Trip Nordique

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Natetpatetnatetpatet... surprise!

The reason that took us to Corsica was not the first step of the "Tour de France" but to look after Erik Norén, a swedish man living in Sweden around 1830-1900 and that might have died in Corsica. And why this Erik is important to us? Well, he was maried with the mother of Simone Homsy which was the mother of Papiri, my grand-father. We know very little about him and not much more after the trip around Corsica.. we stayed a couple of hours in the archives of Ajaccio but could not find any Erik Norén in there.. there is many shelves left to look at but we can tell you that if he died in Corsicia it was not in Ajaccio or in the district around, but it could be anywhere else in Corsica..

Corsica is a very beautiful island and if we did not find tracks of Erik we found some fantastic landscapes: forest, sea, mountain, old cities (and many steps there again) and a lot of .. tourists!

We rent a car in Bonifacio and had it all the way to Bastia. Unfortunatly the cheap car we booked was not available anymore and we had to take an Audi A3 instead.. too bad! Get your sunglasses on and lets rock the Corsican roads!! Youhou!!

We stayed 2 nights in the crowed Bonifacio, got some tourist round trip to the islands Lavezzi, ate moules frites, got uphill to the old city and down hill by the stairs of the king of Aragon.

Then we took the way to the forest L'Ospedale and had a nice and fresh walk to the waterfall.

We kept driving toward "les aiguilles de Bavella". We parked the car and, while eating a super good corsican lemon, we dreamt about trecking along the GR20 some day...

We drove then till Corte and stayed 2 nights there. We really appreciate the calm of the mountain, less tourists.. and the fresh air (brrr very fresh cold during the night...). 

Quite tired of the old cities and all the stairs we went to the cinema and watch "Monster academy" in 3D! Ahah it was nice to relax the legs an evening and take it easy! .. but not for long.. the 2nd day we went trecking in the mountain on a really beautiful path leading to le lac du Melu! We hade a super good picnic with local bread, cheese, ham and fruits.. and some rain on the head on the way down.

From Corte we went to Calvi with a drop by Ajaccio's archives. One night at Calvi, back to the crowed. It was old and nice harbour but we liked more Ile-Rousse where we stayed 2 nights. The camping was nicer and just by the sea. We took the Audi an afternoon in the mountains around and visited several old villages perched on the tops. Sant Antonio is the most famous of them.

We left Île Rousse and head to Bastia to fly to Paris. We were happy of our trip and ready to go home!

Sicily was best for the sea spots!

Sardegna was best for the food and the kindness of the people.

Corsica was best for its beauty and the variety of the landscapes, but we were a bit disapointed by the quality of the restaurants.. we ate good food at Corte, when we picnic and with the moules frites, the rest was not that good.

Et maintenant on récapitule, le tout en image!

Ca commence à Bonifacio:

Les fameuses falaises de Bonifacio, ça en jète quand on arrive en bateau!

Vue du port depuis la citadelle

Camping à Bonifacio

Un Patrikouz dans la vieille-ville

Les moules frites!

L'escalier du Roi d'Aragon:

Rando dans la fôret l'Ospedale jusqu'à la cascade:

C'est beau, faut bien l'avouer!

La cascade:

Baignade bien fraîche sur le retour, cap ou pas cap de mettre la tête sous l'eau?

Cap!

Le col de Bavella avec les grondements de l'orage tout proche:

Les Aiguilles de Bavella, une étape du GR20:

Le citron corse! Cap ou pas cap?

Cap!

Corte! Village étudiant perché dans la montagne:

L'apéro:

Corte en soiréé (vue du camping) ! 

à la créperie bretonne! allez savoir.. on en avait un peu marre des assiettes de charcuteries...

et la rando trop belle jusqu'au lac du Melu:

Le photographe photographié!

De la neve, on s'approche du sommet..

Et voilà, le lac!

La pose de la randonneuse (juste avant la pluie)

Des super vieilles statues en pierre genre du temps préhistoirique sur le site de Filitosa. Attention, ca rigole pas:

"Patrikouz, c'est quoi ces chaussettes qui traînent??"

La tournée des vieux villages perchés dans la montagne:

Saint Antonio, un des villages de ouf perchés sur les rochers:

Des enfants qui s'font une ptite partie de pétanque

Moi j'aime bien comment ils se servent de la pierre pour tout, l'écoulement des eaux de pluie:

.. marquer l'entrée d'une chapelle:

Obs! on se laisse pas aller sur la qualité du service: draps assortis, matelas top confort, oreillers de camping! 3 semaines en tente sans duvet, juste draps c'était pilpoil sauf la nuit à Corte où on s'est caillés!

Le point de baignade à Île Rousse, en accès direct du camping, à nous les ptits rochers et le snorkling!

Aaaalllez, on termine avec une série "on sla pète avec l'Audi", c'est parti pour la série photos en mode pose naturelle au bord de la route:

Trop bien les vacances!!! On en a bien profité! 

We took a ferry on the evening from Trapani and woke up in Cagliari in the morning.

We though that Cagliari would be just a place we stay on the way to Corsica but it turned to be much more! We really liked this place, indeed the people were very kind and simple, the FOOD was excellent and the city was beautiful! We stayed one night at a youth hostel in the old town. We were lucky and got a really big room under the roof with a mezzanine and view toward a tipical italian "piazza"! What a luxurious night after a week under the tent!

Our room:

The piazza outside the youth hostel:

Uphill... downhill... many steps... beautiful city but my legs still remember...

This day we ate the most delicious ice cream ever.. ! pistachio and lemon for me and black cherry for Patrik! It was so good and it hard to find words to describe it.. mmmh yuuummy!

After the ice cream we went into an old shop to escape from a homeless person following us and asking for money (we were focused on the ice cream and did not want to be disturb in any way). We stayed maybe half an hour in the shop. The man working there really wanted to show us all the things he got in the shop: bells for cows, churches, kitchen.. handmade bags, knives, pieces of leathers, etc... we finally bought this backpack for 28euros and thought it would be a cute souvenir from Sardegna. Once back to Stockholm we noticed that every hipster in Södermalm got more or less the same.. our souvenir is not exclusive but at least authentic!

A roman amphitheater:

A cute swedish viking:

and a french gauloise:

The next day we woke up so early that we missed the breakfast at the youth hostel.. we took a bus across the island and reach Santa Teresa di Galura at noon. Let's get a good pizza and get onboard a ferry to Bonifacio.

Thank you Patrikouz for all you nice pictures!

Yes indeed, it took time to start writing about the summer holidays. It is also nice to remember the fantastic summer we had while the leaves starts to fall from the trees outside the window..

Anyway, we started our trip the 8th of July and landed on Trapany (Sicily). We visited my great friend Marzia on her little island of Favignana. First time for Patrik and 4th for me. Then we took the boat to Cagliari (Sardegna), then a bus and another boat to Bonifacio on Corsica. After 8 days on "l'île de beauté", we flew from Bastia to Paris, stayed 48 hours rue Monge and were back to Sweden the 25th of july. We spent a couple of days in Skåne on the way back to Stockholm.

This first article is now about Favignana :) We took a lot of pictures and it was hard to make it shorter.. Favignana is not so big, we could bike all around very easily and swim every day in paradisiac spot! The island is very flat on one side and surrounded with a mountain and a castle in the middle.

Let's start with a map of the island:

In the morning, bath at Calla azurra (south-east)

In the afternoon, Cala rossa. The place got its namn ("red") after a bloody fight on the sea, the water were not blue anymore:

On the way back for the lunch

The mountain:

Close to where Marzia and her family lives

Marzia and Asì could not follow and swim with us during the day because Kjartan was still to little for the Sicilian sun.. They were swimming at 7am in the morning on the beach close to where the stayed.

We were treated like kings: biking around all day and looking for paradisiac spots, back for lunch at Marzia's place where all was ready, get our feet under the table, took a coffee and back to to sea on the afternoon.. get a rest at the camping on the evening, and back to the center for aperitivo and dinner.

"Crema di caffé"

View from the coffee toward the tonfish factory turned onto a museum now. By day:

And by night:

On the way to the camping:

Le grotte perciatte (not on the map but it was on the way to Lido Burone)

On the way up to the castle

View toward the east side of Favignana

Cala rossa

On Marzia's and Así's recommendations, we spent a whole day on a fisher boat with 8 other italian tourists. It was really nice: you meet in the morning at 9am, then the fishermen get their web out of the sea and pick up the fishes of the day. After this you stop on differents spots around the island and jump from the boat as much as you'd like. While you enjoy the landscape and the sea, the fishermen (Rosario and Enzo) cook food with the fishes they get in the morning. We all eat good and fresh food from the sea with wine, coffee and fruits!

Here on the boat:

Patrikouz jumping from the roof

Enzo working

Plat du jour

Rosario and his fancy belly accessory

Enzo cooking:

Boat stop at Previto, you coudn´t make the sea more blue:

The third day in the morning, we found a place where we were all alone! It is on the north side of the island, beyond the mountain! Not so easy to access but very beautiful.

Last day at Bue marino:

Patrik checking a potential jump platform.. 8-9 meters maybe.. maybe not..

On the roads of Favignana:

Last day at the port: Marzia, her husband Así, their baby Kjartan, me and Patrikouz!

Me and Kjartan :)

Trapani by nigth.. view from the boat leaving to our next stop: Cagliari (Sardegna)

We really enjoyed our stay on Favignana and will for sure be back more than once! We liked that it was not so big and that you could easily bike around, swim everyday on a different paradisiac spots all more beautiful one to another, eating good food and spending time with Marzia and her family! We like the italian hospitality and their take-it-easy lifestyle!

5th midsommar for me (Nathalie) and one more in the archipelago!

This year we did not kayak but biked to the meeting point: Gålö is almost an island but connected to the land. I thought first that it was 35km away from home but it turns to be 47km... well, it was like an expedition with the tent, food, .. everything with us on the bikes. The way home was very pleasant with sun, wind in the back & swim in a lake on the way and less stuff on the bikes (the food was in our belly instead)!

On Gålö, we met Louise, Miyo & Eli on the boat, Truls, Matilda & friends, Simon, Charlie & Sophie! Without deciding the exact meeting point before everyone met more or less at the same place, perfect!

Louise's boat and Louise rowing with Matilda to get the potatoes cooked:

Matilda and Miyo chilling on the rocks:

We eat herring, potatoes, "eggplants herring" (vegetarian variant for fish), strawberries, cheese cake, ... 

We played on the rock:

The night was very calm and beautiful

We liked so much the place that Truls, Matilda, Louise, Eli & Miyo, me and Patrik decided to stay one more night.

We found another fireplace that we all liked and started cooking all together.

Truls the baker and his "pinnbröd" (stick bread?):

Salmon, potatoes, asparagus, dill, oignons, ... what else?

Fish and "pinnbröd" gently cooking..

My hair is getting pretty curling when we get closer to the sea!

Midsommar snaps left from the day before:

Louise, the sallad and the vegetables:

Any customers for the snaps?

A boat (but not Louise's) staying just in front of the fireplace, making the view even nicer!

It was a very good kick off before the summer!

Coming soon: an article about our holidays in Italy and France!! (but be patients, we need some more time the sort out our pictures ...)

The small spuds we planted this year show signs of life :)

Fingers crossed they will also produce some food!

First bouldering outside this year! We went to Brudberget with Peder and Magnus to check out some bouldering we heard about. It turned out to be pretty hard but we found 3 problems we could overcome. We were a bit surprised to find that we shared the spot with a baby fox. He was there all alone without his family (hopefully not abondoned) and he was very curious and not very scared. He even stole Peder's climbingshoes and ran off with them into the woods! But very cute anyway. We finished the evening with a barbeque and a few beers, la classe!

Pour le grand weekend de l'ascenssion nous avons eu la visite de ÉLO & d'JO chez nous à Stockholm.

Ici aussi c'était férié et on a pu profiter du weekend tous ensemble. Alors on a fait plein de trucs: comme c'était la coupe du monde de hockey sur glace et que en plus Jo est en ancien joueur pro (pratique pour ceux-celles qui ne connaissent plus trop trop bien les règles.. hum) on s'est dit hoplaboum on y va! Suède-Norvège, envoyez la sauce! 

Ensuite on a visité la ville par la mer (ou plutôt par le lac malaren):

Et puis comme on avait encore pas mal d'énergie on est allés camper! 

Direction Sandhamn (ça veut dire l'île de sable), l'équivalent de St Tropez pour les suèdois sauf que là hors-saison on était plutôt tranquilles, yavait pas foule quoi:

Comme d'hab pour ce genre d'expedition: multiplication des transports: on a pris un métro, puis un bus, puis un bateau. Cette fois on a testé une nouvelle technique pour transporter nos vivres: le chariot qui sert d'habitude à transporter l'ampli de Patrik. Les +: ça marche bien dans le métro. Les - : ça marche moins bien dans le sable..

Un côté de l'île est plutôt habité, c'est là qu'on arrive avec le ferry (?mais qui a pris la photo, huhuhu ya un indice??)

Ensuite on traverse une jolie fôret (avec le charriot qui roule pas trop dans le sable):

Et là pilpoil du premier coup on a trouvé un endroit où camper qui a fait l'unanimité. Vue vers la droite:

puis vue vers la gauche:

Emballez c'est pesé! Allez les gars on monte la tente!

Pendant ce temps nous on monte le hammac!

Ça va, plutôt confort...

On enchaine l'après-midi avec une série d'activités intensives: se faire dorer sur un rocher, s'entraîner à la slackline, dormir un peu dans le hammac, concours de lancer de frisbee, mangeage de chips, ...

L'équipe des bleus:

Visite du village et achat d'ice cream, tentative d'aller au sauna, mais sans succès, l'envie du barbecue prend le dessus, on retourne à notre camp de base.

En soirée ça se rafraîchit on sort les bonnets, quand même on est en Suède quoi.

Big boat big surprise qui déboule de derrière un bosquet:

Coucher de soleil et parties de ricochet, classique.

Bon matin! Ptit déj au rocher

Ça donne quoi Élo le ptit déj en Suède? Tube au champignon et saucisses grillées:

Bon en résumé c'était vraiment cool les vacances avec Élo et Jo, on s'est bien rigolé et on a bien profité des 1ères belles journées suèdo-printano-estivales!

At Easter, we were invited to follow Louise and Miyo to visit their friend Olav living on a hill in the forest near Trondheim, in Norway.

Thursday night we all met at the central station in Stockholm and got on board the night train, ready for adventures!! 

The trip start in the train. In the early morning when we woke up we were travelling back through the winter. 

Here in the city of Åre, a building designed by my compagnie for the world cup of ski: the "VM huset"

This could be somewhere around Storulvån where we travelled last winter:

Some passengers in the train:

When we arrived in Trondheim we took a bus that drove us along a fjord to Orkanger. Olav picked us up there and drove us to the hill where he lives. 

The house where Louise & Miyo slept:

Where we slept:

and where Olav sleeps:

Miyo carying home some wood to make fire

After the lunch, we took a walk to the lake.

Louise trying to swim on the lake:

The same evening we took the skis and got to a sunset/under-the-stars ski tour. Once on the top, Olav makes fire in the snow and we drake some te under the stars. Then skiing down we stoped at one of Olav's friends living in the forest and got some sallad fruits! Pretty tired by the long trip from Stockholm, the walk to the lake, the ski tour under the stars, ... we were ready to go to sleep! A long day were waiting for us the day after!

At 9pm the saturday morning, two friends of Olav, Odd and his neighboor Annelis, picked us down the hill. We drove about 1h30 until a national park called "Trollheimen". Unfortunatly Olav had to drive his friends visiting from Taïwan back to Trondheim this same day and could not come with us..

The thing is that we did not really planned neither realized that we would be in such a beautiful place. It was all about a surprise!

Pictures from Odd and Patrik:

The first 7km were quite flat, while the last 4km to the top were .. less flat!

Here sitting on the top at 1399m:

Time to ski down hill.. first time on this kind of "telemark skis" where you foot is fixed just in the front.

The sky was almost too blue to be true!

From left to right: Odd, Annelis, Nat, Miyo, Louise, the-piece-of-bread-that-Miyo-try-to-get, Patrik

Fous du faFa!!

More than 8 hours on the skis! good job everyone!

We took it easy on sunday. Late breakfast and some time to read or draw before going for a ski tour with Olav. Really windy on the way up and really white on the way down. Very beautiful tour aswell but no much pictures this day.

Back home we decided to cook some green waffles by adding spenach in the orignal recipe. It turned to be pancakes after some unglory use of the waffle iron. Very tasty anyway, we will try this again for sure!

Thank you so much Olav for your hospitality and thank you Louise for connecting us! 

The way Olav lives is a source of inspiration and makes one think differently. Providing his own energy (8 minutes from the sun to the solar panel and the stereo), drinking water from the ground, heating from the wood, getting energy from the river in the summer. "One hour sun is providing five hours of Bryan Eno's music". 

We had a great time with you guys! Hope to see you again this summer!