Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

New artists in Stockholm

@brittarnhild

I had the best intentions to blog every day from Stockholm, I really had. But then there were so much to explore, we actually ending up leaving the hotel right after breakfast, not coming back till late night, diving into bed, exhausted. The sun was shining, spring was in the air, Stockholm is beautiful, we walked miles and miles every day and I did not want to miss one minute.

One day we took the tube and then a tram out to Lidingö to visit Millesgården Museum, an amazing place which originally was the home of the artists Carl and Olga Milles. A sculpture park, an art gallery, a unique collection of antiques and art both outdoors and indoors.

The garden, the sculpture park, the artists´home was great, I could walk there for hours, but we were also lucky that the art gallery had a display of photographs by Madame Dra, Dora Kallmus (1881-1963) She had a studio in Vienna and later in Paris and being a pioner female artist photographed a vide range of subjects and made her studio into a fashionable meeting place. When I posted the above photo, of Joséphine Baker, on Facebook it was deleted, due to nudity :-)

A portrait of Collette, a French writer. I was introduced to her through one of Frances Mayes´books.

And here is.......
.......well, who is this?

 

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I have made a video with the title Postcards from Stockholm.
Enjoy!

 

 

Postcards from Stockholm

@brittarnhild

 

Celebrating in Sweden

@brittarnhild

We are in Stockholm to visit Torgeir. Yesterday, May 17th, was Norway´s Constitutional Day, a day for huge celebrations. It is a red calendar day in Norway, and everyone are out in the streets, watching the children´s parades, the people´s parades, the brass bands and the flags, eating icecreams and icecreams and icecreams.

We knew that there would be a big celebration in Stockholm, Sweden as well, as there are many Norwegians living here. We did not know that the Stockholm celebrations was the biggest one in the worlds outside Norway.

Do you think we will be able to meet Kamilla? I said.
There will be thousands of people, Torgeir said.

Kamilla is a girl, well, woman now, which I used to look after when she was a child. I have not seen her in years.

I will look for her, I said.
There will be thousands of people, Torgeir said.

I will look anyway, I said.......

.......and there she was. With her fiancé, smiling, hugging, telling is that she and Espen would get married in a week.

 

 

 

We took part in the parades (the flower picture you see is because we went to the botanical gardens earlier in the day, and I have no idea how to let YouTube know which image I want to be shown.......)

 

And then we went to buy a wedding present :-)

 

Rosendal Trädgård, the botanical garden in Stockholm

@brittarnhild

When we visited Stockholm and the botanical gardens at Rosendal in March, it was still very early in the seasons, and nothing much were growing yet. I was pretty excited to come back this time, in the middle of August.

What a difference!
Now the colours were sparkling everywhere.

Like a hungry bee I dived into the colour and fragrance feast. Drinking it all, the best I could.

Rosendal is best known for its ecological growth of vegetables, fruits, herbs and flowers.

The plant shop was full of "sweets". How I wish I could take some home.
But as we travel by plane, from one country to another, it was no option.

Ideas do cross the borders though :-)

 

A tale of Life and death

@brittarnhild

Skogskyrkogården (the Forest Cemetery) is an outstandingly successful example of a designed cultural landscape which blends landform and natural vegetation with architectural features to create landscape that is ideally suited to its purpose as a cemetery.
The creation of Asplund and Lewerentz at Skogskyrkogården established a new form of cemetery that has exerted a profound influence on cemetery design throughout the world.
UNESCO´s justification 1994

 

In between thousands of graves and huge old pines, bird boxes were hung.

There were no information,

and since we write August, there were no birds in them.

I closed my eyes,

and saw and old widower.

His wife had been a lover of all birds though her life.

With her death, all the birds had left their garden.

Now, in his loneliness, he spent long days and nights making bird boxes,
and every time he came to see the woman he loved though life and death, he hung a new box in the forest where her grave was.

 

 

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Skogkyrkogården is situated a few metro stops south of Stockholm city.



 An amazing place, well worth a visit.

 

Sandhamn, way out in the Stockholm archipelago

@brittarnhild

Torgeir was waiting for us at the metro station this morning. Just the way I love to see him. With a book.
He had planned the day for us.

A bout trip deep out into Stockholm´s archipelago,

to the island Sandøy and the village Sandhamn. Famous for its murder series, The Sandhamn Murders.

Our day had absolutely no murder in it, but was as quiet, serene and beautiful as it could be.

We started with lunch, local herring for me,

before we started to stroll around for a few hours.

What an absolutely charming place.

One place better than the last wherever we looked.

Before taking the boat back to the city,

we sat down with coffee, waffles, cream, ice cream and strawberries,

and told ourselves that we will be back.

And next time we will stay the night.

 

A new way of eating, or?

@brittarnhild

Terje and I flew down to Stockholm this morning. It is a 1 1/2 hours plane ride. Torgeir, our oldest son, lives here, and we are spending the weekend with him.

On the plane I was reading from Anthony Bourdain´s book "A Cook´s Tour". Do you know Anthony Bourdain? He is a well known chef, well, more than that, he has been noted as one of the most influential chefs of the world. In A Cook´s Tour he tells tables full of food tales from his travels around the world. A very adventurous, brave, eater and traveller.

Eating adventurous is always part of the game when we are with Torgeir. I am sure some of you remember the basement garage dinner he took us to the last time we were in Stockholm.

I know there will be great meals this time also, and the start was a treat. Probably not new to most of you, but arriving at the main station in Stockholm, leaving the airport bus, walking over to the metro which would take us to the AirB&B we have rented, we stopped to have sushi. Picking out food as it came down the line, like trains on a kid´s train set.

I loved it.
Like a girl in a toy store.

 

A pop-up restaurant in Södermalm

@brittarnhild

"For lunch I want to take you to my favorite Japanese restaurant" Torgeir told us, "but for dinner I have somethink completely different in mind. There is a brewery basement storeroom which is turned into a pub every Friday night, and once in a while a friend of mine, Danny, and another guy, make this a pop-up restaurant."
Torgeir knew we would never in a million years find this place by ourselves, so he wanted to make it a very special adventure for us.

We could not refuse of course, and bravely followed Torgeir down into the dark storeroom.

Down there Torgeir took us to the temporary kitchen where Danny and his friend were busy with the very last preparations for the night´s dinner. Danny told Torgeir that last time they had the restaurant open, it was so popular they had ran out of food in less than two hours. They did not want this to happen again, so both of them having regular jobs as well, had been up all night the night before, making sure they made enough sausages.

"Look here!" Danny´s friend proudly shows us the homemade sausages.

Homemade sausage, coleslaw and a sweet potatoe salad, all washed down in the brewery´s beer. Well, Torgeir was right, we would never find this place on our own, and if we by chance would happen to pass by we would never go down. But.......WE LOVED IT! We loved the adventure, the atmosphere, the chance to experience a little bit of Torgeir´s life in Stockholm, and last but not at all least - WE LOVED THE FOOD!

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Torgeir has a travel blog which you can find here:
TravelTorgeir

 

Workers in Gamla Stan, the Old Town in Stockholm

@brittarnhild

 

Torgeir had work to do on Friday morning. Terje and I stay in a very charming little AirB&B in Gamla Stan, the old medieval part of Stockholm, and spent the morning strolling around here. The main streets and the market place can be cramped with tourists, and very busy, but turn a left here, a right there, pass the school yards where happy children are playing, and soon you find yourself almost set in another century.

As so often when travelling, I found myself enjoying the work of the lokal workers. Like these tow men doing the precise and time consuming work of setting the old cobblestones.

And when the cobblestones are set, they must of course be kept clean.

Or the more brave men (?), who work up in the sky.......

As our walk went on, Gamla Stan woke up, and soon it was time for our first coffee of the day.......

.......but that´s another post, and may be even another blog :-)

 

The weekend with Torgeir

@brittarnhild

In January our oldest son Torgeir moved to Stockholm, the capital of Sweden. You can fly directly from Trondheim till Stockholm in about one hour and 20 minutes, and that´s what Terje and I did after work yesterday.

Torgeir met us when we arrived, and on the way to our AirB&B in the Old Town, Gamla Stan, we stopped at a food court to have something to eat.

I had never been to a consept like this food court before. A lot of tiny little kitchens making food from different countries. You could sit down anywhere you found chairs and a table, and order from whatever kitchen you wanted.

We started with Chineese dumplings and then went over to Thai baguettes.

 

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More posts from Stockholm will come.