A taste of Vilnius

And what better place to start a post on Vilnius than beautiful Trakai castle from the ground?

Like Denmark, most of the tourists in Lithuania are locals. In fact in order to walk around Trakai castle, which was beautifully restored post Soviet era, we had to ease our way through the background of four wedding parties' photo sessions.  Below is another wedding, I can imagine that tulle and high heels must be a bit uncomfortable for sailing, but hey!

Since we were lucky enough to have the loan of a car we decided to do the 80km driving tour around Vilnius, with an audio guide we'd downloaded on the internet. We figured this should take us 3 hours.

Wrong.

In fact it took 3 days and we didn't even see everything, as each stop was something really interesting: walking paths around the stations of the cross; incredible sundials; botanic gardens; old mills with their own breweries; and of course the television tower, the tragic scene of the uprising against the Soviets in 1991.

Great Lithuanian brew, probably my favourite non-German beer brewing country

Julian in the gardens of the brewery / former mill

The most amazing sundial, I have to make one of these for my garden! The boulders on the ground mark the hours.

Close up of the carvings

Beautiful view out over town centre in the evening just before a storm hit

Julian at the opera, fabulous 

In Talinn we learn a lot about recent history from the Kumu art museum, in Vilnius we learnt it from the KGB/Genocide Museum: we think of the KGB activities as being from another era, Stalin and WWII, in fact it is all very recent. Lithuania only managed to expel the KGB in 1991, up until which point they were still very active in surveillance, wire tapping and the odd torture and execution.  When I think of the German Nazi past I think of it as being a terrible past that is disconnected from our current day, as everyone who was alive and old enough to have been involved in the atrocities is now either dead or celebrating some significant birthdays.  It is quite disconcerting to think that people who committed these crimes against the population are still part of the workforce (case in point, the esteemed Vladimir Putin).

Isn't this a fantastic piece of Soviet architecture???

Anyway I don't like to dwell on the unpleasantness, as Vilnius is a fantastic and very pretty city.

Wherever we go we try to cook local style, so I leave you with a picture of one of our dinners of chanterelle mushrooms, potato dumplings with cream cheese centre and some dill from Justinus' garden.

Lunch flight to Dragsholm Slot

We read a review of this restaurant in the paper in Australia and figured that Cris and Rosi's visit warranted going to a nice restaurant. So we found the nearest airfield (Kalundborg) and landed. Who would have thought how difficult it could be to get a taxi in the country. Luckily Micheal an ex-Danish jet pilot gave us a lift and told us a little about working for the Danish air force and working as a trainer in Texas, which was a fascinating counterpoint to Wolf's experiences in the DDR.

Kalundborg airfield's art

The castle was lovely, as was lunch. We ate in the bistro eatery rather than the gourmet restaurant and had the 3 course set menu. The food was very good, though I had expected more herbs and fresh vegetables in spring. Several of the dishes used a really dry, crumbled chocolate biscuit as an ingredient, which worked surprisingly well.

After lunch the retaurant manager very kindly gave s a tour of the castle, including the bones of a teenage girl who was bricked into a wall for an inappropriate pregnancy by her father. Cris took photographs behind himself as we walked away, but her ghost was not to be seen. We then digested for a while in the rhododendron garden and snacked on a few wild garlic leaves.

Starter of cured salmon, radish and cucumber from the garden, microherbs, wild garlic cheese and toasted breadcrumbs, yum

Dessert of caramel with meringue, crunchy oaty stuff, crunchy chocolate biscuity stuff, sanddorn which have a great acidity to offset the sweetness, and a yoghurt sorbet.  Sorry, too busy eating the main of shredded veal on mashed potato with chocolate crumbs and beetroot to photograph.  According to the very helpful staff we really should go back for a dinner at the gourmet restaurant and this taste of what they can do really tempts me....

Jam ideas from Silke in Neu Brandenburg

My favourite: apple juice infused with elderflower jelly.  (Silke gave me a jar, but it's all long gone 29/5)
Pumpkin and apple.
Elderberry orange and vanilla.
Zucchini and vanilla.
Yum.

A few of my favourite things (in Denmark)

I'm a bit behind with my blogging, but I'm sure you can still notice that we've spent a lot of time in Denmark.  Probably around 6 weeks over 3 separate visits.  So the question is what is so special about Denmark.  In no particular order:

1) The people.  They really are wonderfully kind, interesting and helpful.  Big thanks to Regnar and Eva; Birgitte and Morten; Lars, Catrine and of course Mercedes; Rune; Aasbjoern; Patrick and the many others who have helped make our trip so much fun.

and how could I leave out Legoland???

I could add a lot about the society here, but will attempt to keep it brief.  Kids are treated as humans, and have a lot of fun at school.  They often spend a year at a special school like the one we visited with Rune on Samso where they stay as boarders and get to do lots of really fun courses (parachuting anyone?).  The community looks after its kids with all adults keeping an eye out for the young and provides several great services including areas where youth can hang out with adult supervision with computers for gaming, pool and table tennis tables and karaoke machines.  Most of the local youth seems to spend time at such youth centres and to develop a positive relationship with adults not their own parents.  There are also special morning screenings at the cinema for mothers: the babies are left in their prams outside the cinema with half a ticket stub on them and if they start screaming and staff or other adults can't calm them, the mother will then be found.

6 weeks a year holidays in the public service, plus 2 days per child off to look after them when they are sick.  Fabulous.

2)  Paalaegschokolade.  Really thin slices of chocolate that are eaten on white bread for breakfast.  Nicer than nutella and definitely a smaller portion than what I end up spreading.

3)  Concentrated fruit juice.  You can buy the concentrate and reconstitute it yourself, saving on packaging and transport, brilliant!

This is just the one glass variety you get at conferences, but the same 1:4 principle applies!

4)  The fish.

Julian about to enjoy his platter

5)  The chairs.   We went to some fabulous shops and design museums in Aarhus, Copenhagen and Kolding and discovered that what I have previously found so elusive; furniture that is comfortable, is a given in Denmark and also looks good.  Of course it has an associated price tag, but considering how much time you spend at the dinner table or on the sofa, how could it not be worth it!  I would love to hear your thoughts and inspirations on good and bad furniture buys.

This is not in a design shop, but someone's home.  These fabulous chairs are comfortable sitting up straight or sitting sideways with your legs across the arm.

Comfortable dining chairs, who would have thought of it?

Note the fabulous cast concrete design museum.  Pity the roof leaks!

6)  There are many other great building design elements that I love, but of course I'm looking with the eyes of someone about to build.

Note double sided stove, light shades and my favourite roofing: a mix of saw offcuts and concrete that looks great and absorbs a huge amount of sound.

No more mucky cleaning around the base of the tap and mouldy silicon when your tap comes out of the wall.  The drawers also open themselves when you push against them, great for when you are cooking.

The road to Aarhus, running from the rain.

The forecast weather was rain, rain and more rain.  We'd forgotten Julian's sandals on Morsoe and we wanted to see Orla and his lovingly restored Stinson in Viborg on the way through to Aarhus.  The met office said the weather would set in around midday.  So it was a rush. 

land and dash action

By dint of hurrying a lot were were hardly late at all on our schedule and landed on one of Viborg's two excellently tended grass runways by 10.15am.  The Danes are very hospitable and Orla brought bread rolls and jam (typical Danish breakfast) as well as, you guessed it, a Danish, mmmmm.  Lars and Mercedes made it too.  Lars often looks at Mercedes in conversation and says 'Eh Mercedes' for confirmation and after a while I found myself doing the same, at which Lars looked quizzical, but didn't disturb Mercedes in the slightest.  Due to the weather there was only time for a short chat and a quick trip in each plane.  We now know what they called the Stinson the cadillac of the skies, it hugely comfortable with great controls and even a good view out (unusual for a tail dragger).  Lars' plane is one he built himself out of metal and is a STOL, so it takes off from very little runway, not too fast but fabulous for photography.  Mercedes has her own dog earphones, which she doesn't really like and keeps pulling off.

kawaii

Siljansnaes: happy days by the lake

Lake Siljan is really very very large.  In fact we thought we'd arrived already when we were about 9nm away from the airfield, only to discover that what we had thought to be the lake was just an inlet....  It is the preferred holiday destination of people from the south of Sweden (in which I include Stockholm), and despite many dire warnings about mosquitos was really very comfortable with good weather.

The wonderful lichen on the redcurrant tree warns of good rainfall...

We arrived just as their annual 2 week fly-in 'Crayfish days' was beginning, so it was all action with a wacky flying theatre show involving a couple of small bi-planes planned and lots of preparation. 

Not the flying theatre, but maybe future pilots???  We loved these pedal-planes.

The location is really idyllic, and the air-park reallly very tempting.  We just have to work out how we can combine living there for part of the year with a Europe based business. We met a large number of really interesting people who live at the airpark (at least part of the year) and the entire place has a very congenial atmosphere.

These kit houses not only look traditional, they're also remarkably quick to put up, now if only the weather were appropriate for such a building in Hervey Bay!

traditional Leksand wind indicator

Lovely plots facing onto the runway

We ended up spending most of our time socialising (I nominated myself as the official waffle taste tester for the trial cooking runs for the fly-in), so didn't get out and about too much.  We rode into the nearby town of Leksand one day which was a really beautiful ride, especially on the way back along the lake (we managed to take the main road on the way in), the route took us through a lot of beautiful little villages and the site of the largest half-pipe in Sweden.  I was surprised at one point by the strong smell of wook permeating the air, apparently from one guy chopping his winter wood supply.... Then we came around the corner and saw the sign to the sawmill.

Leksand crispbread on sale in the Leksand supermarket

Traditional style building in the ski-area, note red colour from rot-inhibiting copper paint

Day 14 – Skaa to Kumlinge - tick magnet

We flew over Stockholm itself and then across the sea to the start of Finland the Aland archipelago.  We landed on Kumlinge, an airstrip ending on the sea & beautifully quiet. A lovely undisturbed ecosystem with a whole variety of different plants & wildlife (inc ticks, mozzies & horseflies). The runway is lined with bluebells, cornflowers & reeds. I picked up a bluebell to have a closer look at the flower & discovered there was a fat bumblebee head down in the flower and let it fall again in a hurry! 

We lunched on a quiet rock by the water: smoked reindeer bought in NK department store, which tasted almost resiny from the pine smoke – very thin slices with loads of flavour. Also the divine French washed rind goats cheese found at the covered market in Stockholm and a very ripe Swedish blue, described as being 'like Rocquefort'. Not to forget the smoked eel (very rich) and beautiful smoked salmon, with a lovely crispy skin. 

We bumbled around all day on the bikes, coming to the conclusion that 399 inhabitants (or 370 depending on which part of the local authorities' website you find most up to date) means that you really see no one around. We went to the ferry port and there were several tourists' cars (mainly Finland & Estonia), and tourists on hire bikes but really not much else. It's funny the island is Finnish, but 95% of the population speak Swedish, and all the guest house ads stapled to the barn at the ferry port were written in Swedish. 

waiting for the ferry

We continued on our way trying to explore all the main (& many of the minor roads) & finally came upon the Remmarhamn (guest marina): the significance of this place is that in looking on Kumlinge's website I discovered that they hold a market every Tuesday evening (18.30) at the Remmarhamn, which is not marked on any map, so was causing me a large amount of (understandable) worry. We took the bridge over to a neighbouring island but decided to turn back and have a closer look at the marina, getting there at about 6pm. At which point there were 3 trestle tables and not much else. Hmmmm. So we chatted to some Finns who were sailing the archipelago and drinking in the marina's pub and by the time we turned around again the entire island's population were queueing up at the trestles. So we hurried back, as one of the few items already laid out was one of the traditional carved wood Swedish bread knives, which I'd been looking for, and I had a gut feeling that someone else would buy them. But I was lucky. Julian scored an amazing gooseberry tart, really a very simple thing, just some fresh gooseberries baked on what was essentially a shortbread base (shortcrust pastry with extra sugar), but lovely. I got a local fish of some variety, that was selling remarkably quickly at 12€ a fish, as well as a huge block of lovely cured salmon (5.50€) - dill on top, a bit of sugar in the cure at a guess, along with some great citrus notes – I guess grated lemon & orange rind. So we changed our dinner plans and had the smoked fish with steamed veggies for dinner.

the market going off

Julian with gooseberry pie

After which I discovered I had a tick on my back, and did the usual 'just get it off me!'  So despite my better knowledge I had Julian burn it with a cigarette lighter, then once dead I got him to do what would have been the right thing in the first place & twist it out with my tweezers. The sight of the little legs scrabbling as it munched into me was too much to bear. So for all you Europeans reading this blog: I have never been bitten by anything nastier than a mosquito in Australia, but in Sweden I have been bitten by a tick potentiallly carrying a nasty bacteria or TBE virus and in London I have been bitten on the face overnight by what I think was a spider as my cheek was numb for over a month. Which just goes to show that if you want to sleep safe and sound in your bed at night, avoid Europe and come to Oz.