We've had a few huge storms recently, one of which damaged our rental car in Finland, lucky we weren't in it at the time. Karlstad is about 3 hours drive west of Stockholm, situated on the huge Lake Veren, which is the third largest lake in Europe. We've had a lot of wet weather here which makes us appreciate the sunshine when it comes out! We went for a bush walk through the forest, resulting in half of the skin on Sj's leg being left behind and Andrew's ankle also bruised as he ran to get the car, swinging through trees like Tarzan. The leg is all good now, but we'll think twice before putting on our runners again!

A highlight was our visit to Alfred Nobel's manor about 35km out of Karlstad. Turns out he wasn't all that peaceful afterall. Having invented dynamite and spending a lot of his life overseeing the design and manufacturing of lots of different weapons, he was feeling pretty, pretty bad. So he invented the Nobel Peace prize, instructions for which was left in his will to be carried out by his hardworking nephew.

Moving on to Jonkonping next, also in the south of Sweden!