours here…Peppermint, Salted Licorice, Raspberry, Strawberry, Blueberry, Lemon, Orange, Pear, Apple, Watermelon, Cola, Tutti-Frutti, Chocolate, Caramel, Vanilla, Cinnamon, Gingerbread, Elderflower, Rhubarb, Sour Raspberry, Sour Apple, Bubblegum to name a few!!

And our destination for the evening? The IKEA Hotel…yes, that’s right IKEA has a hotel. I was expecting them to hand me a box with an Allen key, but thankfully just your regular key card to the room.

A bonus is we get to do laundry for our three weeks of dirty clothes. It’s always exciting to have a fresh set going into the luggage.

Did you know? IKEA has a standalone restaurant right across the street called Grillen? I sure didn’t.

We are even here on special night too – it’s a pre-midsummer event. Live music, and their grill’s hot with pork, chicken and sausage. They also have salad somewhere here too, but as they say: salad is what food eats!