Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

Sweden and Denmark vacation, day 3, part 3

@brittarnhild

After our stop in Nyköping it was my turn to drive. Just over an hours drive, but it is always time for coffee, and when I saw a sign leading to another castle and another garden.......well, all of a sudden we ended there for a pit stop.

It was already late afternoon and no time to explore the castle. Which was quite okay for me. We got coffee,

and I got to see the garden and the nursery.
And good thing, travelling by car means that you can have room to actually buy garden stuff :-)

 

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Arriving in Nyköping we got the most wonderful surprise. The hotel where we had books rooms was not a hotel at all, but the a most charming guesthouse in Old Nyköping, a kind of open air museum with the old houses of the city, Hilma Winblad´s Bed & Breakfast.

(check out their webpage to see what a great place it is)

Terje and I had our room on the first floor of this red building.

Old houses, no cars but flowers, roses, herb hardens and cobbled streets everywhere.

So completely different from a modern hotel in the middle of a busy city, and for us a perfect place to stay for two nights.

We did go into the busy city for dinner though. Torgeir did a google search and took us to a restaurant serving Balkan food, Yugo45.

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Well, I ended up with three posts from this third day of our vacation.
You can see why, can't you :-)

Sweden and Denmark vacation, day 3, part 2

@brittarnhild

We had planned a weekend with Torgeir in Sweden, or more correct, he had planned a weekend with us. Two nights in Linköping, driving around while there.

Linköping is about two hours south of Stockholm, by car. On the way south we had a stop to do though, we had a lunch invitation in Nyköping.

My friend Sofia lives there.
I have met Sofia through knitting and we have over the years developed a strong friendship. Sofia is the artist I, years ago, invited to come with me to a knitting retreat in Tuscany, a retreat which has been postponed three times now due to the pandemic.......but next year we will be there :-)

   

Sofia met us outside the All Souls Church, where we walked in to admire the stained glasses illustrating saints. I could find both the Norwegian St. Olav and the Swedish Sta Birgitta.

And then we went over to the café next door to have lunch with Sofia and her boyfriend Håkan.

And to knit and talk of course.
Can you see that I have done a few more rows since yesterday?

Sofia is a knit designer (you find her online as @kammebornia) and before we left Nyköping she took us to her studio in the old part of the town.

Sweden and Denmark vacation, day 3 part 1

@brittarnhild

In a tiny little flat in Stockholm, just 25 square meters, our son has created a paradise for himself.

Torgeir loves books and he loves to travel,

so books and travel memories are what you can find everywhere in the flat.

2600 books last time he counted. That was before he spent time with us (and as I am writing this from the future, I can assure you he bought quite a few new books during our days together).

In a corner of the flat Torgeir has a miniature kitchen, about the size of a stamp, lol, and here he bakes the most amazing cakes, pastries and macaroons.

I love Torgeir´s flat, and some day, when he is out travelling, I hope to come here to stay for a week or two, grab a book from his shelves and walk out into Stockholms streets, parks and woodlands.

 

Sweden Denmark vacation, still day 2

@brittarnhild

Enånger B&B is a place I really hope to come back to. We loved the place, and before leaving I had to sit for a while in the comfortable armchair in our bedroom, starting a new "vacation knitting project "

Stockholm, to meet our son, was the goal of the day. Just a few hours driving, so we had time for a long lunch stop. I had some ideas and talked about them during breakfast, and the host at Enånger recommended a castle garden along the road, Wij Trädgårder.

I am so happy we listened to the host. I had never heard about Wij before, but it turned out to be a paradise just how I like it. A castle, a very nice restaurant and lovely gardens.

Here we are in front of a series of small gardens created and grown by a group of students. Each garden different, each garden filled to the brim with amazing garden ideas. 

Outside the restaurant I mused on some flower ideas to use in my knitting, and asked Terje to help me take some pictures. I ended up not using those ideas, but more of that later.......

 

Wij Tr¨dgårder (trädgård means garden) also had several exhibitions, two of them with textiles and embroidery as a theme. 

Real flowers and plants, flowers and plants in embroidery. I made sure to save as much as possible in my inspiration basket.

Seeing, smelling, listening, feeling.

But everything has an end, and a few hours later we found ourselves in Stockholm.......

.......where Torgeir as always took us to places, nooks and corners where we had never been before.

Sweden Denmark Vacation Day 2

@brittarnhild

Yesterday you saw the view from the windows in our bedroom at the B&B where we stayed the night.
Here it is from outside,

and here you can see the old medieval church across the road.

We decided to visit the church after breakfast today.
The door was closed, but a note told us that we could find the key up the road at the entrance to the old vicarage. Well, the key was easy to spot!

The interior of the church is amazing, with the original murals still more or less as they were when new.

Around the walls were several sculptures, also those from the time the church was built.

They were all great, but I do think my favourite is this one, showing Jesus, St. Mary and Anne, the mother and grandmother of St. Mary and Jesus. Can you imagine, what a blessing to be the grandmother of Jesus.

Before leaving Enånger I had a walk in the B&B garden. The B&B has 4 rooms inside the house, but it is also possible to rent this old tivoli caravan.

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You can find the B&B website here: Enånger B&B

Sweden Denmark Vacation Day 1

@brittarnhild

Leaving a wet and cold Trondheim, heading for Sedan first, then Denmark.
Already after a couple of hours the weather became better, then much better, then great,

   

and when we, in late afternoon, arrive at the most charming B&B you can imagine, and our cosy room has two windows, one with a view out into the garden and down to the river, the other to a medieval St.Mary church just across the street, we are all smiles.

The B&B does not serve dinner, and we were told we had three choices. We could walk up the road to the grocery store, buy some food and make a simple dinner in the little shared kitchen here. We could walk up the same street to the local pizzeria, buy takeaway pizza and eat in the garden here. Or we could walk 4 kilometers down to the harbour where there is an excellent fish restaurant.

We went for the restaurant.
Walked the 4kms, had the most delicious bouillabaisse we have ever tasted, and walked the 4kms back to the B&B again.

What a fabulous day.
What a fabulous start of our vacation.

 

 

A day at the cabin

@brittarnhild

Let's start the day already when it is just a few minutes old young, shall we :-)
Midnight, and nights are filled with light here up north at this time of the year. Well, not quite all night, we do have a few hours with the sun taking a dive in the ocean, but all of a sudden it is back again, the sun I mean.

It is hard to go to bed when the light and the view is like this, but harder to stay awake, I am always tired at night, and sleep hits me the moment my head meets the pillow.

Hours later I've had my beauty sleep, we have had breakfast out in the terrasse, and while Terje is up on the roof, finishing the work there, I am watching the bumble bees, smelling the thyme.

Then I drink a mug of mint tea, I read, I knit and I watch the view.

Soon it is too hot to sit in the sun and I seek shade behind the red currant in the herb garden.
More reading, but then Terje comes down for the roof, "what about a swim in the ocean again?" A perfect idea. We have to drive to find a good place to swim, so I make a thermos of coffee, fill a water bottle and pack some snacks, and off we go.

It is night again. Not quite midnight yet, so I am still awake.

I am working my way through my travel literature and garden literature this summer. Taking photos of each and every one of the books I have, posting them on two of my instagram accounts, using the hashtags #brittarnhildsreiselitteratur and #brittarnhildshagebibliotek

There are so many great books in my shelves, and as I read on along the travel literature path I'm playing with an idea. I have this blog Caffe Avec which I started many years ago while we were vising Krakow in Poland. I fell in love with the cafés and coffee houses there, something you can read about in the very first post over at Caffe Avec, Krakow, Let's get started.
Since then the blog has been used for quite a few different topics. But my idea now is to re-open the blog for posts about past travels, inspired by the travel literature I read, or simply inspired by memories.

What do you think? Will it be of interest to you? Will you go there, will you read it?

 

A swim in the Atlantic

@brittarnhild

We have such amazing weather for the moment. A weather which calls for a swim in the ocean.
Terje is busy at the cabin these days, repairing the roof after a leak, but after lunch today we decided it was time for a hike. A hike to the ocean.

Icy cold
And so refreshing!