Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

Coffee with Ibsen

 

A few days in Oslo with Marta. We are tourists and enjoy to explore old and new places.

 

A coffee stop at the café at Grand Hotel gave our feet a well deserved rest. We were not free to chose among the tables, one round table is for ever reserved for Henrik Ibsen. He used to visit Grand Café twice a day for many years!

 

But there were other tables free, and time enough to watch people around us....

 

.....or watching the huge murals, showing famous late Norwegian artists.

 

Is this 2009, or are we transformed back to the time of Ibsen and his compantions?

 

Photos: The café at Grand Hotel, Oslo

A thank you from our hearts to the staff at Grand for making our visit special when we came to show our 13 years old this typical coffee house in Oslo. We were treated as special guests though we only ordered one coffee, one tea and one hot chocolate.

An exhibition at the old vicarage

 

In a guidebook we read about the old vicarage on Smøla. We came there just when a young girl opened the beautiful old house, and during the hour we spent there, we were the only visitors.

 

The old vicarage is now a museum. One permanent exhibition showing the history of Smøla, then every summer one or two different exhibitions, focusing on special themes.

This summer several rooms in the ground floor were filled with old embroidery made by women from the island.

 

Imagine hands, fingers, worn by love and life, creating handicraft for daily use, making them into pieces of art.

 

I've collected textiles all my life, old pieces, small and bigger, and I love to let my fingers feel the structure.

I didn't touch the pieces here, were probably not allowed to, and had to let my eyes give my fingertips an imagination of the wel lknown feeling.

 

 

Two Smøla-posts from three years ago:

Oliva's House

Life wasn't always.....

A small North Sea island

 

Out in the North Sea, not far from our cabin, you find the island Smøla. Almost as far west on Smøla as you can get, right out on the shore of the North Sea, is the small fishing village of Veidholmen.

 

Veidholmen used to be a busy place with fishermen and their families. There are stillfishing going on,but today also many of the houses have been made into summer residents. A couple of restaurants serve great seafood meals, a charming cafe is worth a visit, there are several art galleries.

 

What I love most on Veidholmen are the small, charming wooden houses. Most of them painted in white, but there are also a few red and yellow ones.

 

Several of the houses are empty, with For Sale-signs nailed on. Would I like to buy a place here? I imagine myself living in one of the wooden houses, smellling the sea every day, morning walks along the edge of the North Sea.......

 

Tempting, but.....no. Our cabin is close, we can come here whenever we want and then go back to the soilitude of our cabin. This suits me perfect.

 

We eat lunch at one of the two restaurants. The local speciality, fishballs. Terje goes for blandaball while I chose satfiskball.

 

Not long afterwards we wave goodbye to Veidholmen and drive along to explore the rest of the island.

A Morning Bird

 

With dh still far away in the land of sweet dreams, I am up and out. The air is crisp, no boats on the fjord yet. A squirrel is confused when it sees a human at this time of the day. The birds have been busy all though the Nordic night.

I pick some herbs from the garden and make myself a mug of tea. My book is on the table in front of me. My eyes rest in the beauty of the nature.

Some mornings I wish I could sleep in. But then I look around and am glad I am awake....after all.

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Photo: a pyntehåndkle  which hangs in the cabin kitchen. Embroidered by one of my many foremothers.

Find a straw.......

 

A week at the cabin, hot sun from early morning til late night. The hardest work we have to do is decide weather to water the roses now or in a few hours.

 

The wild blueberries are ripe, and I do as I've done since I was a litte girl. I find a straw to thread them on.

 

Blueberries, still warm from the sun, need vaffler!

 

Lovely, lazy days of summer.

Crazy Things to do in Norway

 

In several souvenir shops we've visited I've seen the book "50 crazy things to do in Norway". Crazy thing #51 was the prize of the book, so I didn't buy it, though I would love to have it.....

......but really, I don't need his book. I can make my own list!

 

On our way down from Dalsnibba (see yesterday's post), Terje suddenly stopped the car. "What is it now?" I asked. Terje didn't even look at me, opened the door, ran out and shouted: "Look at all this lovey snow. I want to have a run......"

 

I grabbed my camera and ran after him.

Crazy husband!

 

I really believe that my crazy husand is kind of looking forward to winter, and skiing......Mysef, I dream of 7 years with midsummer days.

 

Norwegians are born with skis on their feet. In Norway there are polar bears walking around.

'

What is the craziest thing you know about Norway and Norwegians?

How long will our list of crazy things become?

 

Ups and downs in Western Norway

 

Take care, a snowball is on its way.......

We are spending this week at our cabin. From Røisheim to the cabin there is about 400km + three ferries. No autostradas but narrow roads up and down, along fjords, the most amazing hairpin bends, steep mountains.......you name it. My camera was busy all day.

 

On Strynefjellet,The Stryn Mountain, we stopped for some photos of me in the snow, then only a minute later we were met by this panorama. I was hooked. Have you ever seen beauty like this?

 

Let's take a detour up on top of Dalsnibba, Terje suggested. Dalsnibba is 1400meters right up from Geiranger Fjord. I had no objections.

 

The road down to Geiranger, can you see it:

 

Geiranger is very popular among tourists from all over the world. Most of them are coming by ships in the narrow, spectacular fjord.

The day we visited, the cruiseship Jewel in the Crown by Royal Caribbean was there.

 

 

From Geiranger there were sevaral more ups and downs, and then we came to Trollstigen, The Troll Stairs.

 

 

Late we arrived at the cabin. Here we are enjoying long, hot, sunny days where the most serious task of the day is to watch the rosebuds unfold.......

.....or to make a salad for supper

 

More posts from Western Norway:

A Beautiful Garden

Selja

More from Selja

The old wooden hotel at Hjelle

The start of a journey

 

 

 

Dinner at Røisheim

 

 

 

 

 

Can you see what we eat?

After the meal we had coffee in the "peisestua", the livingroom with the hearth.

 

Wendy, the sixth picture down is a "stabbur" a storeroom for food on the old farms. To keep the mice away there is always some space between the stairs and the door.

Susan, how great that you have been to Røisheim. I wish I could take all my blogging friends there..... Well, of course I can't. But tomorrow I plan to take you on a blogride along Norwegian fjords, up Norwegian mountains.