NORWAY’S NEW ART GALLERY

On September 29^th 2012, a new art gallery was opened in Oslo. Designed by The Shard architect Renzo Piano, this building bridges a canal in the city’s harbour.  The museum has been given the formal name of  Astrup Fearnley Museet and also bestowed the cheekier title of The Combover.

Divided into two, one half of the gallery will house its permanent collection and the other half will host temporary exhibitions and the café and shop.

Located on a landmark site on the edge of a fjord in the new and exciting district of  Tjuvholmen, the museum  covers an area of over 7000 sq. metres and is surrounded by new restaurants, galleries and a hotel. The museum  is a iconic sculptural build with glass canopies arching like a giant sail over the three wooden buildings beneath.  A sculpture park and a beach bordering the museum, making it an idyllic place for Norwegians, young and old, to relax after taking in some art.

http://www.visitnorway.com/uk/Product/?pid=45432

'Slapped ears' - Perfect for an Autumn afternoon

Korvapuustit

Now if somebody offered you a slapped ear you would most probably reply “No thanks”. Or run a mile. But if you should happen to be in Finland, don’t be rash with your refusal. For in Finland, Slapped Ears (Korvapuustit  in Finnish) are delicious cinnamon buns.

WHAT YOU NEED

• 450g  (750ml) plain flour
• 85g  (100ml) caster sugar
• 1 and a half  tsp. ground cardamom pods
• 1 packet of fast-action dried yeast
• 250 ml lukewarm milk
• 1 egg (beaten)
• 75 g butter, softened

Filling:

• 50 g butter, softened
• 4 Tbsps. caster sugar
• 2 Tbsps. ground cinnamon

1. Mix the flour, sugar, cardamom, salt and yeast in a large mixing bowl. Stir in the milk and half of the beaten egg (the rest can be used to glaze the buns).
2. Knead in the softened butter  and carry on  kneading  until you've got a soft, pliable dough. Cover  with clingfilm or a clean tea towel and leave to prove for about 45-60 minute or until doubled in size. (The  best place to prove should be warm and with draughts – an airing cupboard is a great spot, if you have one).
3. Turn the dough onto a lightly floured worktop. Knead gently for a couple of minutes. Roll out  into a 30 x  60 cm rectangle. Then  spread  the soft butter over the dough and sprinkle generously with cinnamon and sugar.  Starting with the long side, roll it up tightly, leaving the join under the roll.
4. Now use a sharp knife to cut into six buns. The buns should be about 2 cm wide on the narrow end and 5 cm on the wide end. Pop them upright on a baking sheet. Press your thumb into  the middle of each bun
5. Cover with a kitchen towel and leave to raise for another 30 minutes in a warm place. Meanwhile, preheat the oven to 225 C/450 F.
6. Brush with egg wash and pop in the over for 10-15 minutes, or until the buns are golden brown.
7. Take the baking sheet out of the oven, cover the buns with a kitchen towel and let them cool for as long as you can resist from eating one.

Sit back and enjoy !

If you find that you can't get this recipe quite right, why not try a few nights in Helsinki where the patisseries will happily serve up this delicacy, or for a real treat enjoy one of these served over an open fire after enjoying an Arctic snowmobile or husky safari in Lapland.

Scandinavian Cooking attains Culinary Gold

The IKA World Culinary Olympics 2012  took place this October in Erfurt Germany. It ran for five days and  54 countries competed to make the most  visually appealing, sensationally tasting dishes.  The World Culinary Olympics were first held in 1900 and they are held every four years.

In the hot kitchen competition, team members are watched closely, as they prepare a three-course meal to feed 110 people in five hours. For the cold platter contest, the chefs prepare exquisitely crafted dishes, which are prepared in advance and judged wholly on their presentation.

Scandinavia proved to be the current culinary champions as Sweden won the gold medal and Norway attained silver. The Swedish winning entry included a cauliflower and broccoli terrine, herb-crusted venison with Scvecia (a Swedish semi-hard) cheese, porcini duxelles (finely diced mushrooms) and a dessert of autumn raspberries, yogurt meringue and almond cake.

If you want to explore Scandinavia, taste the fine food, see the beautiful landscapes and not forgetting at this time of year, enjoy the phenomena of the Northern Lights, take a look at our website or give one of our team a call to find out more about Nordic Experience.

Trondheim to Alesund via the Atlantic Coastal Road

The annual Norwegian Workshop presented me with the opportunity to take a short tour before joining the business sessions in Fredrikstad near Oslo.

I chose to go somewhere that I had not been before and met up with a group of fellow travel professionals from around the globe in Trondheim, Norway’s third largest city. Trondheim has managed to preserve the intimacy of a small town with impressive wooden buildings and colourful wharves and has many other options and excursions available. www.trondheim.com

After checking into our Hotel (Rica Bakklandet) we were whisked off to Norway's National Museum of Rock. Not knowing what to expect we arrived with intrepidation at a large unassuming building, with what looked like a suitcase perched on top - not quite what we were expecting !

The museum is called Rockheim (presumably a pun on Trondheim?) and despite the name is not limited to rock music, but excludes classical, folk and other non mainstream music over the decades from 1950 through to current day.

Rockheim in Trondheim

It's an interactive exhibit and is extremely technologically advanced, using motion sensors to activate the exhibits. For example on the top floor we were presented with a massive curved wall of video screens which we were able to control using hand movements to choose, start and stop music videos by decade.
This is where things became more obvious, in that, unless you are Norwegian you probably don't know any of the music on offer with a couple of notable exceptions. A-ha from the eighties and Elvis from the 50's. Why Elvis ? Apparently there was no "popular" Norweigian music at this time and they needed to shop where all the inspiration came from!

Despite this, you are able to see the changes through the decades as you move through the museum and you learn about Norwegian most famous music exports , other than A-ha : they even have the original drawings from the famous video (if you're old enough to remember).

Apparently Norway is famous for "Black Metal" and they are extremely proud of a band called "Immortal". Certainly not my style of music, and akin to a electric static storm at full volume shouted by a gentleman in black leather trousers & white makeup. Each to their own !!

Interactivity continued with us being able to record a hip hop rapping session, guitar playing in a recording studio, and many other things that we did not have time to experience.

Hunger set in, and we headed back and set out for a lovely fish restaurant just around the corner from the Rica Hotel called Havfruen (www.havfruen.no). Well worth a visit with fantastic food and a river setting.

Location:Trondheim, Norway

Journey to the centre of the Earth

Did you read or watch Journey to the Centre of the Earth when you were younger? It always intrigued me, and now you have the chance to see for yourself this summer in Iceland where they have opened up a new tour "Inside the Volcano".

As the name suggests you can lower yourself into a volcano. Thrihnukagigur is the only place on earth where you can go into a magma chamber of a volcano. Luckily this volcano has been asleep for the last 4,000 years but they still don't guarantee that it won't erupt again. I think it's a fairly safe bet though !!

Currently this is only available for a short 12 week period this summer this is an interesting addition to any visit to Iceland.

Located about 20miles from Reykjavik it is easy to reach and will give you a spectacular insight into the volcanic activity that forms part of Icelandic everyday life. For those that may be claustrophobic, there is no need to worry, the Magma Chamber is (in their word)s 'huge' and could fit the Statue of Liberty inside a number of times over.

More details can be found at Inside the Volcano or you can ask us to add this on to your tour.

Location:Iceland

Northern Lights in Tromso

Tromso Cathedral

I was recently given the opportunity to fly to Tromso to experience the Northern Lights in Northern Norway. There is never a guarantee that the aurora borealis will play fair and come out to play, but I was hopeful and set out with a DSLR, tripod and the instruction manual for the camera.

The flight to Tromso was with SAS via Oslo departing from Heathrow early in the morning with a quick connection in Oslo (where incidentally it is necessary to collect your luggage and re-checkin for the onward domestic flight) and by lunchtime I was gazing at the beautiful snowy landscape as we were on the final approach into Tromso.

The bus transfer into Tromso cost 90NOK return (about £10) and we were dropped outside the Rica with a short 100m walk to the Hotel With where we were booked into. The Hotel With is not the most attractive building from the outside, but it has an amazing position overlooking the harbour and serves waffles and cream in the afternoon! It also provides a basic evening meal as part of the deal - useful as Norway can be expensive to eat out. This is not meant to be a half board option but an opportunity to ensure that food is available if it is wanted. Odd way of looking at it, but the other hotel guests seemed to be happy enough.

Having been up early in the morning to drive to Heathrow we were not really of the mind to set out searching for the Northern Lights, but as our time was short we duly looked at our pre-booked vouchers and set our for the meeting point to go on a taster dog sledding session whilst peering into the sky for the Northern Lights - or at least that was the idea ! Dog sledding is rather like driving a car on skis, in the you need to pay attention to everything that is going on around you while maintaining your balance (and dignity).

The Northern Lights were spectacular that night (4th March) but it was a shame I couldn't take photos - though as I'd not taken the time to read the manual yet I suspect my photos would have looked very much like some of the others which I saw that night ...... black !!!

Speaking to the more experienced photographers it seems that the tripod is a necessity, with a long exposure (10-30 seconds) and a high ISO. I lost it at the ISO stage but thanked them warmly for their advice.

Husky Mushing in Tromso

The husky mushing was great fun though being a taster session it was soon over and we were back to a Kota (or Lavu) for a basic warm meal before transferring back to Tromso by bus, not before seeing the final dance of the Aurora before the clouds obscured the stars and any further chances of seeing more solar activity.

What would the next day have in store for us ........

Location:Tromso, Norway

Can your smartphone survive the cold

Having just returned from yet another trip to Northern Finland I experienced a few issues with my iPhone and Android companions which complained against the cold.  Battery life on smartphones is not knonwn to be that good and the cold exasperated the condition.  I often wondered why all the local guides seemed to have "old" Nokia phones in their pockets and this got me wondering which phones were the best for the cold temperature.

A quick Google and I cam up with the following webpage Sub-Zero Weather and Smartphones.  Quite interesting to see which phones fared the best.

If you've got the latest iPhone then perhaps you should keep it warm !!