OSLO 2015

As I've already told many of you, my camera died on our first day in Oslo, meaning that I got very few photos.  But I did get some and have a few things to tell you about Oslo.

To the right is an enormous Norwegian flag -- nearly two stories high -- that hung in the atrium of our hotel.  It felt symbolic in a way -- in the Spring, Oslo is big, bright, capacious and colourful, just like the flag.

Below is the steeple of the Oslo Cathedral, conveniently located right up the street from our hotel.  The interior was lovely -- very serene, and compared to many European cathedrals, relatively unadorned.


The Cathedral dates from 1697, but was rebuilt in the mid-ninetheenth century.  It has a lovely, quiet courtyard along one side, with several restaurants.  We had our last meal in Oslo at one of them.

Another building of interest is Oslo's City Hall.  It's relatively new -- it opened in 1950 -- and is built entirely from Norwegian materials.  All the interior art -- and there's a lot of it:  murals and tapestries galore -- was created by Norwegian artists.  City Hall is also where my camera started misbehaving, so I only got a few photos.  Luckily, one of them is of the mural of Oslo's patron saint, St. Hallvard.

St. Hallvard died in 1043 AD, trying to save a pregnant woman being attacked by -- as the caption near the mural tells us -- "three thugs."  Hallvard got the woman into a boat, but the attackers shot three arrows, killing them both.  Ashamed by what they had done, the attachers tried to hide their crime by tying the bodies to a millstone and sinking it in the harbour.  Miraculously, the millstone floated to the surface.  In the mural, you can see the boat, the millstone, the arrows and the naked pregnant woman.  This is what I love -- can you think of another public building that features a naked pregnant woman?

The Norwegian National Ballet and Opera House is easily the city's most spectacular building.  It is designed to look like it's rising out of the water, is enormous and meant to be walked on.  You can climb all over it -  day or night -- and from the top there are great views of the city.  The tiny people walking on it will give you some idea of the scale.

These three photos give a small sense of three outstanding characteristics of the city:  It's spaciousness, it's many statues, and it's focus on the water.

Oslo is a roomy, sprawling city --  This pedestrian steer was very open early on a weekday morning, but on  a warm Spring Saturday it was wall to wall people.  At the far end is the Royal Palace.  We were there in mid-May and the lilacs -- of which there were many -- were in bloom and the streets were lined with stone planters filled with matching purple pansies.

You also can't help but notice the enormous number of sculptures that seem to be everywhere -- in fountains, in alcoves, in parks, and on corners.  Pretty much everywhere you look.  This is one of the few I managed to photograph.  I have no idea who the subject is, but he seems calmly resigned to his fate as a seagull perch.

Oslo is a coastal city and oriented toward the water.  This is my only shot of the harbour.

I visited many interesting places in Oslo, and felt quite naked without my camera.  The loss was most painful at Vigeland Park, a massive outdoor green space dedicated to the works of Gustav Vigeland, Norway's most famous sculptor.  These were fascinating, beautiful and full of life.  Vigeland was especially good at depicting the expressions of children and I'm sorry I can't share them with you.

I'll not torment you with the list of places I visited but can't show you.  Suffice it to say, Oslo is a fascinating city with lots to see.

Jan

Stockholm 2013

STOCKHLOLM 2013

This trip we visited both London and Stockholm, cities Vic and have visited before -- this was our 5^th trip to Stockholm – so I was a little lax in my photo-taking.  None at all from London which was suffering under a heat wave and where we spent most of our stay in lovely air-conditioned theatres.

I did better in Stockholm, though, which is a hugely photogenic city. 

The city of Stockholm is built on a series of islands and the oldest part is Gamla Stan, the old city.  This is a beautifully preserved medieval city centre with narrow, twisting alleys, and lovely open squares. 

Ridder Holmen is a kind of peninsula off Gamla Stan, and is home to Riddarholmskyrkan, the oldest church in the city.  I think it’s also the only medieval church left.  It was built in the 13^th century, but the lovely lattice-work spire was added after a fire in the 1800s.  It’s most famous for being the burial site of all but two Swedish monarchs since the 17^th century.  All of the little additions you see around the church are the burial vaults of the various royal families.  Riddarholmskyrkan is also the site of the only gargoyle I saw this trip.  I love his little crown.

Ridder Holmen is also the best place to get a good view of Stockholm’s City Hall, famous for being where the Nobel prizes are handed out.  It’s a symbol of the city and probably the most photographed building in town.  The conference’s reception was held there and you’ll have to take my word for it that the inside is spectacular because the place was so mobbed with psychologists that I couldn’t get any good photos.

Not all of Stockholm is old, at least not by European standards.  Ostermalm, an extremely wealthy part of the city, was developed in the late 19^th century.  It was then, and still is, home to the rich and famous.  This shot is of Strandvagen, a street running along the waterfront.  The houses were built in the early 1900 by the city’s 10 richest citizens.  It’s a safe bet that the people who live there now aren’t exactly poor.

And you’re not going to escape without another shop sign.  This lovely owl stands in front of an apothecary shop on Drottinggatan, a pedestrian shopping street that runs from Norrmalm across a bridge to Gamla Stan.  If you look closely at the lower left of the photo, you’ll see a real birds nest, which I thought was very clever of some bird.

Two of my favourite places in Stockholm are the Vasa museum and Millesgarden.  Happily, I was able to visit both this trip.

The Vasa Museum is Sweden’s most popular and most visited museum.  And you have to admire the Swede’s ability to turn lemons into lemonade because the Vasa, the ship the museum is literally built around, was the biggest military boondoggle in Swedish history. 

The Vasa was commissioned by King Gustav II Adolf to be the flagship of his fleet.  It was to be “state of the art” nautical design, with three  -- count them, three! – rows of cannon on each side, 64 canons in all.  While it as being built, there were all kinds of signs that there were problems with the design.  For example, one stability test used at the time was to have several people run back and forth across the deck 30 times.  When the Vasa was tested, they had to stop after 3 crossings because it was so unstable.  None of the people doing the building -- and being well paid for it -- wanted to tell the king, though, so construction went on.  (Military procurement processes don’t seem to have changed much over the centuries!)  The Vasa was launched to great fanfare on August 10, 1628.  Twenty minutes later, in calm weather, it capsized and sank. 

This first photo is the Vasa as it is now, reassembled and unpainted.  If you look carefully, you’ll see several people standing near the ship, which will give you an idea of the size of the thing.  The water in which the Vasa sank was very cold, very dark and had little salt, all of which allowed it to survive so well.  The ship was reassembled from 13, 500  pieces and there were no existing plans to follow.

The next photo is of a scale model of the ship as it would have looked when launched.

During the 17^th century, some certifiably crazy people built a diving bell like the one you see in this photo, and went down into the pitch dark, freezing cold ocean to salvage the canons – their metal being the most valuable part of the ship.  Basically, a man stood in the diving bell, dressed in regular clothes, and it was lowered into the sea.  As it went down, a bubble of air formed in the top, allowing the salvager to breathe for about 30 minutes.  When the bell hit bottom, the man inside felt around with a hook until he hit a cannon, which was then somehow hoisted to the surface.  They knew about the bends in the 17^th century and had to allow time during the assent to prevent it, so the whole process had to be done quickly.  Amazingly, over 50 of the 64 cannons were salvaged this way.  No one recorded how many of the salvagers didn’t survive the process.




This series of photos is of Millesgarden, home of Carl Milles – Sweden’s best known 20^th century artist – and his wife Olga, an artist in her own right.  Carl and Olga lived there in the 1910s and 20s, and again in the 1950s.  It’s a beautiful place, built on a cliff, with terraced gardens containing replicas and originals of Milles’ most famous sculptures.  Milles spent many years living and working in the US and there are many of his sculptures there. 

I took well over 100 photos here, and it was hard to choose just a few.

 I picked this one, “God’s Hand” because it looked great against the clouds.   

This statue is called “Listening Woman” and I love the expression on her face.  Whatever she’s listening to must be lovely.

This one is called “Girl with Falling Leaf.”  I include it because it is a study for what became a fountain in Harrisburg, PA.

This lovely guy is “The Thinker.” 

These next three photos are of the house and grounds.  If you look closely at the colonnaded walk, you’ll see an elderly couple at the far end.  Later in the afternoon, I stumbled upon them kissing passionately on a secluded bench.  It was my favourite part of the day!

Front view of the house.

Rear view with the informal back garden.

These three shots are for the grandparents among you.  They are a series of three paintings by Olga Milles, done on the fronts of the cabinets in the house’s tiny kitchen.  The walls are covered with antique blue and white Dutch tiles and she mimicked their style in the paintings.  They show clearly how quickly a baby’s play can go from laughter to tears.

Carl Milles’ work was heavily influenced by Roman and Etruscan art and the house contains his extensive collection of antiquities.  I love it when a bit of a long-gone life reaches out and touches me, which is what this burial stone did.  The inscription says, “ Flavia Agrippina, most sweet sister, who lived 17 years.  Flavius Brytto, her brother, made this.”  (See?  All those years of Latin pay off once in a while.)

Finishing off is this shot of a bronze statue of a boar.  I am fascinated by the human urge to touch things, and often wonder why people choose to touch what they do.  For example, when I was at Drexel it was a tradition to rub the toe of a particular statue for luck before exams.  That toe was very, very shiny, attesting to the strength of the superstition.  When Vic and I were in Verona, one breast on the (fully clad) statue of Juliet was rubbed shiny.  In this garden, containing over 200 sculptures, most of them bronze and most of them in easy reach, only one thing was shiny from being touched – this boar’s nose.  Why him? 

Hope you enjoyed this vicarious trip!

Jan Catano

2013