Bucket of ice-cream

After another lock, we docked in Söderköping, right by a super busy waterside promenade. So many people (and dogs!!!) were eating ice-cream right next to the wooden poles that we used to secure our boat. That was definitely some new experience to have gazing or indifferent tourists on the pier instead of helping hands from other sailors ;oD

We were very happy to find a playground right at the marina. Erna had been asking to visit one of the light houses that we had been passing on our way today. Now the girls finally got to climb and slide down from a similar one =o)

Alan said we made the many people walking along the canal jealous with our grill-out sunset dinner on water ;oD

We had breakfast in one of the very nice parks of Söderköping. There were actually benches, beautiful flowers, fountains, hammocks, and boxes with books from the library all over the city *nice*

When we came back to our boat, we couldn‘t see the end of the incredibly long line in front of the ice-cream parlour by the canal anymore. And we thought the place had been busy last night! The woman from the tourist info explained to us, people actually come to Söderköping from far away to taste the season‘s ice-cream creations and enjoy the atmosphere.

The tourist info thought of an exciting way for kids to explore Söderköping. We went on a rat hunt, searching for felt animals in different traditional occupations behind windows throughout the city centre *fun*

On our hunt, we discovered a bush full of humongous black current. Alan: „I‘ve never had such good black currents in my life!“ While we were busy gobbling the berries into our mouths, the kids preferred playing on the playground next to the bush ;oP

Today, we walked (ok, the girls ran in excitement) on a trail where we searched wooden figures on trees along the canal. On our paper, we then had to match the fantasy animals to their objects.

Then we hiked up on a hill to catch a nice view of Söderköping. In this forest, the taste of the blueberries was very intense, but they were so tiny!

We got a bucket full of ice-cream from this super popular ice-cream parlour next to our boat. We enjoyed the special creations fudge/white chocolate, apple pie, pecan/caramel, blueberry, and Latte/caramel *yummy*

We started wondering if all people and animals in Söderköping eat ice-cream. We didn’t only often see dogs being fed ice-cream. Once we sat down with our bucket, ducks darted in our direction. And when we accidentally spilled some ice-cream, a beetle ate it. Later that evening, we found the same beetle on our boat. Had it followed us in expectation of more ice-cream?! ;oP