@brittarnhild
Saturday night, back at the museum area, where our guesthouse was, there was a lovely performance with music and texts by the Swedish entertainer Povel Ramel.
I remember Ramel from my youth, and as soon as I saw the poster I bought three tickets.
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@brittarnhild
Back in 2008 I visited Vadstena with my colleagues at the diocese administration. I loved it when Torgeir suggested Vadstena as our destination on the Saturday we had together. Vadstena has , as so many Swedish towns, its own castle, it has a pilgrimage center and it has a charming old part of the town. St. Birgitta, a women which has interested me quite a lot, used to live here.
There is a rose which bears St. Birgitta name.
"Wadstena Spetsar" reads the sign. Vadstena used to be a center for making lace. Back in 2008 Elsa Peterson´s shop was open and I bought some beautiful pieces of lace. Now it was closed, but in a nearby antique shop Torgeir bought me some beautiful old pieces of lace.
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@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 :-)
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@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.
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@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.
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@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.
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@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
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@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.
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@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!
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