Hellasgården

Today was our first day of a long weekend (four days!). We opted for a stroll around the southern part of Stockholm, somewhere between Skarpnäck and Nacka, near a place called Hellasgården. The underground train took us to Björnhagen and from there we walked...The good thing about GPS apps and all those widgetey map-reading devices on our current telephones is that we cannot get lost, although we are not always going quite the way we had originally imagined. But while doing so, we often come across interesting things that pop up like pleasant surprises and welcome bonuses.

This happened to us with Markusskyrkan, a famous 1960 church building, all handmade with unusual brickwork and modern architecture combined, in a very Scandinavian way. Smooth lines and irresistible details, like the clever paving or the elegant lighting inside.The outside relief of a lion carved in stone pleased Poppy, who happily roared at him.

A bit further into our promenade we enjoyed a picnic on rocks, a stop by a little sandy beach and a walk up and down a path winding through the woods. We met a tiny mouse whose type we are still trying to identify (woodmouse? shrew? we need to do a bit of research), we witnessed how a mummy bird was feeding her babies through a hole into the trunk of a birch tree, we tried (!) to catch butterflies...and we found frog spawn, hurray! This was indeed our original goal when we set off towards an inland lake - only theredid we have a chance to find spawn or tadpoles. We had jars and buckets with us, they were put to good use and we are now the proud owners of a home aquarium where a good quantity of eggs are floating, waiting to hatch...

A good day out, all in all. Poppy was a bit under the weather at some point but she seemed to have perked up a bit tonight, so hopefully we can go on further adventures tomorrow :-)