Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

Hiking in the hills above Terracina

I still have phots from Terracina to show you :-) Today I'm going to take you on a hike in the hills above the town. I don't like to spend all days at the beach, so one Sunday morning while the others walked down there to lick sun and salt water I filled my water bottle with water and my pockets with camera and bonoculars. High above the city there is an Anxur temple. We have been there many times, it is a perfect place to watch the sunset, but this morning I wanted to walk the hills up there.

Not all nights are clear enough to see the round sun, but we were lucky when we visited the temple at night.

Ponza island

One of our first days in Terracina we decided to take the ferry out to the island Ponza, a 2 1/2 hours ferry trip. Left Terracine early in the morning. Had planned to take the car with us, but the ferry was too full, so we parked the car near the harbour and boarded the ferry. Spent the day with our friends, Brit and Hans, the owners of the flat.

The weather was nice, and warm enough even in the morning to spent the trip outdoors in the bright sun.

Ponza is only a small island, and extremly charming the way it shown itself to us from the ferry, with the square pastel coloured houses welcoming all visitors from the sea.

We started the morning with a walk in the village. I bought a map and postcards, which I always do when I come to new places, bought an icecream to Marta (she was hot and thirsty), looked into small fish shops and finally sat down with a cappucino and gelateria on a cafe overlooking the harbour.

Later in the day we took a bustrip around part of the island. Our trip ended at the beach where we spent nice hours swimming, sunbathing and eating local pizza.

Back in the town we walked around breathing the air of this charming place. And then had a good rest and a beautiful sunset on the ferry on our way back home to Terracina in the evening.

Socks

I have been knitting socks today.

Ordinary days.

It is good to be home, having a quiet week-end. I spent alot of time yesterday doing home fun (which means quite ordinary house task, like cleaning all ground floor.  Ingrid has just bought herself a scooter, with a little help from us, and Terje spent all Saturday making a new door in the garage to make it easier for her to drive the scooter in there.

I had hoped to do some garden work, but the weather was too unstable with rainshowers on and off all day. Today, Sunday, it has been much better though, and we even had the afternoon coffee out in the garden and could enjoy some sun again - the first since Italy.

Last night Marta and I played chess. We love playing games and always collect new games when we travel. I have a special collection of chess games, and the one we used last night I bought at the market in Budapest a couple of years ago.  And it shall not be a surprise to anybody when I tell that Marta won over me:-)

This morning Marta, Terje and I went out biking in our forest. Had a short stop at the ski jump arena Granåsen before we biked further into the forest. Granåsen is used all year long, on snow during the winter, on porcelain during the summer - like today.

Forgot to brag.......

When I posted about Ingrid's birthday I totally forgot to brag about the lovely birthday cards Marta made for her. Shame on me!

Marta loves scrap booking, and had alot of fun making these cards earlier this summer.

Now both Marta and I are looking forward to dark autumn and winter nights with time for scrap booking our vacations from this summer.

Sweet sixteen.

Saturday August 20th Ingrid Elise celebrated her 16th birthday. Terracina is a perfect place for celebrations :-). We started already in the morning with breakfast at Caffe del Duomo owned by Ingrid and Angelo. Ingrid served us a plate of wonderful, fresh croissants and we had cappucino and caffe latte, and a coke for Marta.

We spend most of the nights at the piazza and Ingrid and Angelo's café, but seldom the mornings, so this was a special treat for the  day

Most of the day we spent on the beach. This was our last day in Italy for this time, and we wanted to make the most of it. Well, before going to the beach I did some flower shopping though, and then met one of my highlights from our weeks in Terracina - the small flower shop downtown outside the main church - Vivai Bartoli. There I met a young boy who was a real artist with the flowers. If I had known about this place earlier I would have gone there every day to buy us fresh flowers just to have them wrapped by this young boy.

For Ingrid I bought a small creation with flowers planted in a glass, giving an image of an ice cream or a milk shake - perfect for our nightly celebration of gelateria on the piazza. And I also bought a rose for the owner of the restaurant St.Patrick's, where we had our special Italian dinner. When we went to the restaurant to book the table we told the owner Massimo that it would be the celebration of our daughter's birthday, and he then told us that it was his birthday also. So a special rose for him from our birthday girl it was!

St.Patrick's is our favorite restaurant in Terracina. This time we went there three times. The food is just perfect, and Massimo and his wife has a wine cellar which is well worth a visit.

At the end of the birthday meal Massimo presented Ingrid with a special dessert of the house, with small spoons for all of us for tastes.

The perfect birthday ended at the piazza with a gelateria party. And a very special birthday gelateria for the birthday girl Ingrid made by the Coffee girl Ingrid and her Angelo. Well, for Ingrid and her friends it did not end here. The night was still young and ready for many hours at the discoteque downtown. And saying a tear filled good buy the all the new friends thay had met this summer.

Centro Storico

One thing, among alot of other, I love when I am in terracina is to take a walk in the old part of the town, in Centro Storiko. As "our" flat is situated right on the piazza I just have to climb down the stairs from second floor and I am right there. Turning right and walking through the arch the first thing I come to is a new seafood restaurant. I am not interested in this restaurant today though, but turn around and take a photo of the back side of "our" house. The shutters are new of this year. I love the rich green colour of them, pained by Hans earlier this summer.

Ok, I can give you a glimpse of the seafood restaurant as it looks in the morning with no guests. We have never eaten there. There are so many charming restaurants both in the old and the new part of Terracina, and I also love to buy fresh pasta at the pastabaker and vegetables and cheese at the local market to make our own dinner. So we still need many visits to make all the restaurants.

My morning walk continues, and I walk on a whim with no map, trying to turn as many corners as possible. Some times my walk takes me to a dead stop, other times new roads open up to show small hidden, charming places.

We have not talked about buying a flat here - yet. But when I walk like this I can't keep myself from dreaming about how it would be like to have our own little place here. A place we can call our own, a place to dream about during long, dark Norwegian winter months, a place to paint pink and decorate with flowers during the summer. Nothing can take the dreams away from me :-) And at the same time I know I am totally content staying in the lovely flat of our good friends.

After an hour I am back to where I started, the piazza del duomo. It is not siesta time yet, so I sit down for a cappucina at Caffee del Duomo where Angelo is busy serving the few morning guests but most of all busy with preparations for another busy night at the piazza.

I climb the stairs to the flat to get my swinsuit and my towel, and ehad for the beach and the rest of my family. On the way only stopping at the terrace outside the municipality office to get a view of the new town and the sea.

Short note to let you know we are back home.

Sunday night we came back home after 2 1/2 weeks in Itally. Most of the time we spent in Terracina, south of Rome on this wonderful piazza. Our friends own the flat in the second floor (where the windows are open) to the right of the church. Terracina is a small town on the edge of the sea between Roma and Naples. We did not know about the town untill our friends started to travel here a few years ago, now it has become our paradise :-)

My computer is terrible slow tonight. So I will stop with this first photo and can promise you many more to come.

Goodbye Malta, hello Italy.....

When I wrote my blog from Malta and Gozo earlier this summer I know promised more memories from Malta. So todday, only hours before we are leaving for 2 weeks in Italy I will share with you a few "food photos" from Gozo :-)

The first one shows Ingrid enjoying her strawberry and vanilla icecream at a restaurant in Gozo's main city Victoria. We visited this restaurant a couple of times, my favorite was Gozo coffee with a taste of aniseed. It was perfect on a hot and humid day.

One morning my parents, my husband and I went up to the nearest village to visit a temple from around 3000-4000BC. After our sightseeing and some grocery shopping the others drove home, while I decided to stay in the village for a few hours on my own. I always love walking around as a lonely tourist - in Trondheim or around the world.  And when lunchtime came I decided not to walk home to our farmhouse but to eat at the Oleander Restaurant at the village piazza.

Started with a kind of local salami, local goat cheese, olives and dried tomatoes. Then fish soup which was absolutely perfect - in my family we are huge lovers of fish soup, and our favorite is the one my father in law makes. Ingrid even had grand-dad making it for her confirmation last year. Grand dad's is still my favorite, but this one took a number 2!

Then, as main dish I had a mixed grill, lamb, beef and quail.  A perfect meal in perfect surroundings.

We were 18 travelling together on this Gozo trip, my parents, I and my family and my three brothers with their families. We tried to eat together most nights, but of course it could be a challenge for the restaurants to find room for all of us. Some nights we could sit toget5her all 18, other nights we split. All nights the food was great and so was the people :-)

Händel's Water Music

Late last night Marta and I want to an outdoor concert, as part of the St Olav Festival. The Trondheim Symphonic Orchestra played music by Händel, Suitr nr 1, F major and Suite nr 2, D major - his Water Music and from his Music for the Royal Fireworks.

The concert was on the edge of the river Nidelven. We sat on tribunes right outside hotel Rica Nidelven, the orchestra sat on a kind of raft in the river. It was a wonderful feeling sitting outdoors untill almost midnight surrounded by this beautiful music. Marta wrapped herself in two  warm jackets, the Norwegian summer night can be pretty chilly, and lied down on the bench behind me fully enjoying the music.  And from time to time she squeezed my arm to let me know she wanted another piece of chocolate :-)

She sat up though when the fireworks started. It was great, and perfectly timed with the music.

The Norwegian summer nights are not only chilly,  but also light, so we are not used to fireworks other than at New years Eve. But it is becoming more and more popular here also during the whole year.

The Festival goes on for a few days more. But I will not take part in any more arrangements. I have only one day left at work, and then early Friday morning, at 6.20am our plane leaves for Oslo and then Rome. We are looking forward to 2 1/2 weeks in Italy!