The treat of an Applesafari and other things, sorry, it wasn't ready before but now!!

Appletrees like to grow close to the sea, this is the view from the applefarm were we went for the safari. 

Older trees in row after row.

Very young and innocent plants on recently arrendated land.

Good evening!!!

So we went off to celebrate the husbands birthday (52). Going south, along the eastcoast to the Applecountry, down at a place called Österlen. We went to Kivik, the area is filled with traces of ancient times. We have amongst other things a stonesetting very similar to Stone Henge. 
Since appletrees are best settled close to water, this coast is the site for several large applefarms .

Well, I was going to put pictures here and was disturbed in the middle of everything, that is why this post was published in an very unfinished fashion. Now however, there will be order!

First of all, the road we travelled was chosen carefully, mostly because its beautiful. Amongst other things I hereby present you with -the meadows by Trolle-Ljungby !!! This is the wiew the countess has from her windows, nice isn't it?

The meadows across the lane.

The castle of the count and countess Trolle-Wachtmeister.

The private chapel

By the way, his birthday began with these homemade pastries, very special for us in Sweden, they are called vaccumcleaners and are normally green but I had some pink marcipan left so I used that. This was the shape of a very common vaccumer in swedish households in the sixties.

So, on we went, rolling rolling rolling. The weather has, as in the UK and many other places, been absolutely outstanding and very very hot for the season. So when we reached our destination by 9.30 in the morning, it was already rather warm. This ride was waiting for us

This tractorpulled carriage took us through the entire plantation with thousands of appletrees, the oldest more than 100 years old and the youngest barely born!



So Maria, our guide, and Sven, the driver, told us all interesting things about apples, pruning, beehives, harvesting, caring, juicing....The meadows along the eastcoast are well suited for apples since the seawind keeps the frost off the plants. Wild appletrees are often found by the sea. She told us there was almost 350 species in Sweden only, who knows how many in the world!! This particular farm is well known, they manufacture apples in all shapes, juice, cider, wine, tee, marmelade, chutney....
Halfway we stopped for a cup of strong coffee and, off course, a hot applebun.
Twice we stopped also for applepicking that came with the ticket. It was really lovely seeing all these sweetsmelling and carefully pruned trees. We were about twenty persons on the ride, some already had great knowledge, some had none.

Gravensteiner, we had to pick some to save up for winter!

These little beauties are called Picheon or Pidgeon. They are far too expensive and rare to go on the common market, but sometimes you can get a bite. Sweet and almondlike they are told to be.

The first applecrushers where quite crude but effective.

Happy applepickers from 1935!

Some apples have trouble spelling their own sirnames!

Apples are actually more sensitive than eggs and have to be picked very carefully in bags like these, carried around the neck.

After some shopping we went to our hotel , left our bags and took our picnicbasket down to the harbour where hundreds of tourists where swimming, boating, fishing, eating, sunbathing, icecreaming or just walking around. It really is offseason but lo and behold, summer wasn't over!!

Chickensalad and a glass of rosé in the harbour with the smaller boats in view!!

For dessert we had some locally produced icecream, went for a walk and look what we found!

This was a real treat for us cineasts - a mowietheatre, very small but they even have live-events from the Met!

Tired and warm we arrived at the hotel, a small, family-owned with the entire interiour from the sixties!!


 A couple of hours good sleep and we were ready for a nice evening out. The air was still, the heat lingered on and food was good. Salmon and schrimps. And back "home" we turned on the tv-set and found this:

Anchors away???!!!

So it was a very nice final of a very nice and relaxing day!  Rule Britannia, God save the Queen and Jerusalem!!!
Safely anchored in the comfortable bed we fell asleep and woke up the next morning at sunrise, ready for a new day and sundaymass in this 12th centurychurch: