Tuesday 31 July 2012

C for Charlottenberg (ABC Wednesday)

Just as with the letter Z, at first I could not think of any locality in Sweden beginning with C , but when I looked it up, I did find one:

Charlottenberg with about 3000 inhabitants is situated about 7 km from the Norwegian border and is the seat of Eda Municipality in the province of Värmland.

It was named after the wife of the founder of an ironworks there back in 1827.

Charlottenberg railway station is the last station in Sweden before the Norwegian border, and serves as the frontier point between the Swedish and Norwegian railway systems. The town is also situated on Swedish national road 61, which becomes Norwegian national road 2 at the border.

As a border town, Charlottenberg benefits from the border trade encouraged by the difference in retail prices between Norway and Sweden. The influx of Norwegian shoppers is so great in the period leading up to Christmas that many Charlottenberg locals prefer to do their own shopping in other towns that time of year.

Charlottenberg shopping mall (photo from an advertising site)

I must have passed through Charlottenberg when going on a mini-holiday to Norway from Karlstad way back in 1978. (I lived in K. then.) There is no photo from C. in my photo album – but there is evidence consisting of a small map glued into the album where I marked our route (the X added digitally now):

Norge karta 2

Just possibly we may have stopped at C. to buy food before crossing the border into Norway. More likely we bought what we needed before we started, but never mind… Let’s assume we did buy our tin of sausages in Charlottenberg, ‘cos that gives me a reason to insert this photo of our advanced roadside cooking (somewhere along the river Glomma in Norway):

Norge 1979_0001

Yep. That’s me back in 1978, aged 23. And below is a photo of my friend opening that tin of sausages with a knife, because we had forgotten to bring a tin opener…
Another C for coping! Winking smile

morakniv

17 comments:

  1. yes, there are places I've forgotten I've been to!
    ROG, ABC Wednesday team

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  2. Wow, that looks like a gourmet meal! :D

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    Replies
    1. There were instant mashed potatoes too, I think... LOL

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    2. What no baked beans?? They were always the staple of camping diets. Though, like you, I didn't do much of it, preferring to stay in youth hostels.
      I had a blue gas stove but when I was young Dad had an old 'Primus' stove which used meths in the days before bottled gas.

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  3. That looks like a clever looking cooking feature! Lovely photos!

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  4. i love the photo of you and that cute little stove for cooking or coping. looks dangerous with that knife. daddy used to do that. the name of the town could be one in the USA, it looks like English not Swedish.

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  5. Dear friend,
    I love the picture of the shopping site. Your friend looks like she need some help (LOL). Thanks for sharing.

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  6. Perfect choice for the letter C. I love your camping and coping experience.

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  7. Makes me think of we Vancouverites going across the USA border to buy gas because it's cheaper there, even though the Americans complain about their high prices! Have a great week,

    Leslie
    abcw team

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  8. We all think the shopping is better next door for some reason!
    I love the 1978 roadside cooking pictures, I was 18 that year and left all the utensils at home when we went camping at Big Sur CA! We just ate from the pan with my future husbands pocket knife ...good times!

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  9. I was never much of a camper and I think I gave it up after one more camping weekend that same summer which had to be cut short because of my allergy to grass! I'm sure that yellow stove was never mine, it must have belonged either to my friend's family or to the same people we borrowed a tent from. I do know I had my mother's car that summer, a Renault 4...

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  10. Great photos ~ Great tour ~ wonderful post ~~ thanks, namaste, (A Creative Harbor)

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  11. Watching that tin being opened with a knife gave me the heebie-jeebies.

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  12. From experience I can say that opening a can with a knife is a precarious job, lol! Like the pic with your hair in braids!

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  13. For those worried about the knife-job... We both survived, and as far as I recall there wasn't any bloodshed. My friend became a medical doctor when she grew up, but I doubt this experience had anything to do with it ;)

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  14. Hello, I'm a blogger friend of Sandra, the Mad Snapper, and she told me she has a lot of fun following your blog. I'm an old lady from Sweden who went to the US in 1962 and stayed on. I love Sweden, nature, what it stands for, my relatives and friends there. I live with my hubby and two dogs in the mountains of California. It's very peaceful and I love it. I will be back.

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  15. Very interesting! Catching up with ABC.

    C is for...
    Rose, ABC Wednesday Team

    PS.. COMMENTS makes me happy!

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