Although it is not located in the castle itself, this is the restaurant affiliated with Gripsholm…read morePalace. It's on the edge of the grounds, and located right off the path leading from the palace to the town. We were never disappointed with any of the slottscafeet (castle cafe) dining experiences that we had anywhere in Sweden. My daughter, who spent much more time in Sweden than me, says that restaurants near tourist destinations tend to be pretty universally good, unlike the tourism situation in the US. Because Sweden has a fairly short summer, most of the year-round business comes from locals, who won't abide poor food, so only the quality places survive. This particular place is a glass walled pavilion style building, which is perfect for a relaxing lunch. I somehow managed to miss taking pictures of this spot, but I'm posting one shot of a railroad turntable, where you can see the restaurant in the upper left corner. Also, I'm posting a couple of other pictures looking back toward the castle, and towards the town of Mariefred, hopefully showing that the location is convenient from everywhere. I didn't see a Yelp entry for the castle itself (I suspect my Swedish search skills are sub-par). So, if you find yourself at this restaurant, do not miss the castle - it's the National Portrait Gallery, as well as a spectacular building. We made one of my all-time favorite day trips to Gripsholm, by taking a train from Stockholm, and a bus into town. Highly recommended.

Honestly it was waaay nicer than I expected it to bed. Plenty of fun stuff for the kiddos as well…read moreas a large petting area. Lots of food options and carnival type games. A very nice zoo for a small city. Quite impressed.

It's great - if you have kids…read more If you don't have kids then the 300 SEK/person entry fee might be better spent watching pigeons and hairless apes downtown while sipping a beer. That's not to say you can't kill an hour or so even as an adult, you totally can. Hey, meerkats are funny, back off. You do notice your priorities have shifted when tigers are less fun than otters, and you actually notice the landscaping. Seriously, there's some cool details there. You'd never have to yell "get off my lawn" if there was an electric fence around it, would you?

I like this park best early in the morning, before the hordes arrive and traffic starts. In fact, I…read morelike most things better early in the morning. There's something to be said about the cooler air and the quiet, because this park is normally not the most quiet place. While it covers a large area, the oblong shape make it so that you're always very close to nearby roads and buildings. The park is even cut in half by Västergatan, which is somewhat heavily trafficked at almost all hours during the day. It seems like two parks for this reason. A big bonus is that the city tore down the old restaurant and the never-used stage, which has made room for much cooler things like beach volleyball.

I really like the town square. It's functional and aesthetically pleasing…read more There was a lot of whining when the city spent roughly € 7 000 000 on fixing this up during 2013-2014, and to be honest I didn't see why people objected then and I still don't. The old square was a dreadfully dull relic of the 1980's and I was glad to see them do something useful with my tax money for once.