An Extra Holiday

On Friday, 15 July, my brother went back home to Karlstad again - without me. As a sort of transition, before he left, we went for a walk downtown - my usual walk along the river - and had lunch at the restaurant in the Park. Then walked back a slightly different route (seeing a bit more of the park); and when we got back, he logged out of his parking app (if you're wondering what he's doing in photo 3), stepped into his car - and was gone.  

Felt a bit empty at first after he left, after having spent a whole week together!

Three weeks later, I'm asking myself what I've been doing since I came back home... Feels like the answer is: Making the most of a one week holiday by afterwards spending three more weeks blogging about it!

The Upside of that (or Downside, depending on how one prefers to look at it?) is that I don't really have much else of interest to catch up with now - as blogging about three weeks of post-holiday blogging would seem rather superfluous... ;-)

I did have one Extra Holiday during those weeks, though - which also generated some Extra Photos:

On Thursday, 28 July, my friend E and I went on a one-day (or half-day) road trip to some touristy places out of town - but not too far away.

Our first stop was at an old mill that has recently been turned into a popular countryside café. We had lunch there, and as it was a nice day, were able to sit outside in their garden.

Our second stop was at Torpa Stenhus, a well-preserved medieval castle near lake Åsunden.

The first stone house was built around 1470 as a fortress against the Danes.The staircase tower was added in the middle of the 16th century. The castle has a well-preserved Renaissance interior  (we didn't go inside on this occasion, though - they only show the house on guided tours). The castle is best known as the home of the noble family Stenbock: Catherine Stenbock was the third and last consort of King Gustav I of Sweden, back in the 1500s.

View from down by the lake

There's a restaurant in this old barn; but as we had just eaten, we didn't go in there either.

Another popular destination nearby is Hofnäs Herrgård, an old manor. It's mentioned already in documents from 1526. The manor house burned down in 1924 but was rebuilt according to the old drawings. Since the 1960s the estate belongs to the City of Borås and is a popular recreation area, with a restaurant/café up in the manor house (we had tea/coffee there), a large park area, and a little beach down by the lake.

There are also little arts & crafts shop at both Torpa and Hofsnäs. I had not intended to buy anything, but we both enjoy having a look around in those kinds of shops... In this case, with the result of me falling in love with a little owl, who got to come home with me...

 

 
I put him on the window sill for the photograph, to give you an idea of his size. He's rather heavy and compact for his size, though - made of concrete, rather than ceramics.

Lakeside Views, Canal and Locks

Thursday, 14 July - and time to go back home (for me) to Borås.

On our way out of Karlstad, on my request, we drove down to one of the beaches along Lake Vänern - Skutberget. I was glad to see it hadn't changed much.

We drove down on along the west side of Lake Vänern this time, and stopped for lunch (and a short stroll down to the marina) in a small town, Åmål. 

(We had lunch indoors, as there were threatening rain clouds hovering above...)

We also made a short stop at a countryside church along the way - at Tösse - mostly just to stretch our legs a bit. 

"Glory to God on High"

(side chapel)

A somewhat unusual display of old chandeliers
in the cloak room (lol)

We also made a stop in Trollhättan, the town where we were born and grew up. Last time we were there, in 2015, it was raining all day. This time, we seemed to have left the rain behind us in Åmål. So we found our way down to the locks, walked around for a bit, and had an ice cream in the café there before entering the last leg of the journey. 

Trollhättan was founded on the river Göta älv, at the Trollhättan Falls. The site was first mentioned in literature from 1413. --- Utilization of the river falls was the first important business activity in the area. From the Middle Ages milling and sawing operations have been conducted where the city center is now located. For centuries, Trollhättan Falls was an obstacle for boats travelling the river, until a lock system was built (1795-1800). --- It has since been updated several times, and the present locks were finished in 1916.

 

 

 

 

Old locks - much narrower than the later ones.

 

 

 

Leaving Trollhättan, we drove through the village outside town where we used to live, but didn't stop (we revisited there too in 2015). But we drove past our old house and I managed to snap a photo through the car window. (You only see part of it here, though - there's an extension on the other side.)

 

Typical countryside landscape on the outskirts of that village.

Next stop wasn't until the village outside Borås, where our parents lived in their retirement years (and where our dad grew up). We visited our family graves in the churchyard there...

 

 

 

... and then also drove down to a spot near a beach by the lake, from where we could get a sneak peek at our old house, across the railway...

With lots of trees taken down both in the garden and along the railway since 'our' time, they must have proper lake view from there these days - which we never really did (surrounded by tall hedges and trees). One was also never able to see that much of the house from across the railway in the past. With a large conservatory added now, it looks huge! And it's being repainted. (Well, the house has seen some changes before in its lifetime... The original smaller house was built by my grandfather in 1930 - dark brown in colour back then, and still in my early childhood. Then for a while it was yellow but with the top of the gables brown. Then extended to double size in the early 1990s by my parents, and all yellow.) 

The views down by the lake still look pretty much the same as always, though! :)

Forests, Trolls, more Art, and another Church

 Wednesday, 13 July

 

For my last day in Värmland, I suggested a drive to Arvika, and an art museum there which I'd visited once or twice in the past - but long ago, and not with my brother. As he's the driver, I left the planning of how to get there to him. To drive via Årjäng may have been intentional - but an extra detour across the border to Norway was not... (I've roughly marked our route - as it turned out - on the map above.)

As we planned to have lunch at the museum in Arvika, we only made a short stop in Årjäng to say hello to the Great Big Troll that lives there. It's 8 m high and the feet measure 3,5 m. (Kids can slide down its tail behind its back.)

 I also spotted a mural of another troll-like creature - and I'm still wondering about the golden key!

We had happened to park our car near a mysterious building, reminding of a Roman palace -  probably an old cinema - and when we got back there, there was also a rather posh car parked right in front of it, begging for attention from my camera...

That's about as much as we saw of Årjäng, before driving on - as we thought - towards Arvika. The way there just seemed to get longer and longer, though - until suddenly, to our surprise, we found ourselves crossing the border to Norway. And that - as I already said above - was not in the plan! We were driving without GPS because my brother had problems with the battery in his phone; and we must have taken a wrong turn somewhere - probably already when leaving Årjäng... Luckily, I did have my Swedish road atlas in my 'car bag' - and for the rest of the trip, I kept that open on my lap, double-checking every turn! ;-)

After some further adventures on small roads through the Wermlandian forests...

... we finally did arrive at Rackstadmuseet in Arvika, in the middle of a rain shower...
(I took the exterior photos later, when we left, rather than on our arrival.)

We started our visit with having lunch in their café, before doing anything else!

From the Museum's web site:

The activities of Rackstad Museum have their origin in the artist Christian Eriksson, whose father ran a small farm and a furniture business. 

The Rackstad colony was a group of friends, all artists – including Gustav and Maja Fjæstad, Bjorn Ahlgrensson and Fritz Lindström - who were active in the area around the turn of the century 1900.

The driving force for young artists of the time was a nationalistic romantic longing for nature and the environment and costumes of country folk, as well as a search for light, darkness and sadness. Another important reason for living in a rural area was the opportunity for cheap accommodation and access to food.

Rackstad museum combines local art history and craftsmanship with contemporary art and craft - locally, nationally and internationally.

Bottom left: Girl by water. Oil 115x178 cm by Gustaf Fjaestad.

Värmland/River Klarälven, landscape by Fritz Lindström (1922)

 

Diana. Sculpture by Christian Eriksson (1912)

Paintbox that belonged to the artist Ture Ander;
and his painting of Lake Racken from 1942.

 

Winter, 1917 - Oil 107x145 cm by Gustaf Fjaestad
(scanned from postcard)

Cupboard by Carl Westman. Copper/tin items by Lisa Morell.

More rain hit us on our way back to Karlstad, and cut our next stop shorter than intended.

In Brunskog, there is an outdoors museum of old buildings, where in summer they also show and deomonstrate various old-fashioned arts and crafts - especially during one week of a big event known as Gammelvala = 'The Old World'.  That was not the same week as my Värmland holiday, though; and considering the weather, we gave the old cottages a miss, and just went up to have a look at the church.

 It's a beautiful church, and I have memories of attending a friend's wedding there once.

 

From there, straight back home - to a nice warm cup of tea!

It's quite common here these days to find special tea-blends in the souvenir shops at famous places, and that's a kind of souvenir we both enjoy buying on our trips - to prolong the holiday feel into the autumn... These are the three that I bought on this trip. To the left, a black blackberry tea from Rottneros Park. In the middle, a green tea with strawberry and lime, from Mårbacka. To the right, a red bush (rooibos) tea with bergamot and lime from the Rackstad Museum.