Summer trip to Norway

Something of a driving day; but that didn't mean boring. The views along the way are spectacular. We drove from Geilo towards the Jotunheimen, skirting the edge of the giants to a stop for waffles at Gjendesheim Cabin.

Back on the road, Ridderspranget or Knights Leap was our next destination, where the waterfall has cut down into the rock. Apparently, a knight escaped the wrathful father of his beloved by leaping across the chasm, saving both of them from certain death. We refrained from heroics, and appreciated the beauty of the place.

Late in the afternoon we arrived at Kongsvold, which is another Historic Hotel of Norway. It is a really pretty place, and we have some gorgeous rooms decorated in the traditional Norwegian style. The cuisine here is superb - Michelin Star levels. How lucky we are!

Summer trip to Norway

We took the train to Finse - as there are no roads into here, it is the only way unless you walk, ski or bike. We planned to walk to the edge of the glacier to see the blue ice. Dougal came quite a long way with us and we stopped for lunch before he headed back and we pressed on to the glacier. When we arrived, there was a party of folk on a trek across the glacier, advancing very slowly, roped together for safety. We took some photos and then headed back to FInse and hot chocolate and biscuits. Alan found Dougal in the hytte, snoozing by a log fire! Very cozy. We caught the express train back to Geilo, which sped on to Oslo as its final destination.

Summer trip to Norway

 

The first day of the trek took us up Hardangerfjord where we stopped at the Cherry Festival in Ullandsvang. Luckily the rain cleared by the time we got here. Then we drove on to the park centre in Eidsfjord and further on to the Hardangervidda to view the lovely ribbon waterfall. Even Dougal managed to get up here on crutches, if a little slowly. We spent our first night in Dr. Holms Hotel, one of the historic hotels of Norway.

Dinner at Dr Holms Hotel

Stavanger Gladmat 2

 More delicious food at gladmat

Stavanger Gladmat

07/07/07

This auspicious date took us on an expedition to Brighton. Our intention was to re-visit the glories of the Royal Pavilion with a friend who had not been there before. It was a lovely day, and after our drive and a rather fraught hunt for somewhere to leave the car, our first stop was for a Costa coffee. Suitably refreshed we walked through the Lanes, soon arriving at the entrance to the Royal Pavilion. We walked in under the portico and bought our tickets and received our audio guides. Then began the adventure. As we had not really looked at the exterior of the building, our guest was to be suitably impressed with the opulent interior in the first instance.
The Royal Pavilion was built for the Prince Regent, fulfilling a dream he had had ever since renting a so-called 'modest' farmhouse in the late 1700s. His first villa, on the farmhouse site, designed by Henry Holland(1787), was built over by John Nash, using wrought iron frameworks. Nash took his inspiration from the domed Indian style stables George commissioned from William Porden (1803). Nash's building took seven years to complete and George loved it straight away. Every detail, inside and out, was finished to the highest standards; giving it an opulence hardly to be believed.
We walked down the Long Gallery, where guests of the Prince Regent would gather before dinner. Many guests came only for dinner, arriving in carriages and alighting at the doorway to enter through the Octagon Hall with its tented ceiling. The Long Gallery is filled with many Chinese treasures, which would have fascinated the guests as the waited for the moment when they were invited to enter the Banqueting Room. You can only gasp and look slowly around in order to take in the stunning decor of this unbelievable room. The huge chandelier which hangs in the 45 foot dome in the clutches of a silver dragon, is 30 feet high and one ton in weight. Everywhere you look are exotic decoratons incorporating lotus flowers and dragons. Guests must have been almost overwhelmed with the opulence; you would certainly know that this was a Royal residence

(Photo from the Pavilion official website)

What the guests didn't see, we were able to observe - the quarters where the suitably exotic dinners were prepared and served from. The Great Kitchen is set out as it would be for one of the many coursed dinners, George was know to host. It must have been an amazing place to work in, whether you were the head chef or the lowliest of the kitchen staff. We then moved back through the other side of the stunning Banqueting Hall and on into a succession of drawing rooms, to where the guests retired after their dinner.
Beyond these is the dazzling Music Room. It was designed by Frederick Crace and many people think that this is the most beautiful room in the Royal Pavilion. It is looking wonderful these days, but has been devastingly damaged over the years. A fire in 1975 severely damaged the room, and in 1987 the infamous hurricane dislodged a stone ball which crashed through the ceiling, embedding itself in the newly restored carpet. Now it has been returned to its former glory - and what glory that is!
There are also the King's Apartments and upstairs, other bedrooms as well as various exhibition rooms. All are suitably decorated including some of the original furniture of the Pavilion made from real or imitation bamboo. All this and they have also managed to fit in the Queen Adelaide Tearoom, on the first floor.
Now it was time to venture outside into the Pavilion Gardens. From here there is a wonderful view of the building. Its towers, domes and minarettes are fabulous as befits a Royal residence - and just begged to be photgraphed. The changing light reflects its many colours off the Bath stone and stucco. You can imagine yourself in some far off exotic destination, but for the very British flowers surrounding you. The Gardens are being restored to as close to Nash's original plans as possible.

Nymans

Nymans is an estate in the Sussex Weald which has been created by three generations of the Messel family. When Ludwig Messel bought the Regency house in 1890, it came with a 600 acre estate. He began creating the garden five years later, appointing James Comber as his Head Gardener. They worked well together, creating several different gardens within the estate, including a Pinetum, a Heather Garden, a Rock Garden, a Wall Garden; bringing exotic plants from around the world that thrived in the micro-climate. Leonard succeeded his father in 1915, continuing the work his father started. The Top Garden was added and Leonard travelled to the Hymalayas and South America, collecting rare specimens to grow in his estate.

Leonard did not like the Regency house, and in the 20s he commissioned a mock medieval manor to be built in its place. He and his wife Maud brought up three children there; Linley, Anne and Oliver.

Then came the Second World War and hot houses could not be heated, and staff went to help the war effort, leaving only a bare minimum to run the place. But the real disaster came in the form of a fire, which virtually destroyed Leonard and Maud's house in 1947. But the garden survived and the house was partially rebuilt. Leonard passed away in 1953 and left the estate to the National Trust. Anne, now Countess of Rosse lived there with her husband and she oversaw the Garden as Garden Director until 1987; she died in 1992. Her rooms, the Messel Family Rooms, are open to the public and NT present them as the family used them in the early 20th century. 1987 brought the destruction of the hurricane to the garden, severely damaging the pinetum and other areas of the garden.

The garden has a romantic atmosphere with its ruins as well as the imaginative layout created by its founder. There are 'rooms' within the garden and far reaching views across the Weald. There are collections of rare plants as well as a 275 acre woodland where visitors can walk to lake and along the conifer avenue.

We visited in July and enjoyed the gardens as well as the few rooms open to the public in the house. The rock garden is being reconstructed after it became overgrown and will be magnificent when ready. Definitely worth revisiting in years to come.

Waddesdon Manor

Waddesdon Manor is the Renaissance-style chateau Baron Ferdinand de Rothschild had built to house his impressive collection of art treasures. It dates from the late 19th century and took about fifteen years to complete. Ferdinand had less than ten years to enjoy his chateau, but in that time, the house parties held at Waddesdon were legendary. There are 9 suites where couples could stay and a Bachelor wing, complete with Smoking and Billiard rooms for the single Gentlemen, who were invited, to stay. It was to all intents and purposes on the cutting edge of design and invention, incorporating the latest electric lighting, lifts and even underfloor heating.


I visited with a very good friend, and we arrived in time for a coffee in the Courtyard Coffee Bar, before our visit. The house in open from midday Wednesday - Friday and 11 am at the weekend in the summer season. As the tickets are timed, we were lucky to be able to enter with the first visitors at midday.


We had opted for the audio tour, but also had a guide book with us. There was so much to see, each complemented the other, and we were also pleased that there were stewards on duty in every area whom we could questioned if needs be. There are 45 rooms to visit all filled with treasures. These have been collected by four generations of Rothschild associated with Waddesdon. Some are stunningly beautiful and others are fascinating curiosities. The collection is continually being added to by the family, although the house was bequeathed to the National Trust in 1957 when James de Rothschild died. We saw wonderful treasures - both art and artifacts. Paintings are the best quality as is the porcelein, the furniture, the decoration - in fact, everything! We saw Dutch paintings from the Golden Age; a silver dinner services commissioned by George III; French Savonnerie carpets; a specially commissioned chandelier called Porca Miseria, which is constructed from broken modern porcelein (Ingo Maurer). We also saw the extraordinary automaton, in the East Gallery, depicting a decorated elephant whose trunk, ears and tail move along with flowers and figures, when the clockwork is wound up. It also plays tunes. Apparently it saved the day when the Shah of Persia came to stay. He was expecting to meet the Prince of Wales, who could not join the party at the last minute. It was only the promise of seeing the automaton playing that lured him from his room where he had been sulking!


When we had completed our tour, we made our way to the gift and wine shop. Here is a great selection of wine for sale from all over the Rothschild wine world. It was here we bought souvenirs for the men, before we had to head back home again. What a shame we missed quite a lot of the gardens, which were looking splendid. We ceratinly need to return to visit these, as they too have been restored to former glories during the 1990-94 refurbishment, which continues even today.

Brooklands Centenary

This weekend saw Brooklands celebrate its centenary – quite a milestone even for a race track! To the uninitiated, Brooklands is the world’s first purpose-built car racing track – or perhaps more properly called a motor circuit. Hugh Locke King, a landowner of Surrey was also a car enthusiast and with his large 330 acre estate of farm and woodland, he decided to build the track. It was a hundred feet wide oval track with banking, 2.75miles long plus a half mile finishing straight. The whole complex including a club house and other associated buildings was completed in nine months ready for the first race meeting on 17th June 1907. It had cost almost the equivalent of a million pounds in present day terms.
Throughout its history, Brooklands has been associated with speed and speed records. Latterly the names of Malcolm Campbell and Bluebird as well as John Cobb and the Railton have been synonymous with land speed records at Brooklands. It is also associated with flying; and the centre of the track became one of the earliest aerodromes in the country, with A V Roe having his base here as well as the Bristol Aeroplane Company. Today, the track has almost disappeared and visitors to Tesco hardly notice the banked track running by the car park. But this is not the only bit of the track remaining. There are several pieces by the Brooklands Museum, which also has the most interesting collection of cars, bikes and planes from the heyday of Brooklands. There is also a Concorde plane, offering the Brooklands Concorde Experience.
So we attended the celebration taking place this weekend not only at the Brooklands Museum, but also using the Mercedes Benz test track at the newly opened Mercedes Benz World situated inside the old race track. Although the weather was awful at the start, the day improved and the car drivers and owners did not let the rain dampen their spirits. We were treated to a cavalcade of vintage cars, which included many named cars e.g. the Napier Railton, Babs, Mother Gun and a rare visitor from America, The Blitzen Benz, which has been painstakingly re-built using genuine parts from the time. They paraded and raced around the test track, and even tried out the banked track on the other side of the site, which had been partially renovated for the event. We also saw an aerial diplay, but some of the older planes were unable to fly because of the poor weather conditions.
Visiting Brooklands Museum is great fun for young or old and a visit would not be complete without walking across to Mercedes Benz World, where all present day models are on display – even the out of this world Mercedes SLR McLaren, just look, don’t touch! If you’re lucky you can watch drivers trying out their skills on the track. The coffee is also excellent.