An entry from The TFS Travel Journal
Awoke to a gray, drizzly, and chilly morning. Bid fond adjo to our hosts and set off for Oslo, with many km of scenic coastline along the way. Wendy did some great driving, especially through the periodic fog and heavy rain. We stopped in Falkenberg to search for a recommended local pottery shop. After much seemingly aimless driving around a non-descript town, we found the shop and it was nothing special, but nice to see the local work — sort of really good pottery-class stuff . We then got to Tjoloholm (spelled with weird dots over some of the o’s) — a grand, Tudor style manor house built in the early 1900s by a local merchant of Scottish descent. And quite Scottish it was; large, built with big brownish brick construction and an english garden leading down the back into the sea. The interior was 3 stories with lots of dark wood, english bay windows, and some quite eclectic rooms — an arabian decor billiard room, some pagoda like fireplaces, and bathrooms with large sunken tubs and showers that wrapped around one like a pen to hold animals. All in all, a bit odd amongst the Swedish coastline. . .
We arrived in Goteberg, Sweden’s second largest city and headed for the art museum/Haselblod photo center (I think they’re headquartered there), since they close at 4:00. We had to eat something, so we were directed to Cafe Tintin, bedecked with momentos of that cartoon character and full of local college kids. Let me tell you, Penn girls were nothing like that! We had a ham and cheese sandwich and a tuna sandwich; tasty, despite lots of butter on the tuna salad bread. The museum was a pleasant surprise — a few nice French impressionists and lots of very beautiful Scandanavian impressionists. Not sure exactly who influenced whom, (”oh, there’s the Scandanavian Renoir, that looks just like Monet’s waterlillies”) but the Scandanavians certainly knew how to use their plentiful shades of light and their naturally lush countryside.
We then drove and drove and drove (with Milton taking over now that it had somewhat cleared up) through wooded hills with glimpses out to the sea. We stopped in Tanum, a (really) little town with a Gestgifveri (guesthouse) with a recommended restaurant. A little trouble finding it, but well worth it!! The shrimp appetizer was, as usual, doused in some mayo-heavy russian dressing, but the salmon one was luciously fresh, a spider crab (!) creamy soup with saffron and pernod, and the fish casserole was out of this world (well, maybe not out of this one). Creamy base chock full of chunks of fresh fish and shellfish flavored with saffron and plentiful herbs. Served over rice, it was heavenly.
Then back on the road. Problem is, the road is one lane each way, with occasional passing lanes, and is the only road to Norway/Oslo from that part of Sweden. Convoys of hundreds (or so it seemed) of cars and trucks would build up cruising along between 50 and 70km/hr. Then a passing lane and we’d zoom up to 120+ until abutting the next convoy. Luckily, it stays light ’till 11 or so, but we still didn’t get into Oslo (the city of one-way streets, and a country where the driver entering from the right actually has the right-of-way and usually doesn’t stop as he pulls out in front of, or into, you) until midnight or so. We finally climbed into our bed which was somewhat larger than a twin and smaller than a double, but which they claim that is the size of the biggest ones in the hotel.