Karen Blixen´s House

This post is for my sister Kate who, earlier this year, showed me a magazine photograph of this beautiful verandah floor:

It´s in the Karen Blixen Museet at Rungstedlund, on the coast about half an hour north of Copenhagen. This is the house where the writer of such works as 'Out of Africa' and ´Babette´s Feast' lived before and after her seventeen years in Africa:

The grey and white checked floors are gorgeous and, besides the verandah, which I could only photograph through a window, are limited to the two entry halls:


The rest of the house is just as stunning, with French and Scandinavian pieces which travelled with Karen to and from Africa:

Karen always had fresh flowers in the house, a tradition which is still carried on today:

This room, overlooking the yachts in the little harbour, is where Karen wrote in the summertime. The checks of the rug combine with the reflection of the checked floor in the hallway:

Not only was the house amazing, so is the story of this woman, who endured much personal tragedy and wrote so beautifully.

Bakkehusmuseet, Copenhagen

This is a really lovely house in Copenhagen - the home of Knud Lyne Rahbek and his wife Karen:

They entertained many prominent writers here in the early nineteenth century:

I love this grey room:

And this enfillade:

And this settee:

Swap 7 - Copenhagen

We are now in what is possibly my favourite house-swap so far - in a loft-type building in central Copenhagen:


I had no idea this city was so beautiful. Its proximity to the sea, the pedestrian malls and lovely buildings give it a really relaxed atmosphere. This is the Fredericksberg park:

Down near the waterfront it is particularly stunning:

Then of course, I had to try the traditional smorrebrod - open-faced sandwiches with fillings such as roast beef, curried herring (delicious) and fish-cake:

Villa Harteneck

As our stay in Berlin drew to a close, I found myself spending an unhealthy amount of time in KaDeWe, and was in danger of becoming a permanent fixture:

So I consulted the list I´d made before I left Australia of sights to see in Berlin, and noticed I´d been rather slack in writing just one - Villa Harteneck. The fact that some considerable time had elapsed, and I no longer knew to what these two words referred, prompted me to do an internet search. I then realised that I had read about Villa Harteneck back in early March in posts by two of my fellow bloggers - Suzy from Studio Annetta and Michelle from Just Imagine. Since I was so close, I decided to venture out to Grunewald on the outskirts of Berlin and, sure enough, found this beautiful building:


Villa Harteneck is a multi-purpose building which serves as a function centre, has design books for sale and sells furniture and other items, such as Fortuny lamps. I went inside, but didn´t think I should take photos, so you´ll have to be content with the outside, which is pretty stunning:


I would thoroughly recommend it to anyone interested in interior design.

It´s Still About the Food....

I had thought that after the food in Spain, Italy and France, I would be ´fooded-out´. But that was before I found KaDeWe here in Berlin. This seven-storey department store is almost a century old and was originally called ´Kaufhaus Des Westens´:

After wandering around the baby clothes department, I found myself on the gourmet food floor, ordering a Currywurst, which a nice man recommended as the specialty of Berlin. It is, as one would imagine, a sausage with lots of ketchup and sprinkled with curry powder, and is absolutely delicious with a cold beer:

Then, I wandered around the rest of the vast floor. Forget Harrod´s Food Hall, Fortnum and Mason´s or any other foodie heaven of your acquaintance. This is huge. You could spend hours just wandering around looking, which I did. There´s an oyster bar, lobster bar, antipasto, pasta, Asian bars, schnitzel, and of course chocolate and desserts. Also, I´ve never seen so much meat of different kinds in one location, and all beautifully presented:

When I say serious food, I mean serious:

I can´t wait to go back there on Tuesday. Then, today I tried another Berlin specialty in a bar. Believe it or not, it´s raspberry flavoured beer, and once again, absolutely delicious:

Finally, for those of you who think I´m only here for the food, here´s some cool art. It´s called ´Molecule Man´ by Jonathon Borofsky, and is in the river near our apartment:

Swap 6 - Berlin

We´re very fortunate to be swapping for a week in a lovely apartment in the former East Berlin:


So far, this city is absolutely fascinating. The highlights for me, though, have tended to be not only thought-provoking, but somewhat sad, such as the ´Pieta´-like sculpture by Kathe Kollwitz of a dead soldier being cradled by his mother:

The rather controversial Memorial to the Jews:

And an intact section of the Berlin Wall:

Salzburg, Austria

We could have stayed at the elegant and expensive Sacher Hotel in downtown Salzburg, and maybe tried some of their famed Sacher Torte:

But then we wouldn´t have had this view:

We had a great time at the Hotel Schone Ausricht (our room has the open umbrella on the upper floor):

No visit to Salzburg would be complete without a visit to the statue of Pegasus in the Mirabell gardens where Maria and the Von Trapps sang Do-Re-Mi:

This made us laugh:

Doesn´t this lake look like it´s straight out of a postcard?:

Swap 5 - near Venice

We have just completed a two-day swap in Italy, near Venice:

We were only able to spend one day in Venice itself, which was not long enough:

One highlight for me was visiting the very modern villa which was once the home of art collector, Peggy Guggenheim. There were the most fantastic artworks by Picasso, Pollock (a roomful), Miro, Mondrian, Chagall, Ernst and others in an intimate, close setting:

I wuld also recommend the audio-guide tour of the Fenice (pronounced Fe-nee-chay) Opera House, appropriately named The Phoenix, as it has just been rebuilt after a fire in 1996. We got to sit in the Royal box and visit the Apollonian rooms, and were amazed at how everything has been faithfully restored:

We also took the ferry to Murano and saw a glass-blower making a horse:

It's All About the Food (Apart From the Art Of Course)

One of the things I'll really miss when we leave Cortona is the food. For the last two nights we've been to 'La Grotta' which is mentioned in the 'Under the Tuscan Sun' books. Here is the mixed crostini I raved about in a previous post:

This dish is something I've never tasted before and am never likely to again. It's a type of ravioli made with zucchini flowers and is just heaven:

This was scallopini with porcini mushrooms and a souffle of melanzane (eggplant) which was scrumptious (sorry I'd eaten most of it before I remembered the photo):

And of course, one can't leave Cortona without buying some Vinsanto and Panforte:

Also, I'd just like to apologise to anyone who's been generous enough to offer a comment on my posts. Due to the nightmare-ish situation regarding the internet in some towns (ranging from no internet whatsoever through no USB port on computers (!) to computers simply crashing in the middle of a post), I find I don't have much time on the road for responding to comments. As ever, they're much appreciated.

The Piero Della Francesca Trail

Today, we accomplished three-quarters of what is probably our main purpose in coming to Tuscany - following the paintings on what has come to be known as the Piero Della Francesca Trail. I would not recommend this without a car as two of the towns are not accessible by train. The first port of call was to Arezzo, to see my favourite of all, the cycle of frescoes known as 'The Story of the True Cross'. One of these, depicting the Queen of Sheba, is seen in the film 'The English Patient'. Sorry about the poor quality of the images:

The second painting we visited was 'The Resurrection' at Sansepolcro, Piero's birthplace. It is called 'The Resurrection' and was termed by Aldous Huxley in 1925 'the best painting in the world':

Finally, a sentimental favourite, the 'Madonna del Parto' or 'Pregnant Madonna':

Tomorrow, we'll be finishing the trail with 'The Flagellation' at the Ducal Palace at Urbino. The trail is also mentioned in John Mortimer's excellent novel, 'Summer's Lease', and the accompanying BBC series.