Tjolöholms slott

... or "a day in the country".

This is Tjolöholms slott. It belonged to a Scottish family, the Dicksons, who had it built as a holiday home. Construction was completed in 1904. The interiors are a combination of Tudor and Elizabethan style, so lots of dark wood, mixed with Art Nouveau touches. The house itself is situated on about 700 hectares of land, and the property also includes a workers' village and a large stone church. The house was a modern wonder, complete with central heating, the first electric vaccuum cleaner in Sweden, a parafin-heated hair dryer, state of the art bathrooms, a billiard room, smoking room, children's wing, and "king's bedroom", though no king ever slept in it. What is interesting is that no one other than direct descendants ever lived in it, and it sat vacant but furnished for 30 years, so what we saw today is what was actually there.

The woodwork throughout is magnificent. Mrs Dickson's boudoir is decorated with wooden carvings of the characters from a Midsummer Night's Dream. There are multiple staircases. Everywhere the carving is exquisite.

2 of the 3 bathrooms have sunken tubs, more like hot tubs than bath tubs. You walk down a few steps into the pool. They also have showers where the water hits you from everywhere - down from the top, up from the bottom, and all around your sides.

There's a flower-arranging room just off the 2nd floor landing. It has a large window to the outside and also a glass wall to the inside so that natural light can flow through to the dark interiors.

Andrew and I were in need of an outing. It had been a long time since we'd done a day trip. This 'castle' is about 30mins drive from Göteborg. We had a grand prowl around the grounds before the tour started. The tour was in Swedish, but I am at the point now that I understood almost all of it, so I translated bits for Andrew. The tourguide spoke perfect English and repeated the key points about each room for us as well. We also had a typed explanation for each room. Elizabeth stayed home to do homework, and as Peter is in Moscow at the moment, they both missed it today, but we will take them back once Spring is here. The gardens should be magnificent with everything in bloom.