A day or two before our trip, I checked the weather report for Åre and packed accordingly. The weather forecast was way off target, both fortunately and unfortunately. The forecast promised temperatures just around freezing, and clouds all the time. Instead we have temperatures well below &ndash,10°C, and much more blue skies and sunshine than I had hoped.

Yesterday the cold didn’t bother me. Today by midmorning I was so cold I had to go back inside and double up on all my layers. Double polar fleeces, double leggings, double wool socks. Double layers on my hands I already had – I wear merino wool liner gloves inside my mittens so that I can take off the mittens (for taking photos, for example) and not immediately feel like my fingers will fall off in the cold.

In the afternoon we stopped at a piste-side café for a hot drink. Does the water in the vases look cloudy? That’s because it’s frozen. The tulip stems are encased in lumps of ice. But we’re out of the wind, and the hot drink is hot, so that’s all right.

Adrian meanwhile wasn’t bothered by the cold at all. He’s like a walking nuclear reactor.

He’s still bravely practicing the snowboard. I was a bit skeptical and thought that he would probably give up after a few days. But he keeps at it, not just during the lessons, and he’s learning fast. He is already connecting his turns and getting some flow going.

A cold morning (–14°C); slightly less cold during the day.

The Björnen area suits us very well, with its variety of blue runs. Even when we’ve ventured further away during the day, late in the afternoon while Adrian has his snowboard lesson (and Eric goes home for the day) Ingrid and I just go up and down the Järven lift and its blue runs. They’re very pleasant: wide, curved, wooded, not so steep that they get icy. And with beautiful views!

The Järven lift is close to a lot of housing, so its queue fills up in the afternoon with people heading “home”. But because they are heading home, the runs down from this lift can be nearly empty. I’ve skied down here several times without seeing a single other person.

Most lifts here open a “singles queue” to one side when the main queue grows long, to make sure that any free seats get filled and the lift runs at maximum capacity. These queues always move much faster than the main ones. Especially with the larger chairlifts we’ve now learned to always head straight for the singles queue, even when it looks longer than the main queue.

After two gray days it was bright and sunny today and very little wind, so I wanted to head up to the higher slopes. See some views, maybe take some photos.

Getting from Björnen (at the far right end of the piste map) to the pistes near the peak of Åreskutan (at the far left of the piste map) and then back again took me and Ingrid effectively all day. We were not the only skiers heading in that direction and the lift queues ate up a lot of time.

We did get some wonderful views up there. And the slopes were quite to my taste. The map marks them as ski routes rather than pistes – they’re relatively long, narrow and gentle. They’re great for just gliding along and taking in the views.

The slopes were not crowded but the restaurants on that side of the resort were all completely packed. At one place the waiting time for a table was over an hour. So I didn’t enjoy all the fabulous views as much as I might have because towards the end I was just so hungry.

Meanwhile Adrian and Eric stayed in Björnen all day. Adrian has decided to learn snowboarding and is taking lessons, but it means he’s effectively a total beginner on the slopes again and can only manage the gentlest inclines at the slowest pace.

I’d like to see those views from the plateau again, and show them to Eric and Adrian as well. I’m thinking of going back up there another day, maybe on a day with less beautiful weather and therefore fewer people. And with an earlier start and a more efficient plan.

The weather was much less windy today, and we were all much less tired, so we enjoyed our skiing a lot more. We explored new lifts and pistes, but generally still stayed in the Björnen side of Åre. The upper areas were still closed due to high winds for a big part of the day, so we couldn’t ski to blue pistes on the other side of the mountain. There are shuttle buses but it didn’t seem worth the effort when the blue pistes on this side were so nice. Especially late in the afternoon when the sun came out, and the lifts and pistes emptied.

We arrived in Åre at 7 in the morning. After a breakfast at the train station, our first priority was changing clothes. We travelled in clothes suitable for Stockholm where the temperature was an unseasonally warm +5°C. Here in Åre we were met by winter, closer to what Swedish winter is supposed to be: the temperature is below freezing, it is snowing, and the wind has a real bite.

Shuttle buses took us to the Björnen area where we picked up our equipment and left our luggage. Then we were ready for the slopes.

The wind remained strong and unpleasant most of the day and the skies were gray and heavy. The lifts to the upper slopes were closed and we probably wouldn’t have wanted to be up there anyway. So we stayed in the lower slopes around Björnen.

By lunchtime the kids were already tired. The skiing was nicer in the afternoon and we got some beautiful moments of sunshine. But after last night’s short sleep we felt quite done by around 15.

It’s sportlov and we’re taking the night train to Åre for a week of skiing.

We’ve “always” travelled to the fells by car. The closest ski resorts are about 5 or 6 hours from Stockholm by car, which in practice means a whole day of driving. That’s about as much time as we/I are willing to spend just sitting locked up in a car, so this limits our options quite a bit. Åre, for example, is one of the most popular ski resorts, but is too far from Stockholm by car (for my taste).

This time we thought we’d try something different and take the train instead. We travel in a more climate-friendly way, get back that lost day – and get to try out a new resort.

On the downside, we get a very short night of sleep. The train was supposed to be ready for boarding at 23:00 and leave at 23:20. Now it’s delayed until 23:30. We’re tired and bored.

On Saturday we saw the Tower of London from the outside. Today we came back, bought tickets and went inside. Ingrid was a bit sceptical at first but agreed to give it a try, especially when she saw the informational signs about Henry VIII and his six wives. (Her love of Hamilton has led her to listen to other musicals as well, including Six, about those six wives. “Divorced, beheaded, died. Divorced, beheaded, survived.” Musical + Tower = history coming to life.)

There was a lot to be seen and done there, enough to keep us occupied for half a day: the history of the Royal Mint, exhibitions of all kinds, the various walls and towers themselves, and then of course the crown jewels. The queue for those snaked back and forth across the entire courtyard but moved quite quickly so the wait didn’t feel as long as it was. And the crown jewels are quite magnificent to see. The oldest ones are massive gold and big colourful jewels; the newest are all edges and sparkle.

Our final afternoon activity was a tour on the London Eye. The tour itself was half an hour, but booking, getting the tickets and then queueing to get onto the thing took forever, so the whole endeavour literally filled our afternoon. It was a nice and relaxing experience. Too bad they’ve wrapped Big Ben in scaffolding though.

After two late nights – one flying, one at the theatre – we were tired today. Ingrid slept late, and we took it easy during the day. More bus rides, less walking.

We took a bus to town. alked around Covent Garden, watched some street performers, walked to Leicester Square and Chinatown, walked along Pall Mall to Buckingham Palace. Took a bus to Harrods, admired the food hall and the chocolates and cakes and teas, and the jewelry and handbags with silly prices.

The highlight of the day was afternoon tea at Paul’s. Ingrid has recently taken up tea-drinking (mostly rooibos and spice tea) and a real, proper afternoon tea was a key item on her wish list. Paul’s is maybe more French than English, serving little brioche buns instead of sandwiches on their tea trays, but the whole thing did involve tea and multiple cakes and that’s what matters.

By then it was evening and we took a bus back to the hotel and rested while watching Sherlock Holmes (the one with Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman).

We’re in London! Seeing Hamilton!

First we slept, though, to recover from yesterday. Finally I had to wake Ingrid because I was starving hungry. The hotel breakfast looked decent – but since it was charged separately, I was rather aware of the cost, and decided that we could get an equally nice breakfast for half the price at the nearest Pret.

Apart from Hamilton, our plans for this day were vague and loose. I thought we could just see a bit of London, so we simply walked out of the hotel and headed south towards the Thames. This took us past not just a Pret but also the Gherkin, various other cool buildings, and then the Tower of London. Ingrid didn’t feel like walking for hours in a castle, so we just looked at it from the outside.


She was more interested in Tower Bridge – it’s pretty iconic! – so we went inside and looked at all the photos as well as the old engines. The view from up on the walkways is pretty nice as well. It really brings home the contrast of central London – centuries-old buildings side by side with gleaming, curved skyscrapers in glass and steel.

We walked westwards along the Thames, taking in the Globe theatre, Borough market, Millenium bridge etc on the way. Lunch was fish and chips near St. Paul’s.

One of the items on Ingrid’s list of places to see and things to do was Platform 9¾ so after lunch we took the Tube to King’s Cross. We had heard and read that there’s a baggage trolley there, halfway into the platform wall. What we were not prepared for was the commercialization of it. There is a Harry Potter shop right next to it, with a queue just to get in. And another big queue of people waiting to stand next to that baggage trolley and get their photo taken by a professional, with enough of a crowd there to warrant multiple security staff to wrangle them all. Eugh. The cost of globalization and cheap travel is that everything Instagrammable is totally overrun.

In the afternoon, we went to the London Dungeon. (No photos from there because it was dark from beginning to end.) I had expected something museum-like but it was more like a series of short theatre performances, with the crowd walking from one vignette to another. From Guy Fawkes, through the plague and the Great Fire, to Jack the Ripper and so on. Overall, not bad.

Dinner was conveyor belt sushi at Yo! Sushi. This was mixed with nostalgia even more than all the other things we’ve walked past. One of the very first times I had sushi was at Yo! together with Eric. Either their quality is not what it was, or maybe it’s my palate that has changed, but I found the food less flavourful than I remembered.

Then some queueing, and finally, the grand finale of the evening – Hamilton, at the Victoria Palace theatre. We were there early to give Ingrid ample time in the gift shop, and she was overjoyed.

She was even more overjoyed by the performance itself. And I have to agree – it was fabulous. I’ve heard it on Spotify enough times (god knows!) to know what it sounds like, but hearing and seeing it live was a whole different experience. I’m glad that Ingrid is such a fan because without her I wouldn’t be here.

When the performance ended, my first thought was that if only we still lived in London – we could come back and see it again.

Ingrid and I are off for our three-day trip to London to see Hamilton, the musical, spending a good chunk of today getting ourselves there. Train to Stockholm, bus to Skavsta, flight to Stansted, train to Liverpool Street station… Hours and hours of sitting around either being transported or waiting for the next phase of transportation. And we won’t reach our hotel until past midnight.