Caffe Avec

At Oslo airport

@brittarnhild

I´ve been in Oslo today for a meeting.
Down in the morning, back again in the afternoon.

And look what happened at the airport :-)

 

Coco Chalet in Oslo, the day after Mr President left

On my way to the Climate Meeting in Copenhagen, I spent a Saturday morning in Oslo. Not actually being a shopper, well at least not for anything which is not books :-), I rather sit down in a cafe or two, or four......... At luchtime I knew where to go; Coco Chalet. And when I saw they have fish soup on their menu, I didn't need to read further.

Some years ago a friend of mine wrote Around the World With 80 Fish Soups (sorry, in Norwegian only). Since I read the book, I've always been looking for fish soups while traveling. I've tasted different ones around the world, and almost always love what I get. This one at Coco Chalet must be among the top 10, rich, tasty, filled with sea food.

Coco Chalet is a small restaurant downtown Oslo, with a worn charm I adore. I love to come here from time to time, alone or with friends. For just a cup of coffee, or for a whole meal. This time I was alone, I came from a bookstore where I had filled up my bookbag with travel books and I had reading time at hand. A perfect combination.

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Link to other food&travel posts   

 

Caffe Avec....at Halvorsen's Konditori in Oslo

I knew I had more than one hour in Oslo this morning before my meeting started. Before leaving Trondheim I packed my diary and decided to find a coffee house where I could sit down and enjoy life just the way I do in coffee houses - sipping coffee, eating something sinful, writing, reading.

 I had planned to go to Grand Hotel and the old, very charing place where we took Marta during our Oslo days last summer. But when I came it was still breakfast time for the hotel guests, not open for ordinary coffee house guests untill 11, which would be too late for me.

Well, what was I to do then? I passed several coffee houses, but they were all new and modern, and I was completely in a mood for something more of an old style.........

Suddenly I remembered a place behind Stortinget (The Parliament) where I have been once or twice years ago. Halvorsens Conditori.

It was open, it had the perfect style for me, and as it was still early, it was quiet. No problem to find a window table.

To celebrate the day and the birthday's of two friends (one in Trondheim, one in Venezia), I bought the most sinful cake I could find. After all it was already almost 5 hours since breakfast......

 Eating, drinking coffee, writing.......and reading from the book I had bought just minutes before, Paul Theroux's The Pillars of Hercules.

"People here in Western civilization say that tourists are no different from apes, but on the Rock of Gibraltar, one of the Pillars of Hercules, I saw both tourists and apes together, and I learned to tell them apart......." Paul Theroux