A few small trips ...
... to meet family
Quote of the week
“Gothenburg is a clean and spacious town, and since it was built by Dutchmen it has canals running through all the streets.”
Mary Wollstonecraft, 1795
Hello,
I have been to a few small trips here in Sweden. A nice break from quiet life at home.
Gothenburg
Gothenburg is the second biggest city in Sweden, and I don’t know it at all. I went there a couple of times many, many years ago to pick up a Volvo car for postings abroad. I decided it would be a good idea to spend a couple of days there to find out more about the city. My son said he could come down from Oslo if I went over the weekend, so I did. We are mid April but the weather this year has been appalling, and it continued.
I booked a hotel just opposite the station so easy to get to, once I found the right direction. It is a Radisson Blu hotel and it was very good. The only thing was that on Friday evening they had After Work at the hotel and from 6 - 10 p.m. there was terribly loud disco music. Even my son said it was impossible to eat our evening meal there. Unfortunately, it continued, in a less loud mode until 1 a.m. Hannes found a nice Asian restaurant though, not far from the hotel so dinner was saved.
On the Saturday I went to the City Museum to get some bearing on the history of the city. The quote above is true, the city is full of canals, and must be very beautiful in the summer. Hannes, unfortunately, not interested in history at all, walked around the city to have a look. The museum was very interesting and the history of the city was divided into five ages: from around 10.000 B.C. to 500 A.D., the Viking Age, generally timed to 793 - 1050 (or 1066 with the battle of Hastings), 17th, 18th and 19th centuries. As usual these days, museums tend to present their finds in a very nice way. You can’t talk about dusty, old museums anymore. The exhibitions were all very well done, and the museum is situated in the house that once was the headquarter of the Swedish East India Company. It took me about three hours to go through all of it.
Time to meet up with Hannes in a nice, old fashioned café, or patisserie, or, maybe, tea-room with old style interiors. Coffee and pastry tasted very good. Back to the hotel for a short rest, before heading out for dinner. Hannes had invited me for a birthday dinner, so I was quite excited to see what he would come up with. It turned out to be a real gourmet restaurant with mainly game on the menu. The restaurant is called Pivo, which in Russian, and Polish at least, means beer. We started with a glass of champagne, chose our food, and a glass of red wine to go with it. Hannes ordered a duck dish and I, a game burger. All of it excellent. No good dinner without a dessert. Icecream, berries and crumbles, just melted in the mouth.
Sunday was a very windy day so we spent the few hours we had before our departures with a little bit of shopping. A quick lunch at the hotel and then we headed for the bus and train.
Växjö
A couple of days later I headed towards Växjö. My mother died just before Christmas and is buried there. She was cremated, and the actual burial of the ashes, which is done by the church without relatives, was done in mid March. She rests in a memorial grove and I went there to visit and put some flowers there. It is a beautiful place, with a small pond and fountain built out of stones. Around there you can put flowers. There were so many flowers in so many different colours and they really lit up the grey, rainy day it was. It is so peaceful.
I stayed with my aunt and uncle and the next day we took the car to go to the areas where my mother grew up. It is deep in the forests of Småland. One is overwhelmed by all the trees, mostly needle trees making the forest very compact. In between fields of grass and leave trees open up the area. There are lakes everywhere making it so beautiful. You can swim in most of them. We stopped here and there, partly for memories, but also discovering new things, like a very old church, inside built with wood with wonderful paintings on the walls; burial grounds from the Viking age, and and old plague cemetry in the middle of the forest. The people were victims from the last plague in Sweden which took place in the beginning of the 18th century. It seems the forest keeps a lot of secrets.
My blog this week
Not so much has been happening here, but two posts.
As you know, we went to Sweden last year and met the boys in Göteborg. What a beautiful city. Your experiences seem to be just the same as ours.
The only difference was the hotel, I guess. We stayed close to where Philip lived while studying in Göteborg, it wasn't directly in the middle of the town but with a tram in front of the house, it was almost as good. And it was quiet. So, if you ever want to go back to Göteborg, I can recommend the Spar Hotel Majorna.
Two very lovely journeys, one a celebration, one a poignant step into the dear past. I love that you do these getaways now and then. Happiest birthday, if belatedly. Your celebration with Hannes sounded delicious and especially good time with you dining companion. I love visiting spots from my parents' pasts, as you did with your aunt and uncle. It sounds very good, Lisbeth.