going to villa villekulla

It’s official. We’re taking another Shepard-family vacation this summer, with John’s mother and husband, as well as his two brothers and their little families. We’ve taken a number of these vacations over the past eight years, as they’ve been a great way for this far-flung family to assemble. I think we all agree that it’s important for the cousins—Simon (9), Winston (7), Bjorn (7), Dodi (6), Sophia (4), and Scarlett (2)—to see each other on some occasion other than Christmas. And, I miss watching my nieces and nephews grow!

When John and I were casting about for a summer trip with the boys, we were initially thinking about national parks. Yosemite, Yellowstone, Voyageurs, Crater Lake, Rocky Mountains, all came up in conversation. So, too, did Canada—Vancouver, Lake Louise/Banff, Montreal. On the flipside from the rugged nature, I’ve been fixating on England, a trip that would have been totally extravagant, but that would have mended a big gaping hole in my heart. All of these would make fine vacations and will go on a very long list of places to visit before we die or the boys grow up and get complicated lives, god forbid.

Then we came back round to family, deciding this might be the perfect year to visit John’s brother Will, who lives in Stockholm, Sweden. For years, Will has been begging us (and shaming us with stories about all the other family friends who’ve made this particular trip) to spend a week in Visby, the walled city on Gotlund island. It wouldn't be just any ol’ week, either. We would come for Medeltidsveckan—medieval week. Yup, like the Renaissance Festival, all day, every day, for a week. I’m excited and I’m fearful. I can usually take a few hours of the RenFest before I want to run screaming from the oppression of giant smoked turkey legs and being called “m’lady” or "wench." I'm mulling how into this I'm going to be—twenty-first century innocent bystander or eleventh-century costumed persona??

So we're going. When I told the boys that I had booked our tickets to Stockholm, Simon asked if we were going to Villa Villekulla. His class is reading Pippi Longstocking right now, which pleases me to no end because it's an awesome children's book and because I wanted to be Pippi when I was nine. I said, “Yes,” we’ll go to the Pippi playground in Stockholm, but little does he know that the Villa Villekulla movie-set house is in Visby!!

If only Villa Villekulla took reservations...