Wednesday was spent at the Emporia Mall. The building is quite unique and I may have shared before but Beverly took such a nice photo I thought I would share it again. It has 3 floors full of shops and usually quite busy. There are also two large grocery stores on the bottom floor.

Thursday we picked up a rental car for the coming week from Central Station.  We headed off to Växjö. We stopped by Höör where I used to have a house. My dad lived in the house until he passed in 2017. Looked completely different. It was totally renovated and added on. I had painted it red with white trim and now it is black with white trim. They had changed the location of the front door and probably more. It looks very good but it was a bit more emotional than I thought it would be.

After Höör we realized we had not discussed fully we would be spending the night in Växjö, so we needed to go back for medication and such, which we did and then took a new path towards Älmhult which is where IKEA started. We stayed in the Ikea hotell which was very nice. We had a late dinner and went to bed.

Friday morning I was happy to see sun. Went down for breakfast, which was very nice and then prepared to head out to the museum.  It started snowing, sideways and swirling around. Crazy thick too.  Then suddenly it stopped.  We went into the museum and looked around rather quickly because we knew we had a long day ahead and did a little shopping at the museum shop. Very fun start.

After Ikea museum we drove to the glass factories in Småland. We went to Skruf glass first where we saw them blow and form glass. It was very cool to see. They make stemware, vases and other useful glass pieces.

After Skruf we went to Målerås glass which is one of my favorite places. I have quite a few pieces I love from here. Here are some of the newest design, peacock. Absolutely stunning.

Målerås does block glass also with scenes inside. They have faces, animals, flowers and Christmas.  They are all very unique pieces. I have quite a few pieces from here.

After Målerås we made it to Kosta Boda where there were several shops to go through. One is the factory store and two other outlets. I love seeing all the beautiful designs they have come out with and also the classic pieces I love so well. It seemed they had fewer new things than normal.

After all that we headed to Växjö where I was born to look at the beautiful church there. It is one of my all time favorites. When we arrived we realized there was a church service happening. They also were going to be having some music in the evening.

After Växjö we made our way to the West coast. We stopped and ate at a Max Burger which is the Swedish Burger chain. They use Swedish meat and have a variety of burgers, including plant based burger. We ended up in Halmstad where we spent the night at The Grand Hotel. An old beautiful hotel from 1905.

The next morning after a good breakfast we drove to Båstad. This is a coastal town where they have a big tennis event every year. If you are into tennis you may know of it. They also have beautiful beaches that stretch as far as the eye can see.

They have a bath house for cold water bathing and we saw people in robes coming and going. We were not up for trying it. There was a beautiful church from the late 1400s. The wind was brisk and cold so we made our outside trip as quick as we could.

We had a rest day today, Sunday. Washing laundry, going to church and relaxing together. We have more adventures planned in the coming week so stay tuned.