The next day was reserved for a bus
tour of Halland. The province of Halland lies on the southwest coast of Sweden
and is the home to many of my släkt on my mother's side of the family. My
mother's parents came from Tvååker, a small village in the heart of the
Halland farmland just a few miles from the coast. 
The landscape of Halland presents a
large variety of different types of terrain. Rocky windy coastline dotted with
modern windmill farms; rolling fields full of oats, wheat, barley, sugar beets,
potatoes, beans, and the golden rape seed plants; forested hills; and a steep
mountain ridge cutting across the southern border of the province. All of these
were part of the view we enjoyed with our cousins as we traveled south in a 40
passenger bus.
We left the main E 6 highway, and the bus driver negotiated a narrow winding road up and over the Hallandsåsen, the long mountain ridge which defines the border between Halland and Skåne. Back down the mountain to the sea brought us to the town of Båstad. There we enjoyed a special guided tour of the weaving workshop of Märta Fjettersjön.
Some of the classic patterns are
still being produced, however, custom designs are also created for special
occasions and customers. Some of the rugs that are hand-woven here take over a
year to complete.
[NOTE: Several years after the trip I stumbled on an episode of the 'Antiques Roadshow' TV program from St. Paul, Minnesota where a lady brought a Märta Fjettersjön weaving for evaluation. Much to her surprise it was valued at $40,000.]
From Båstad we headed south along the coast to Helsingborg. Here the Kattegatt shrinks to a narrow channel between Sweden and Denmark. And here we visited Sofiero, the place that for many years was the summer home of the King.
The grounds and gardens here were the special work of Queen Marguerite whose
love of flowers resulted in a spectacular collection of plants.
Once again we very sorry that we were a little late for the rhododendron blossoms. The grounds has a collection of around 10,000 of these plants. We headed across the broad expanse of lawn to lunch in the palace.
The first floor has been turned into
a fine restaurant, and our group pretty much took over the place and dined on a
fine meal of baked lax.
An English speaking guide had been
arranged for, so the group followed her for a tour of the gardens.
We heard about the Queen's interest in flowers and plant breeding. You may be familiar with the flower marguerite, a small daisy variety, that was named after her.
From the grounds you can see across
the water to Denmark. You can even see the famous Helsingor castle (supposedly
the site for Shakespeare's Hamlet).
On this day, there was an exhibit of glass by a local artist on display in one of the glass houses.
And along the way we spotted this
sculpture carved from an old tree stump.
Back on the bus we headed north and stopped for a visit to a pottery factory, and then stopped at Flickorna Lundgren , a popular cafe, for coffee and cake.
As soon as the bus returned to the
meeting place (an area garden center parking lot) We hustled Diana off the bus
and into the waiting car of Linnea and Gert-Erik for a quick trip to the
Falkenberg train station. She managed to buy her ticket to Göteborg with about
ten minutes to spare, and was off to Vienna to join her Bridges for Education
group and travel to Romania for a four week stay.
