On Wednesday morning, 9 August (not too early), we set off on our two days trip to the west coast. Basically we had a choice of two roads to get from here to where we wanted to go. To avoid going into Gothenburg (2nd largest city in Sweden), P decided on the upper, slightly longer route via Alingsås, which would take us via the northern outskirts. Turned out a wise choice, also because of the heavy rain flooding some places in the southern parts of Gbg. (When we reached the E6 motorway along the coast, we met a long queue standing still in the other direction, towards the city...)
I think this is probably from where we joined the motorway... (12:12)
(12:48) Crossing the bridge over to the island Tjörn.
Half an hour later, we had arrived at our first destination, Skärhamn, and Nordiska Akvarellmuseet (The Nordic Watercolour Museum). Because of rain and wind and umbrellas and whatnot, I seem to have missed getting a photo of my own of the building from the outside. But here is one I 'snipped' from their website:
We were hungry by then, so started our visit by having lunch in their restaurant. It was rather full but luckily we did not have to wait too long to get a table.
We both chose "fish and chips". They also had "child's portion" of this dish on the menu (at a lower price) and I was bold enough to ask if I could have that even though I was clearly not a child... (The thing is, I hardly ever manage to finish a full "normal" restaurant portion of anything, so always end up leaving a lot on the plate when eating out.) I could, and the small portion was certainly big enough for me, even though it was delicious!
Having finished our lunch, we were ready for our tour of the museum. I have to confess I was a little bit disappointed with it, as I had expected them to also have a permanent exhibition of what the name suggests - i.e. works by Nordic water colour artists. Turned out that they constantly change their exhibitions though, and not all that much of what was on display just now was typical water colour paintings. (Had I studied their website more carefully beforehand, I would have known that, but when planning the trip I mainly just checked opening hours etc.) Worth a visit anyway of course - even if it did not quite live up to all my expectations...
Their exhibition this summer is called Animal Kingdom, and the first room we entered had this impressive installation of a gazillion brown butterflies...
They also had on display 18th century botany books with drawings/water colours of plants by the famous Swedish botanist Carl von Linné (Linnaeus in Latin) (and maybe some others as well).
Systema Naturae is one of the major works of the Swedish botanist, zoologist and physician Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) and introduced the Linnaean taxonomy. (Link to Wikipedia article.)
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| Walton Ford, La Madre, 2017 |
In one room there were some really huge paintings (I doubt they were water colour). The one above was the one that I liked the best. It was hard to snap photos as the museum was crowded and there were lots of people everywhere all the time.
Another room was filled with weird-looking sculptures. The room was dark with the light (spotlights) shifting all the time. Below is the only shot I managed:
It was still rainy and windy outside when we got out of the museum. I managed a few more photos of the marina on our way back to the car, though. (15:05)
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14 comments:
Still a beautiful setting, despite the grey skies and rain.
Oh how disappointing to not get to see more of the watercolor collection. But to see real Linne' paintings would certainly give me chills!
the butterflies are pretty spectacular, just being out of your flat and with your brother and in an other city, not at home was worth it all... the food looks good to me. My friends mother and father used to order one plate for both of them, and an extra plate and divide it. neither of them could eat all that the portions were. child plate was perfect.
This was certainly worth the visit; it is all wonderful! Look at the claws on that bear. And all those bats are a bit creepy. But my favorite is the running bird! He looks to be maybe clay or paper mache'. Your lunch looks wonderful! Here, there are some restaurants that will not give you an item on the child's menu unless it is really for a child.Idiots!
I hope you weren't too disappointed in the museum, having travelled so far. You got a great shot of that weird running bird. but I think that bear would have freaked me out. I find it's always hard to get good photos in museums. They certainly don't have photographers in mind when they set out their exhibits, do they?
In some restaurants here, nowadays they offer not only a children's portion (Kinderteller), but also a Seniorenteller - smaller portion for "the elderly" (or whoever wants to leave room for a dessert or simply knows they can't finish a regular portion).
If possible, I usually go for the smaller portions, too. If not, someone (O.K.) has to help me :-)
The museum shows some unusual exhibits.
Linné - how wonderful to see some of his work for real!
JayCee, that's why I/we still wanted to go through with the trip in spite of the weather :)
Barbara, I was indeed impressed by the huge old books. But of course they were all displayed like the one in my photo - in glass cabinets, dim light, and only one page/illustration in each visible.
Sandra, I am glad we did get to make this trip - especially since I kind of doubt I'll be making it again.
Ginny, they were butterflies, not bats :) But yet, still a bit creepy because of being that many... I agree the bird was probably paper maché. - Whether one can order a child portion (or half a portion) at restaurants here varies a bit, I think. (But I thought, no harm in asking... Seems such a waste to be served a lot more than one will actually eat.)
Pauline, I would not have wanted to miss the opportunity to visit that museum even if I had somehow got the idea in my head that they would also have a more permanent exhibition of Nordic water colours. As for photography, I agree that's always tricky in museums. Probably because the exhibitions are set up for the "here and now" experience rather than for amateur photographers! ;)
Meike, "Seniorenteller" sounds like a good idea. (Another place we came across offered "half" portions of some dishes without age limit - while yet another menu that we saw clearly stated that child portions were for children only.)
Like you, I can't eat a 'full' portion especially as the traditional Scottish approach still has remnants of the 'more is best' approach. Where we go for our Last of the Summer Wine Club lunches they do full and half portions at lunchtime and I still occasionally struggle with the half portion.
The art gallery looked singularly disappointing from my point of view.
Graham, with my expectations based on the name 'Nordic Water Colour Museum' I was disappointed as well. Had they instead just called themselves for example Skärhamn Art Gallery, my mind would probably have been more open to whatever happened to be on display!
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