A month later, more of the same! What a mushroom season around here!

It is now November in Istria and we continue visiting our numerous mushroom spots in turn, first for the interesting walks in the very nice forests, and then for the incredible recipes that we are eating everyday based on all sorts of mushrooms. This time, we have been exploring the areas around the airport of Pula, just a few kilometres from home...  

And we found another untouched spot, probably too close to the city for having attracted the mushroom lovers looking for unexplored forests, as there is a fierce competition for foraging...

End of sailing season, September 2024, start of the mushroom season, October 2024!

Back to the blog for an update! The sailing season is over for us this year, after 570 nautical miles around Pula. This is not much compared to previous seasons, and can be explained by the number of friends and visitors we had over the summer, with whom we tended to sail locally, relatively bad weather in June and September, and a lot of work on top of that!   

Anyway, we are Mediterranean sailors now, used to the tricks of mooring in any port under any conditions, even if we still miss the Baltic!

End of the sailing season in Croatia? 15-20 August

Today we went to Rijeka to discuss with the Furuno representative the repairs needed on Belisama to change the autopilot display and reset the network, which has been down for a couple of weeks now, forcing us to sail with Navionics on the mobile phone. Much to our surprise, Furuno told us that they would not be able to work on the boat as they close after the 15th of August to give their staff a rest at the "end of the sailing season"! No problem, we can wait another 2 weeks. 

But is it really the end of the sailing season?

First boletus of the season in Učka National Park area

First sign that boletus can grow nicely in Istria. What else...?

Yellow foot chanterelles in November! 14 November

Sunday 14 November, sunny cold morning, 4°C, ideal weather to get to the forest and check what mushrooms could still be found there... As for the place, we chose the island of Selaön, in the lake Mälaren, around 100 km from Stockholm. For picking the spot, we relied on a Swedish friend telling us to go on the southern shore of the Lake Mälaren for picking mushrooms. The reason is that Lake Mälaren is what remains from the glacier lake located on the south of the ice cape on the North pole during prehistoric times, 12,000 years ago. The good soil that had accumulated over the years rose over the sea/lake level in relation with the rising of Sweden after the melting of the ice cap. On that basis, we checked on Google Earth which area could be good. Criteria were: 1) presence for a forested area, 2) on a flat ground, 3) far from villages and habitations. These proved to be very good criteria as you can see in the picture below, gathered in 2 hours.

4 kg of yellowfoot chanterelles!

Back to autumn in Sweden, October 2021

Since the last post, a lot of miles have been travelled, from Iceland through Croatia, back to Sweden at the beginning of October. And as you should know by now, Sweden in October is the place to collect mushrooms! So we did, and it has proved to be an exceptional year, just like in France it seems!

The yellow foot chanterelle, alias Craterellus tubaeformis

Start of the mushroom season in Mariefred, 2 August

Leaving Göteborg and Belisama for a week in Stockholm, I went to Croatia to buy a house and just came back for the weekend for mushroom picking in Mariefred.

Mariefred  Castle.

Wintering in Wasahamnen - 10 November

Finally, mid-November, we place Belisama in her winter quarters in the centre of Stockholm, alongside the quay where the new Viking museum is located...

Yesterday is the same as tomorrow, 1 and 7 September 2019.

Another mushroom weekend around Gripsholm castle in Mariefred area. We went back to the same place where we went last week. And this time, the harvest was even better! Amazing to see how fast are the mushrooms growing as we did not leave much behind us last week. And this time, they were all fresh, young and without bugs!

1 September 2019

7 September 2019

A real pleasure!

A good start of the mushroom season, 1 September

Two days ago while on Stallarholmen in the Mälaren, I had a good boletus risotto, having found few boletus mushrooms along the way while biking in Selaön. We decided for the weekend, to get back to this forest to explore a bit more its mushroom resources...

This is the harvest after a few hours in the forest...

And they proved to be huge!

A hidden treasure, Stallarholmen and Selaön, 28-30 August 2019

When sailing in the Mälaren, Mariefred and Strängnäs are two of the most visited spots. But in between, there is an opening bridge at Stallarholmen that very few sailors would consider for a visit. Yet, Stallarholmen is the entry point for the Island of Selaön, the largest lake island in Sweden, and a real coup de coeur!

The Överselö medieval church on Selaön

Judge by yourselves! Two decorated medieval churches, one of the largest viking grave field with plenty of rune stones and a stone ship, the Mälsåker castle, and a lot of nature and forest, full of mushroom at this time of the year.

I let you get a look...

Sottunga, 23 July 2019

Sottunga (60.109718, 20.682106), with 90 inhabitants is the smallest municipality in Åland. Only three of the islands around are inhabited. Sottunga got inhabited in the 11th century. The original church was built in 1661, but the one we can see today dates from 1728.

On the island, there is one bank, one school and one post office. One wind mill provides all electricity needed for the whole island.

Smådalarö, 8 & 9 September

Smådalarö Gård is an hotel located at the entrance of the fjord heading towards Saltsjöbaden, in a bay protected from all winds with a very shallow entrance.

Smådalarö Gård. Belisama, fourth from the left.

Last cruise for 2017 - 22 October 2017

Last cruise of the year to refill the tank before the hibernation in Wasahamnen. It is 7°C, but there is a nice low sun to accompany us. It takes forever to add the adjuvant for diesel in each of the tanks and to fill the tanks 50 litres by 50 litres, as the automat only delivers 50 litres at a time on a credit card. And the tanks are totalling 540 litres... Well, the tanks were not empty and it took only five runs to fill them up.

On the way back, we parked Belisama in the corner where she will be for the winter, same place as last year.

A mushroom party - 28 August - 3 September

The weekend for the cousinades was particularly nice in Nåttarö. There were still a few boats in the Östermarsfladen despite the fact that school had started again. Over the weekend, we had good weather, good (sous vide) food, good company, good wine and good singing! 

Belisama entering Östermarsfladen, Nåttarö

But we had particularly good mushrooming!

Early autumn cruises, 9-11 September

With the autumn are coming the longer darker nights. Around the equinox, days are shortening very fast, loosing almost one hour  per week! Then we start seing again the stars in the sky and eve the milky way!

Muskö, Saturday night

Muskö is famous for its submarine (don't miss reading Mankell's "Troubled man") and for its mushrooms...

A mushroom week - 3 September 2016

The week started Monday, on the way to the office where I came across these young parasol mushrooms. They usually appear in rings in the pastures called fairy rings in English, but witch rings in French! 

I was not equipped to pick them. Therefore, I came back the day after with a knife and a bag...

Start of the mushroom season in Kusökalv - 10 July 2016

To day, we picked the first mushrooms for the 2016 season. Quite early in the season, and not really impressive boletus. But boletus nevertheless! Quite Ok in the omelette for lunch.