Britt-Arnhild's House in the Woods

San Miniato, one of "a million" mountain villages in Tuscany

@brittarnhild

After a couple of days with our friends in Pastina, we headed east in Tuscany. Santa Maria a Ferrano, where I have spent Easter the last two years, was our goal. But on the way we needed lunch, and why not stop and explore one of the million mountain villages in Tuscany? Our choice fell on San Miniato. I don´t know why, may be just because I was the map reader, and I loved its name.

As it still was too early for lunch, we hiked up to the top of the town, past the cathedral, up to the tower of the fortress.

Almost too hot to hike under the burning Tuscan sun, but we made it, and was rewarded with an amazing view. Vineyards, hills filled with olive trees, another mountain town here, another mountain town there. A hundred shades of green and smiles full of love in the selfie we took.

San Miniato, situated between Pisa and Florence, is a Slow City, known for its truffles.
Of course we had truffle risotto for lunch. A glass of local white wine for me, sparkling water for the driver.

 

:::::::::::::::::::::::::::

I am not only back here in The House in the Woods, I am also slowly back to updating my other blogs:

Britt Arnhilds naturdagbok, my nature journal

A month without knitting - in maskerade, my knitting blog

 

 

An alabaster workshop

@brittarnhild

Our first days under the Tuscan sun were spent with good friends in their home away from home in a tiny little village just south of Pisa. We arrived on the 28th of June, our 38th anniversary, and celebrated with a lovely Italian dinner out in their garden.

The next day we were ready to explore the area, filled two cars and drove over to Volterra, the hometown of alabaster. On the way we had a stop in Teatro del Silenzeo, outside Lajatico, the hometown of Andrea Bocelli. Bocelli helds a concert in this amphi theatre once every July, the rest of the year the theatre remains silent. The picture of me and Terje was taken outside the theatre.

Volterra is known worldwide because of its alabaster, and the amazing alabaster art.

After lunch on the main piazza in Volterra, Terje and I did a walk, and almost by chance we found an alabaster workshop. Free entrance, and a great possibility to watch this amazing craft.

Our bank would come after us to Tuscany if we tried buying one of the main alabaster pieces of art, I am sure. But luckily, they also sold more simple stuff, still very beautiful, for people like us, and suddenly Terje found his wife with a new nativity and a new Easter egg. With the bank remaining silent.

We left the workshop,

found other treasures,

and had gelato and coffee before heading back to our friends.

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!

:::::::::::::::::::::

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

 

A farmer and his land

@brittarnhild

In Vilaflor, the highest village in Tenerife, and actually in all Spain, with an altitude of 1400meters, an old farmer is patiently tending his land.

 

 

 

 

 

 

::::::::::::::::::::::::::

This year I don´t write email travel letters. But I update three blogs on a daily basic. This one, Blåklokkeveien and Vandring gjennom året.
You are of course welcome to visit them all.

 

 

 

Snow shoes replaced

@brittarnhild

Only two days ago I was toddling around in my snow covered forrest on my new snow shoes. Today I walked barefeet on a warm lava sand beach.

From one end of the beach to the other. Then back again.

Our annual January week in Tenerife is meant to be medicine for my health. And part of it is moving, moving, moving. Like swimming. Like walking.

On my beach walk I met 7 years old Konstantin from St.Petersburg. He was busy building a sand castle.

And I stopped to shot this photo.
Construye un hotel, destruye un paraiso

As a tourist, what can I say? Terje and I love this beach because it is so quiet, so serene. But we come to Tenerife, we stay in a hotel, we are part of the destruction of a paradice.......

At the same time we leave money on the island, making sure we buy local food and local products when possible.

Eating in local restaurants for example.
At lunch time today we drove to a small fishing village where there were few other tourists, but a lot of locals. We had heard that there were amazing fish restaurants here, and while driving through the village in search for parcing, we saw that it had to be true. The locals were out, all on their way to the restaurant street.

The first place we tried was full, and had a long waiting list. Our next try was a lucky one though. We got a table and sat down waiting for the menu. A female waiter came over, started to ask us something. "Can you speak English" we asked. She looked at us, head shaking, and went away to find another waiter. He came, in in a combination of Spanish and English he took us over to the fridge counter. "Let me know what you want" he said and poited out the catches of the day.

We went for fried cabrilla and patata canaria.

And did not regret it!

 

A photo of the table

@brittarnhild

It is time for our annual winter week on Tenerife, the island with eternal spring.
We were up already at 4am this morning, a taxi to the airport, a six hours flight, a bus to Los Alisios, our hotel.......and soon aftewards you could find us near the pool.

An early dinner, well, late according the Norway, very early according to Spain, and as we often do on our first night, we had paella. The waiter was a nice waiter, and when he had served us the paella, he smiled: "A photo of the table" :-)

 

A nice, very clever waiter. A photographer? Well, I am not so sure about that.

His second attempt was a little bit better though ;-)
Or?

 

Wanderlust,

@brittarnhild

Wanderlust.
Once bitten by the bug, it is hard to get the poison out of your body. It is more kind of like the outher way round - I feed the wanderlust, the adventurous spirit with three course meals again and again. I read travel books, I let my fingers follow the paths not yet taken on old and new maps, I dream of all the things I have not yet seen, not yet experienced.

Terje turned 60 in January. An excotiv travel was my gift for him.......

....... and now there are two ready packed suitcases waiting impatiently in the hallway.

Both my Mav Book Pro and my travel diary are packed, so hopefully there will be a few travel tales as we go. Priority this time though has my Norwegian blog Blåklokkeveien.

 

Memories

@brittarnhild

In 1972 I was 14 years old, my brothers were 12, 9 and 2 and my parents were brave! They had bought a caravan the year before and took us on a four weeks roadtrip from Trondheim to Lido de Jesolo, not far from Venezia. The trip has been a family tale for life! I have a lot of vivid memories from the month on the road and in my mind I remember a long list of places we visited. But not every single one of them.

Terje and I took the train from Venezia this morning, up to Lago di Garda, and while we sat at the shore of the lake, waiting for the ferry to take us over to Sirmione, I knew I had seen this place before. I called my mother: "Mom, can you remember if we visited Lago di Garda on our trip? And if we did, do you know where?" "Wait a moment" my mother replied. "I will ask your dad." And he could confirm my memories. We had indeed visited the lake, "the southern part" he said.

Sirmione is situated on the tip of a long peninsula. The main focus is a huge ancient castle. We have been walking around in the town today. We had a swam in the lake.......

.......and we have been watching soccer with the Italians.

First Italy won.

THEN ICELAND!

The chefs let pizza dough be pizza dough and came to the kitchen window to cheer :-)

 

"I think this is a nudist beach"

@brittarnhild

"Look at that old lady. I can´t say she is shy, can I? I was looking over Terje´s shoulder, smiling. "Well, may be not, but have you seen where we are?" Terje replied back to me. It was only then that I looked around and discovered that the beautiful beach we had found was a nudist beach. For seniors!

Well, we kept our swimsuits on and stayed, sunbathing and swimming. And in the end I even loosened the straps of my swimsuit to let my shoulders get some sun. No, I am not stuffy. Not at all :-)

 

First travel of the year

@brittarnhild

We are ready for our first travel of the year. I plan to blog, but inspired by our dear friends in California, Jane and Lanny, I also plan to write travel letters and send them out by email. I am working on an address list now. If you want to receive my travel tales, please let me know at [email protected] and I will add your address.

I hope to write two editions of the tales, one in Norwegian, one in English.

This first travel goes to Tenerife.