Sweden / Day trip to Grand Hotel Molle & the making of a superstar!

Road trips – hate them… NOT!

My imaginary tail is wagging again – we are on our way to Hassleholm to a recording studio so Jeffrey can record with Mitch, his other producer, and then we will continue to Molle, waaaaay down in southern Sweden.

Swedish pop: Cue’s Album ‘Back to See this Place’ 

This is our friend Niklas’ album.
His musician name is Cue. Check him out here.
We listen to his music and read the words. It is refreshing to listen to good old pop – songs about love, pain, bliss, sadness, hope… Real songs with real melodies and substance.

DEFINITELY put this on your list of things to buy if you go to Sweden one day.

Green Sweden – in more than one sense.

Petrol station hotdog. Do *not* die without trying one of these babies – YUM!

We are in Hassleholm to sing. Or more like Jeffrey sings, my singing would probably scare away all the wildlife within hearing range and I like animals way too much.

Mitch, Jeffrey’s producer for a few of his songs, and Jeffrey. Reunited after years apart. Jeffrey records another song.

What does this button do?

We now head to Molle.

En route.

There are pit-stops and then there are animal-stops. The latter is when I get excited to see anything other than a camel and we stop to say hello to them.

Animal-stop in progress.

Beautiful…

We come across this sign. To me it says’ “jdhfrehg jkahsz fhfb”. But it makes more sense to Jeffrey and he pulls over.

There is no one around – we walk in. It is apparently a self-serve veggie shop. All organic of course.

We are greeted by various vegetables but no humans. Hi veggies!

The cash box has a message for us. It says something like ‘Put money in the box or go pay inside’. This reminds me of the self check-out counters in the States – but I haven’t seen those yet and it is not July yet, it is May and no I am not back-logged on this blog. Uhm!

Love road tripping in my favorite seat – passenger!

Grand Hotel Molle 

Finally: Grand Hotel Molle. We have heard amazing things about it and we want to see if it really is quite grand.

The business lounge.

Lounge area of the restaurant.

The view from the restaurant. You can see Denmark trying to sneak into the photo from a distance.

I have been on the other side a few times, staring at Sweden from the Danish coast and thinking how cool it would be to live in Europe where every few minutes there is another country, another culture and local color to absorb. And here we are now on the other side, exploring, absorbing, wiser and happier 🙂

Grand Hotel Molle is one of the oldest buildings here. Did you know that it was the first place in Europe that boys and girls could go (gasp!) swimming together?? Scandalous! People used to flock here from all over Europe to indulge in this decadent behavior 😉

A piano! Guess who plays it and plays it *really* well!!

Beautiful music to go with the gorgeous setting. Jeff was one of those kids that was naturally talented and would be playing the piano in the music room with his little fingers when everyone else was playing outside. This prompted his teacher to call his mom and tell her that she has a talented, special little boy and thus his musical life begun.

This place is really romantic – perfect venue for a wedding. Now all we need is lots of cash, lots of time and, oh, I guess someone to marry would also be useful. Easy 🙂

We are served by Stefan – beyond excellent service makes us wonder if he is one of the owners – we hear the next table asking him the same question. But he’s just someone who loves to do what he does. Wish I could clone him…

They usually need a reservation but they do accommodate us. Double wow to the service.

Yummies:

The food was 2 ‘very’s: very delicious and very expensive.

That was definitely worth the trip!

We start heading back but stop when there is something pretty to see.

This reminds me of ‘The Little House on the Prairie’… which gives away my age so I’m gonna deny ever saying that.

Mother nature helps set the mood for a good night’s sleep.