Hello from Wigeland Park.

The King's intown flat around the corner from our room.

The mad baby in Wigeland Park.

Oslo

So getting back on track, this is the view from our room in Oslo. We were there two nights before catching the train to Bergen. Oslo has lots to see and we saw a lot. The Munch Museum, Weiglund Park, Modern , Contemporary, and Art and Architecture museums. Just walking around and people watching is fun. We had sunny warm weather so everyone was out sitting in the squares, parks, and cafes.

i must digress. Fika!

Okay,

hej, hej, I'm back.

I will get back to the cronological storytelling, but first I must tell you about the most important activity in Sweden. Fika!

If you are going out for the day, you must first plan where you will stop for fika. If you are going somewhere where no convenient fika stop exists, you must bring it with you.

You have förmiddags fika and eftemiddags fika. Let me translate.

You get in the car or walk to town, or whatever and then around 10:00( förmiddags fika)you must stop and fika. You have coffee or tea with something light to eat. Usually the konditori have many lovely cakes, cookies, pastries, or light sandwich choices. You sit and chat and relax for a bit, then you continue on. Klockan 12:00 or 13:00 you stop for lunch, continue on. Klockan 15:00 or 16:00, stop and (eftemiddags fika). Continue on, and then have a light to medium dinner depending on the amount and time of your last fika. Then you guessed it, Kvälls fika.

"When do they work?" you ask. In between fika of course.

So here we are having fika in this amazing place in Åre. This building houses a green house and a chicken coop. The food is all local and the construction is green built.

More on that later. You know it is time for fika! Hej då.

We had a full day driving from Frederiksavn to the very tip of Denmark about 1/2 hour away. We went to the little town of Skagen and the on to Skagen Strand where the two seas meet. Skagen was a and still is a draw for artists. This is a typical house in the village and this is Skagen Yellow.

A
This is a church from the 1300's in Skagen. There used to be more of it. Sometime in the 1700's the sand dunes started to bury it. They finally closed it in the late 1800's because they couldn't fight it any more.

Catching up

These are the last pictures from Bastad. This day, Ingrid and Steve walked along the beach in the other direction. The cliffs were spectacular. I don't think you can tell how high up and steep they are, but its worth a shot. The sheep are especially for Deborah.
We are in Denmark now and I will do another post in a couple of hours with today's pictures. We drove back to Malmo on Wednesday, returned the car and caught a train to Copenhagen where we picked up another car and drove to Frederikshavn. The fields in Denmark are emerald green, flat and rockless. Nary a stone wall in sight.

Goran and Margareta arrived this morning to guide us around this area of Skane. This weekend the artists have an open studio tour. We stopped at many and in between our guides told us much of the history of the area and drove us passed special places and landmarks. We also had formiddags fika, morning coffee, lunch, then eftermiddags fika in Helsingborg at Goran and Margareta's gorgeous apartment. Then our guides brought us back to our liten stuga for our dinner. Tack for i dag!

Scenes from Kullaberg, the point of land beyond Molle.

Lighthouse at Molle.

This is viewing the town of Molle from the road.

We stopped at this beautiful castle to see an art exhibit.

We ended our lovely day with a birthday dinner for Goran.

We took a lovely walk along the coast today. I was looking for watercress here by the stream. Then we stopped at a house to buy smoked fish.

Pretty stream on our walk

Beach we walked today

The fisherman's boat

House of the fisherman who smoked the fish.

Fishermen sheds

Yum!

My people!

Our cottage.

View from our cottage.

Church behind our house.

Flowers in front of our cottoge

Swedish Chickens

We are in Skane (southwest Sweden. On our ride today we saw a wonderful rooster with his hens and just had to show them to you.

Our day in Malmo

Hi all. Here I am in the vintage elevator in our hotel. It is the oldest elevator in Malmo. The following are a slew of pictures we took today. Was a lovely time strolling about. Warm and sunny. Lots of family groups enjoying the day.

Red building from 1300

Buildings from 1300

Some pretty flowers. There are more of today's pictures under older posts.

This family was having their coffee break. Mama, Papa, Grandma, Grandpa, babies. If you zoom in you can see the blankets that the coffee bar provides. They could have sat in the warm green house, but chose to sit in the open. It is about 50.

So the mom of these two babies was in getting cafe en kanilbulla. The grrenhouse behind me has been converted into a dining area. The floor is about four feet down. It was toasty warm

Avandgarde and twisting building called the turning torso. Sweden's tallest building (624 feet) has a 90 degree twist from top to bottom. It is an apartment building.

Yes, a little chicken deprevation therapy.

entrance to Malmo's castle museum