Help Sweden/Finland weekend

[toomanypushchairs]

Thinking of going to Sweden or Finland with my dd 10yrs just for the weekend. Never done anything like this before. Any ideas for hotels, do I need a car,or anything would be much appreciated. (She has coeliac disease and the coeliac society reckon these places are fantastic for gluten free food)

Stockholm is lovely and really easy to get around by walking. We stayed at Nordic light, but they also own, not far away the Nordic sea. The food was lovely ,lots of smorgassbord, the best was had at the Grand over looking the old qaurter of gamlastan.

Ill link a few bits for you.

nordic hotel grp

gamla stan

Thanks, the links were great. sorry to be a pain, any idea when the best time to go is? have heard that it is either very light or very dark. As we are going just for the weekend we can be really flexible.

We had a holiday in Copenhagen one late August and went to Malmo for a day and to Helsinborg (I think it was called, the other side of Helsinor) for another day. Both cities were very nice (as was Copenhagen), lots of parks. I can't remember that much about the food, apart from it being very expensive. Plenty to do for just a weekend.

I forgot to mention that southern Sweden isn;t that much further north than Scotland, so anytime it would be good for a weekend in Scotland should be fine for southern Sweden too.

thanks for the help, much appreciated!

Hi,

I lived in Helsinki for a few years and think its a great place. Its certainly geared up for gluten free diets over there as a few of my Finnish pals were like that.

I think it might still be quite cool there now. There are lots of little islands to visit in Helsinki, one has a zoo on it.
Have a look at helsinki tourist info .

There is a great place called the Finnish science centre, its a real hands on place for kids of all ages, its just outside the centre of helsinki towards the airport but you can get a train from the main station. Its a great place.

I lived in helsinki so am biased about it. Hope you have fun and CAT me if you have any other questions.
\link{www.heureka.fi/portal/englanti/Heureka}

oops this is the Finnish science centre place

Heureka

Dh and I lived in southern Sweden for several years, he is wheat intolerant. I certainly never noticed any g/f foods out in restaurants, and the local supermarkets had a reasonable-ish selection, but certainly no better than in the UK and probably worse depending on where you're used to. Having said that, we lived in a relatively small town but I don't recall dh saying things were any easier when he lived up in Stockholm - although he wasn't avoiding wheat so carefully in those days. Have the Coeliac Society given you any clues as to why they think Sweden is good for gluten-free food? This has me completely stumped. Okay, trad Swedish food (herring, salmon, potatoes) are g/f but there are a lot of sauces and things like that to avoid.

Btw, I have heard that Italy is surprisingly good for g/f food - at least they are pretty good at catering for coeliacs with g/f pizza bases/pasta in normal restaurants! And Italy will certainly be a lot warmer than Sweden just now

My bf lives in Stockholm and has a gluten free diet. There is so much choice out there in every resterurant and they all speak fluent english so you an ask for gluten free food. Stockholm is also incredibly child friendly - lots and lots of things to do. We love it out there and would recommended it, esp. if you like walking. The dearkness thing is only a couple of hours different to what it is here, except it quite alot colder/hotter.

Cazzybabs, thanks. We belong to the coeliac society and they have been recommending sweden, thats where we got the idea. They say to phone the hotel you want to stay in first to check that they can do GF food. Do you think this is necessary? with a bf there you probably know a bit about the flights. when I checked some of the airlines there seem to be 2 airports, do you know which one I need to fly to? We were thinking of staying in the centre of stockholm is this a good idea? thanks for the help so far!

Arlanda is the main airport for Stockholm, there are a number of other airports further away which the budget airlines tend to go to.