Day 19. Wandering round Fredrikstad.
There were also odd bits of art around the town as we made our way to the shopping center. The first one that attracted our attention was a neat set of deer cut from one piece of plate steel. It took me a while to work out how photograph it. In reality the impact of the sculpture changes as you walk round it and two photos don't really give it justice. Made us laugh though!
The second one that made us laugh was a TV and hard plastic sofa. Damae sat down to see how comfortable it really was and stayed there for a few minutes. Unfortunately my attempts to photograph the TV picture failed miserably due to the sun. Did I mention it was sunny?
We made a trip to a modern shopping precinct in town. We stopped on the way at a lovely shop selling crockery and glassware. There were some lovely things on sale, and we decided that should we ever come to live in Norway we'd come back and get some lovely things. Close to a supermarket we found some good tofu and veggie sausages in a small health food shop and did some food shopping in the supermarket. Mmmm fresh vegetables!
On the way back to the hostel we walked back along the river. As this forms part of the NSCR we'd already cycled this section and it formed our first impression of Fredrikstad. There view is nice and there was evidence of new developments in this part of town, some interesting architectural features. A foot bridge caught my eye and this modern toilet. A far cry from what I grew up to expect from public toilet architecture in the UK. Also it was interesting to see a wooden town house nestling between much more recent buildings .
It was interesting to see the new part of Fredrikstad. The impression we both got was that it was an agreeable place to live. Big enough to have a bit of life and good facitilites but small enough to not be overwhelming.
It was back to our hostel for dinner, and to chat with the Dutchman who spoke Dutch with a Swedish accent. His accent change made me wonder how my English accent has changed after 10 years in the Netherlands. He'd been living in Sweden for 27 years having left as a young man. We asked lots of questions about what Sweden was like to live in and his answers were mostly positive.
Then early to bed in preparation for the last full cycling day of the tour.