Not My Usual Saturday

Today I visited a couple of churches, went to the cheese place in Falkoping, visited Margaretha’s studio again then finished up at an arboretum before heading home to finish some chores before Pia and Giorgia returned from her moms summer home on the coast.

I love how small and peaceful the churches are, most don’t have lots of ornamentation passes of the altar and raised pulpit. One church I visited had a cross and carving of Mary and baby Jesus  from the Middle Ages! Another had beautiful stone carvings that were hundreds of years old.

At the Osteria (cheese place) I tried over a dozen different kinds of cheese (my idea of heaven!) and ended up buying a creamy white cheese called Lanternan Rod Lagrad, some crackers and pepparkakkor (gingersnaps). The door to the bathroom said ‘Time for a little cheese break’

Margaretha greeted me like an old friend, she was so excited to see me. I bought a few prints and was very tempted to get more, but I resisted since it’s still early in my trip. I can always take the train up from Gothenburg before I go home. She has a table set up with colored pencils and small pieces of paper so people can draw when they are in the shop, she said she has been thrilled to see how many adults sit down and get absorbed drawing. So cool!

My last stop was Alphem’s Arboretum in Floby. It was created over a 50 year period by a local postman who loved trees. It is  such a beautiful place, so peaceful and welcoming with winding paths and stone formations. It has a wonderful feeling about it. A little boy who used to visit the Arboretum later became an illustrator for Walt Disney and based the house in Snow White and the 7 Dwarves on the house on the property. I decided to have lunch there and was so glad I did because the meatball sandwich and raspberry cheesecake bar I had were so yummy. What the Swedes call a sandwich is bit different from an  American consider a sandwich. They are usually open faced and eaten with a knife fork and don’t have condiments. In my case, the meatball sandwich had a dark bread with nuts and seeds, lettuce, tomato, cucumber, meatballs, and a beet purée. It looked and tasted delicious.

The gentleman who ran the café spoke English and talked about having spent time in Minnesota (many Swedes have relatives in Minnesota) and Florida where he helped a friend from Cuba get connected with ‘coyotes’ so that he could escape to the US – Wow!