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Gothenburg: Day 4

We spent our last day in Gothenburg exploring the parks and outdoors, taking advantage of the lack of rain. Our hotel had 24-hour transit passes for sale, so we each bought one after breakfast.

First stop: Slottsskogen. The park is southwest of the Innerstaden, and we took the bus instead of walking for 45 minutes. Walking around, we noticed that a lot of the paths are paved, which is nice - some parts were concrete, others were cobblestone - and a lot of the landscape seemed very familiar, almost as if we were walking through Stanley Park. Within the park, we found lakes/ponds, coffee shops, even a zoo with animals found in the region (e.g. reindeer, goats, sheep, ducks).  Most visitors seemed local - mothers pushing strollers, cyclists with panniers cutting through the park, Canadian geese(!), school kids with their teacher. When we got hungry, we sat down for an early fika and were treated to some apple cake and custard with our coffee and tea - so good!! 

Across the highway was the Gothenburg Botanical Garden, which was our second destination of the day. Too bad there wasn't a lot to see because it was wintertime, but they did have greenhouses that had all kinds of plants including carnivorous species, orchids, a cacao plant, and a plant from Easter Island. There were also a lot of walking trails, one of which took us to a viewing point overlooking part of the city.

For lunch, we headed back to Haga by bus to try Café Husaren. We didn't end up ordering their giant cinnamon roll, but did enjoy sandwiches and a chicken salad with baked potato, along with some smaller pastries. After all the exploring, it felt good to rest our feet for awhile! 

With the remaining daylight, we climbed up a huge flight of steps to see Skansen Kronan, the fortress that stands over the city, for one last look at Gothenburg. There were a few shops around Olivedal, but there wasn't much activity - maybe because it was a Monday afternoon? We even tried stepping into the Storm & Bille Chocolate Factory to buy some hot chocolate, but they didn't have any milk. I guess businesses in this city don't really expect random tourists on weekdays. 

We went back to our hotel taking the tram, then had dinner at Källarkrogen, the same restaurant we visited the first night we arrived in the city. (Saluhallen was an option for dinner, but didn't really have anything we wanted other than alcoholic glögg, plus food was ridiculously overpriced - 450 SEK for one chocolate praline.) This time around, we had the deer meat as well as a similar dish with fish and crayfish, then finished the meal with flambéed apples on top of ice cream. It was the perfect meal to end our visit to the city. Tack Göteborg!

Tomorrow we'll be taking the train to Stockholm for the last leg of our trip.

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