Båstad and Laholmsbukten *image heavy*

I sort of promised to show some photos of Bjäre clad in snow yesterday, but without much advance warning by sis and I decided to tag along when mom drove to Båstad so I spent most of my time yesterday there. My sis had her camera with her, more or less by accident, but it turned out to be a fab thing. When we reached Italienska vägen, the road leading into the village of Båstad, we could as usual get a great view of most of the bay Laholmsbukten, the bay between the Bjäre peninsula and the province of Halland. Seeing ice covering it almost all the way out to Norrviken, we quickly decided that we just had to got down to the sea after running the bank errands that had originally prompted my sis to go.

So the good thing is I've got some new sceneries to show instead of the same old spots I always post about.  And maybe I should warn that this post might get picture heavy. As always you can click on the photos to enlarge them.

We went down to Brunnsparken, which really isn't much of a park: it's just a strip of grass and some trees separating the shore from the houses and Strandpromenaden, the promenade stretching along the shoreline from east to west.

You can't see it in the photos, but our old school is just down by the promenade. Not many people have had the luxury of having a "seafront school" and indeed today no school would be placed at such an attractive location. No, it'd be nothing but top class hotels and millionaires' villas. In art class we would every now and then be allowed to go down to the beach on a good day to draw swans, seascapes etc, sitting in the sand or on the old WW2 concrete bunkers (part of Per Albinlinjen) and enjoying the sunny weather. You can see the bunker in the pic below.

This is a view of the shoreline stretching towards Malen.

The ducks and gulls saw us straight away and swam/walked to use in a big, loud group. They were very disappointed when realising we hadn't got any food for them. No swans to be seen, though. (As for that last pic I don't know why, but when I uploaded it Blogger rotated it like that. Tried to do it again, but with the same result.  *argh*)

Turning our attention from the birds, I took some photos of the sea. The first photo is taken on the pier.

We then proceeded to the harbour and I took a photo of Båstad as seen from the pier. And one of the ridge, Hallandsåsen. As you can see, it more or less surrounds the village on all sides. Well, except for the seaside of cause...

We continued west, passing Hotell Skansen and the old cannons protecting us from the russian. Or at least they used to do that in the old days. These cannons were in fact used against the russian navy, who attacked the village in the summer of 1788. The bath house belongs to the hotel. This beach, Skansenbadet, is one of the most crowded in the summer, being next such popular places as Pepes Bodega and the centrecourt.

I know it sounds weird, me living on a small peninsula and all, but I haven't been down by the shore in wintertime for years so the frozen seascape really fascinated me. Sure I see (and take lots of pics of) the icy sea from a far, but I very rarely get this close.

We continued passed Lejontrappan with it's lion fountain -- a lion with a very wonky nose as it's fallen of several times and been patched together -- and the fancy villas. This part of the promenade was actually closed as they are still restoring the walkway after the damages done by the advent storm I wrote about here, but no one was working at the part we were on so we walked there anyway (as many others had also done).

Then we thought it was time to go back and decided to take another route through the village, following Lindallén and Aghardsgatan, instead of going the same way back again. These pics are from Aghardsgatan -- houses for the rich, just like the villas.

On the short end of one of the houses on above mentioned street you can find this cannon ball embedded in the wall. It is said to be a memory from the attempted russian invasion that day in August,1788. When I was a kid I thought it had lodged itself there when fired from the ship's cannons. A lot of kids have thought that. Nor is it conclusively proven to be a russian cannon ball at all, but a good tale is always a good tale.

And again Blogger has rotated the portrait format pics. Why, Blogger, why??

Well, Blogger's issues aside I hope you've enjoyed reading through this long post. And I hope you like the seascape as much as I did.