The further we travel on this journey through life, the more
alarmingly time accelerates. This has been a year packed with experiences and
adventures and it is almost over before we have had much time to contemplate
the many things we have done. After all the activity, some of it relaxed, other
things a bit frenetic, with most week’s governed to an extent by the need to
publish our weekly MENU to a growing band of readers. It has been a year with
many highlights, most of which we have covered in MENU, which many of you will
have had the opportunity to see.
As we are used to telling our stories in the form of photo
essays, we will tell you this in the same format.
John has earned a little money for quite a few years by “starring”
in advertisements, none of them for local consumption. This year started with
riding a vintage motor cycle in a TV advertisement for Sun Life of Canada with
5 brave souls (3 of them in this pic, including our friend Loraine on the right)
riding on his shoulder – trying to sell life insurance to senior citizens. Safely
bolted to the floor with a huge screen behind to show the moving landscape. Silly,
but it paid quite well.
As always, our year has been full of events round the food
and wine industry, most pretty happy and we’ve had a huge variety of food, some
very ordinary and some wonderful like this Japanese dinner at Kyoto Garden Japanese
restaurant
We enjoyed the use of three successive VW Sharan MPVs during
the last 13 years and, sadly had to say goodbye to the last of them when
maintenance costs for a hard-used vehicle with a quarter of a million
Kilometres behind it became too heavy. So we said a sad goodbye and bought something
much smaller and enormously more economical: A VW Golf Sportsvan. Great to
drive, very comfortable with more “toys” than we could have imagined and saves
us about R1000 per month in fuel costs
We decided, some time ago, that we would take an interesting
trip each year, usually to a place either or neither of us has visited before.
In 2015 it was Turkey and Greece, last year Hong Kong and Vietnam. This year we
took a road trip to Scandinavia. John lived in Oslo at the end of the 60s and
Lynne had never been north of Holland, so we flew to Amsterdam, rented a car –
the manual VW Golf we ordered was unavailable but “would we mind having this automatic
Opel Estate with Satnav? – very comfortable, and drove to our friends Peter and
Yvonne in Wieringerwaard, a pretty village in North Holland, where we stayed
with them,
being royally spoiled for a few days and exploring the area
with them
Then off we went, first to Hamburg, in the rain
where a highlight was the bombed St Nicolai Church tower and
museum, a memorial to the folly of war and where acrophobic Lynne gathered all
her courage and took the lift to the top of what was once the tallest steeple
in the world to take in the views over the city and the harbour
Most of Hamburg was destroyed in the horrific fire storm
caused by the Operation Gomorrah bombing raid in July 1943. An old Yiddish
curse, “May you get what you wish for” is perhaps appropriate. The rulers of Nazi
Germany wished for revenge on the victors of WW1 and brought horrific
retribution on themselves for what they unleashed on the cities of Britain and
Europe. Hamburg has been rebuilt and brilliantly restored, but one perceives
that it is in many ways a memorial reflecting the idiocy and horror of war.
From Hamburg, we drove the short distance to Flensburg near the
Danish border, where we stayed overnight in a very disappointing AirBnB (in the
rest of the trip, they were pretty good to excellent)
and drove up through Denmark to København. We only spent
enough time there to take a canal trip, visit the Tivoli Gardens and see a
little of the city centre, our goal being to spend a week in Oslo, so spending extended
time in other places en route would have made the trip longer than the nearly 4
weeks at our disposal.
In this photograph, John’s credit card is being used for the
last time to buy us a couple of beers (in South African money, R90 for 500ml).
After the canal trip, we took a very crowded bus for the
short ride to the station (should have walked, but we were tired) and when we
reached the station, John discovered that his pocket had been picked and his
wallet was gone – cards, driver’s licence, ID card etc. So next stop was to the
very efficient police to report the theft. Apparently it happens often, they
blame the Gypsies. Like all the cities we visited, Copenhagen is full of
refugees from points south and east. Thankfully, Lynne’s cards were safe, so we
could continue.
We spent a few evening hours in Tivoli, but the prices were
exorbitant for very ordinary food (Wiener schnitzel, fish and two beers came to
DKK549, plus 10% tip = R 1160), so we decided to go to our digs and have a
picnic supper – we travel with a good supply.
A small highlight in Copenhagen was seeing this sign in a
side street advertising JP Colmant’s Cap Classique bubbly at the bargain price
of R358. It sells for R230 from the farm so, from a European perspective, this
is a very good price. In comparison, this Shiraz from Riebeek Winery sells for
R90 from the winery and was R560 in a Dutch restaurant
In the afternoon, from Copenhagen, we drove a short distance
north to our next AirBnB on a farm near Helsingør (Hamlet’s Elsinore) and, the
next day, visited Kronborg castle and then took the 11Km ferry ride across the Øresund
strait to Helsingborg in Sweden
A four hour drive through the Swedish countryside took us to
our overnight accommodation in a wooden cabin near Varberg, rustic but
comfortable with all the mod cons we needed but no modern communications; a
real get-away-from-it-all. Here you can see part of our travel arrangements;
each of our suitcases leaves home with a 3 litre box of white wine. It means
that we can have a sundowner at the sort of price we are used to. Our cases
aren’t large, we travel light, but we do make room for essentials!
Next stop was Oslo, after a confusing drive through Göteborg
where the motorways had changed but the SatNav data had not been updated. We
were constantly sent down streets which turned out to be dead ends with the
route we needed just across a barrier. We visited the local Ikea and reached
Oslo in the afternoon. We ended up in a rather insalubrious area looking for
our digs but, fortunately, managed to get our host on the phone and he came and
fetched us. What a lovely surprise. We were in a beautiful modern flat in
Haugerud, overlooking the city and Oslofjord, equipped with every convenience
we could have wished for; our home for 6 nights and a short walk across a
bridge to the tube station
Oslo has changed enormously since John lived there in 1969
and 70. Oil money has brought great development. Public transport is superb and
relatively inexpensive. We bought Oslo Cards for about R300 each (after a 50%
pensioner discount) which gave us full access to buses, trams and trains, plus
a few ferries for a week. Buses, trains etc run on a 10 minute cycle 24 hours a
day, so one seldom waits more than a few minutes. Our car stayed in the flat’s
basement parking for our whole stay. Norway gives a 20% tax rebate to
purchasers of electric cars and you can charge your car at no cost at any
kerbside charging post, so one has never seen so many Teslas and other electric
cars such as Nissans, BMWs, Kias etc.
Some of the attractions have hardly changed. The Norske
Folkemuseet is a collection of historic buildings which were transported, many over
100 years ago, to a park in Oslo and gives a great reflection of rural life in
old Norway. The wooden Stavkirke church is over 800 years old
One of the highlights was visiting
Ivar and Elisabeth Tøsti, John’s friends from his time in Oslo, whom he hadn’t
seen since they lived, briefly, in Johannesburg in the early 70s. They gave us
a lovely dinner, enhanced by an Allesverloren Shiraz. They live in the flat
previously owned by Ivar’s parents, so it was very familiar. We left after
midnight and the trip home by bus and train took only about 30 minutes.
The Viking museum is most impressive. Viking ships from
about 820 to 900AD were unearthed roughly 100 years ago from graves and
rehoused in an elegant vaulted building together with numerous other artefacts
from the Viking age. A great place to spend a rainy afternoon.
Sadly, it rained most of our time in Oslo while the Cape was
experiencing terrific storms. We took a “selfie” of ourselves in the
Studenterlunden park in the middle of Oslo, enjoying a sandwich in light
drizzle
We searched for the photographic studio where John had
worked, found the building, but it was gone. Sadly, we only discovered on our
last day that they had moved to the next block. We went in and spoke to a
lovely lady who turned out to be the wife of John’s former boss Svein Sturlason.
He was at the palace photographing the King at a ceremony, so we missed a
special opportunity. We took a walk up to the Palace anyway and enjoyed a
lovely walk in the beautiful Palace park, full of spring blossoms and birds
And then it was time to leave, so off we went, driving south
through Sweden, with an overnight stop at a pretty farm near Värnamo, south
east of Göteborg and about 450Km from Oslo
From there, it was a short drive to Malmö and the impressive
8Km bridge over the Øresund strait to Sjælland, the island which is home to
Copenhagen, bypassing Copenhagen and driving straight on to Odense island and
our destination for the next couple of days in the country outside Bogense, an
apartment in a house belonging to a school principal
We explored the Bogense district, visiting the local nature
reserve, the town, its harbour and the very pretty surrounding countryside
On the way back to Germany, we stopped in the city of
Odense, Hans Christian Andersen’s home, where his house is preserved as a
museum and the surrounding streets have been kept much as they were in his life
time
After an overnight stop in Kolding, we drove on to Kiel,
where Lynne had found us a superb apartment in a recently renovated Victorian
house. We went in search of U995, one of the last German U Boats, which is
preserved on a beach as a war memorial. We were in luck, it was open to the
public at no charge as part of the German naval Association’s open day, so we
could go aboard and walk through the extremely cramped accommodation
Then a quick visit to Lübeck, home of the world’s best
marzipan and garnted what the French would call “Appelation Controlée” status
by the EU. We stopped at the two most famous marzipan emporiums, bought some
treats and treated ourselves to coffee with the most delicious marzipan cake
ever made
Then it was lickety-split back through Germany and Holland,
with an overnight stop in Germany and a visit to Arnhem to the scene of the
famous battle en route to Schipol. Lynne booked us into the Radisson Blu at
Schipol, where we could take the car back the evening before our daytime KLM
flight home, with a shuttle to the hotel and then back to the airport in
comfortable time to check in the next morning
Then back, as my mother would say, to “old clothes and
porridge”, to Cape Town in the winter, praying for the sort of rain we had in
Europe which never came in the quantities we wished for.
A special celebration of a special life in August; Lynne,
born at the same time as modern India at midnight on 14th August 1947,
celebrated her 70th birthday. We had a fairly small celebration,
about 30 friends and family at home, with mounds of bought in sushi from our
favourite Chinese restaurant, special dishes prepared by the hostess and some
friends and some suitably great wines. Later, we celebrated with lunch at
Foxcroft in Constantia, just the two of us and a bottle of Danie Steytler’s
1947 Chenin blanc, made from vines planted in 1947
Amid all the usual eating and drinking, we had one more
excursion when we were invited to review the historic Lord Milner Hotel at Matjiesfontein
in the Karoo. John had an overnight stay there on honeymoon in the freezing winter
of 1974. Happily, the service, the rooms and the weather were much better than
they had been 44 years previously and we enjoyed a couple of interesting days
there with a brief excursion to the SA Astronomical Observatory at Sutherland
And so, life continues at a merry pace. We’re taking a break
from it all till mid January. A bit of essential domestic maintenance to look
after, Christmas with friends and Clare and then, in early January, a 10 day
break at St Helena Bay on the West Coast. Books, beach, some good food and wine
and valuable R&R.
We’re very proud of Clare. While working with all her responsibilities
as Academic Manager of the SA College of Applied Psychology, she has studied
with great dedication and graduated cum laude with her Bachelor of Social
Science Honours degree in Psychology.
And then it will be back onto the merry-go-round. We are
already receiving invitations for 2018, the most exciting being to the annual
RMB Starlight Concert at Vergelegen in March. And another trip is planned, this
time to Portugal, especially the Douro, and a bit of Spain.
We wish you all a happy Christmas, Hannukah or simply
Festive break and hope that all your wishes for 2018 will be granted
And a huge amount of love
If you would like to have a closer look at our Scaninavian
Odyssey, we published it as a series of blogs: MENU's Scandinavian Odyssey 1. North Holland
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