Cherry Blossoms

A highly anticipated sign of spring in Stockholm is the cherry blossoms in Kungsträdgården (king's garden/city park).  This year the trees bloomed for the last two weeks of April.  The blooming of the cherry trees is like the unofficial opening of Kungsträdgården for the spring/summer season.  Crowds of people hang out photographing the blossoms and each other, fill the little sidewalk cafes lining the park and cover the green spaces when it's sunny. From now through the fall there are a wide variety of festivals almost every day in Kungsträdgården.

 

Gabby helping with a photo op

Welcome Spring!

April 30, Walpurgis Eve or Valborg, is a national holiday celebrated in the traditional Swedish way with singing and a speech welcoming spring. As we did last year we went to Skansen to celebrate.

What I learned from last year...

• Walpurgis Eve is always cold, windy and usually wet by the end of the evening
• I should not put the winter gear away until after April 30
• The evening starts at 8pm with the formal portion, operatic singing and speech
• The bonfire is lit at dusk, around 9pm, the crowd starts to move into groups around the fire - my favorite and the casual part of the evening, choir singing, fire raging, kids running around playing checking in with parents here and there
• It's a wonderful tradition fully embraced by everyone, outside of Skansen, neighborhoods around Stockholm and across Sweden hold their own bonfires with singing
• It's also the Swedish King's birthday

running for the tram

Audra, Sofia, Audra's friends - Eva and Kaat

last year this windmill caught fire... it was quickly extinguished

 

 

Swedish folk group - Nordman

Walpurgis Eve is followed by May 1, Swedish Labor Day. 

Restaurants - Reykjavik, Iceland - 5 of 5

For a city of 200,000+ people, Reykjavik seems to have a wide variety of restaurants.  Of course they have a lot of fish on the menu... but they do love their hamburgers.  Following are the restaurants we tried over four days...

The Laundromat Cafe  American style breakfasts, burgers, sandwiches, salads, etc. in a fun atmosphere.  Downstairs is an actual laundromat with a play area for kids and tables for dining. I would have loved a place like this when the girls were little. 

A whole in the wall place to take a break from the wind and rain one afternoon...

Elder & Is Crepes another reason for a break... the kids loved watching their nutella and banana crepes being made in the front window.  They also have savory crepes and ice cream. All good!

In a desperate attempt to make everyone (our girls) happy we tried Casa Grande, a great find and total win, win, located on the water in the old harbor by the whale watching ticket offices/boats.  The kids were happy with pizza while we sat at our end of the table trying more traditional Icelandic dishes.  This is where I tried puffin and minke whale... both are a lot like tender red meat. It was good but I won't be developing a craving for it. 

sweet potato filled spring roll with mushroom barley

Islenski Barinn/Icelandic Bar is a funky little restaurant with really good food.  They have jars of pickled items that Gordon, Jayne and Richard enjoyed.  The fish and chips were especially good!

jars... filled with picked things like herring, shrimp, whale... and if you are really brave fermented shark (even Gordon was never brave enough to order that local delicacy)

fish and chips

dogless hot dogs

Baejarins Beztu Pylsur, in business since 1937, a Reykjavik institution. Hot dogs come with ketchup, sweet mustard, fried onion, raw onion and remoulade.  Order on with 'the works'.  Located by the water, across the street from the Radisson Blu 1919 Hotel.  

Sushi Samba, Asian style tapas, not exactly what the kids were expecting from sushi restaurant but they tried and liked new things.

We stayed in one night and found Krua Thai offering delivery, placed the order - 15 minutes, an hour and a half later dinner arrived.  It was good, traditional Thai take away.

Golden Circle Tour - Iceland - 4 of 5

A first trip to Iceland requires a Golden Circle Tour, everybody does it!  We boarded a Reykjavik Excursions bus at 8:30am and headed out to visit the most famous tourist route in the country.

First stop, Friðheimar a 5,000 square meter greenhouse specializing in growing tomatoes (300 tons/year) year round. Iceland is incredibly self-sufficient, using geothermal hot water for heat, cold water for irrigation and hydro-electric and geothermal power for grow lights. Volcanic pumice (something they have in abundance) is used instead of soil for growing.  It's easier to control moisture and fertilization and can be used continuously for years. The only thing imported, from Holland, is bugs to eat any pests and bees to pollinate the tomato plants. Due to Iceland's isolation and northern latitude (read cold weather) there are few pests, diseases and weeds to affect their crops. Sounds like utopia for a farmer. 

the greenhouse sold tomato soup and bloody mary's as well as packaged tomato products to the tour group

Second stop, the Haukadalur geothermal area famous for its many large and small geothermal pools. The main attraction is Strokkur, a fountain geyser erupting every 4-8 minutes between 15-40m high.
The geyser first appeared in 1789 after an earthquake unblocked the natural underground conduit, another earthquake in early 20th century blocked it again. Not sure how this is done but the natural conduit was cleaned out in 1963 allowing it to erupt again. Strokkur is not to be confused with Geysir (original name!) close by that does not erupt on schedule.

Strokkur

this eruption was quite big and the wind was blowing in our direction... the kids got a bit wet

again, heavy snow... replaced by blue sky 30 minutes later!

The next stop is the stunning, Gullfoss, meaning golden waterfall in the Hvítá river canyon. One story says the name originated because of the golden color of the falls in the evening another story says the name comes from the rainbow that often appears above the waterfall spray when it's sunny. The area was established as a nature reserve in 1979.

top of the falls

looking down the gorge

Final stop of the day, Þingvellir National Park, founded in 1930 to commemorate the 1,000th anniversary of the founding of Iceland's parliament here in 930. This site is important to Icelanders as parliament established a common cultural heritage and national identity that still runs strong today. This is also a location where the continental drift between the North American and Eurasian plates are visible, the North American plate is higher than the Eurasian plate. 

 blue sky from one minute....

to snow the next

North American plate on the right

old lava flow

All day long the scenery en route is stunning.  After a full day of touring the bus driver makes multiple stops to drop off visitors at various hotels on the route back to Reykjavik.

Another amazing day in Iceland!