On July 31 the Brunborgs drove us out to Høllen, a village in the municipality of Søgne in Vest-Agner, there to visit the Andersens in their award-winning restored home before joining them on a round-trip ferry ride to Ny-Hellesund, a small island with a big reputation.  Like many other Norwegians, the Andersens also own a hytte, but they had just arrived from a visit to Austria and were scheduled to depart for Denmark on the next day, so a visit to their hytte was not possible.  That was certainly no sacrifice for us; their Høllen home is a spectacular blend of old Norway and modern appliance.  After some coffee and some conversation and a quick tour of their house, we walked down to the pier at Høllen to catch the local ferry, which makes a number of stops at local islands.  Our destination was Ny-Hellesund, where a “Verftet” (shipyard) has been converted into a destination for tourists that features expensive lodgings and a fancy restaurant named “BØLGEN & MOI”, the 9th restaurant created by Trond Moi (chef) and Toralf Bølgen to bear their names.  We arrived to find that the fancy indoor restaurant was not open for lunch, but that service was available in several (windy) patios.  The prices reflected the upscale aspirations of the place; most of us ordered the fish soup, which costed 240 Nkr each but was indeed delicious.

After our lunch we ducked briefly into the interior of the restaurant, where we found innovative settings of the glasses and silverware.  We then explored the relatively-new trail that winds around the little island and offers some spectacular views of the surroundings.  Rain chased us back to the pier, where very shortly the ferry arrived to take us back to Høllen.  On the return, we took a very short side trip through a narrow cut that had us passing by monograms left by Norwegian Kings on Helgøya.

Back at Høllen we had coffee and strawberries before saying goodbye to Terje With and Mika, two remarkable people who found time in their hectic schedule to keep a two year old promise, and to do so with grace and class.  We are very grateful.

PS:  Two days later the newspapers were all filled with accounts of the visit of the Bill Gates family with the Crown Prince and Princess of Norway.   Where did they meet?  On the island of Ny-Hellesund and the Bølgen & Moi restaurant.  We missed them by one day!  (I bet they got to eat inside!)