On Thurs., Aug 4 we landed in Stockholm, Sweden & spent 5 days in the city. The first 2 days the temperature was (& had been for 6 weeks!) unusually hot – 90 -95 , but a front with rain storms blew in Sat & Sun and for the rest of the trip we had the wonderfully cool/comfortable northern weather we had packed for.
Enclosed you will find your own personal “postcard photo” from the trip, with identification & description written on the back. Also, you get a 5×7 frame-able copy of a Norwegian Fjord east of Bergen – my best trip photo. It is actually a companion piece to the Greek photograph I took 10 years ago & sent you one year. Most will also get a 3×5 photo of Stockholm & a Norwegian Stave Kirke (church). The Borgund Stave Kirke built in 1150, is one of only 27 left out of 750 in Norway. In the 1700’s, they were for a time considered pagan in origin & most were burned. This particular Stave Kirke is the only one to survive in its total original state with no additions or rebuilding. Since they are made completely of wood, that’s truly amazing. A few of my musician friends will get a photo of Trollhagen (Troll Hill), the home in Bergen, Norway of Edvard Grieg.
Stockholm is a city constructed on a series of islands that stand between Lake Malarin and the Baltic Sea. On Friday, we took a 2 hour boat trip around these islands. That last summer day the beaches were packed–with about half of the women, true to the Swedish belief in being natural, going topless. Parts of Stockholm remind one of historic Amsterdam or Tallinn, Estonia — and other parts, modern & futuristic, could be in NYC, Pittsburgh or Cincinnati. Two museums in Stockholm are special and on the must see list. (1) The Vasa – the Vasa was a ship constructed from specially chosen oak trees, royally appointed and carved, & very poorly engineered. In 1628 she set sail from her harbor berth —– for 600 meters — then unceremoniously tipped over and immediately sank! In 1960, the Swedes began a 30 year project to raise & recondition the wooden vessel to withstand exhibition out of the water without disintegrating. (2) Scansen is an outdoor museum of homes, farms, churches, shops, fences, etc. from prehistoric times to early 1920’s, dismantled from all over Sweden, and carefully reconstructed at Scansen. My roommate, Edna Brinkley Jones (my friend from Immanuel Presbyterian choir) & I only had 2 hours in a fascinating place you could spend 2 days.
Saturday, we rode 50 miles, north to Uppsala for our first concert in a cathedral first built in the 1100’s. I say “first built” because the Swedes are, perhaps, not as sentimental about keeping their historic buildings always true to their original construction as continental Europe is. The Uppsala Cathedral has endured 2 terrible fires, many reconstructions, & had its construction update mid-20th century when the architecture of the 2 front spires was completely changed. A strange feeling of modern encompasses this apparently ancient traditional cathedral. 12th century relics of St. Eric rest in a chapel with a 15th cent. tryptich, and over the main altar hangs a beautiful 20th cent. sterling silver & cut rock crystal modern cross. The hall also had a 14 second reverberation rate that made singing in it with an orchestra a wild, almost impossible experience. We gave 4 other concerts on the tour in Stockholm, Bergen, & 2 in Copenhagen.
Monday’s trip by our group to Drottningholm Palace was one of the highlights of my trip. The King and Queen of Sweden are actually in residence there now, so it is sort of like a White House tour. The palace & formal gardens are grand, imitating the French and English, but much more of the buildings are made of wood. But the true jewel to me was the Drottningholm Slottsteatre (slot theater). Originally constructed in 1766, it reached its zenith under King Gustav III of “The Masked Ba11” (opera) fame. After Gustav’s assassination in 1792, the theater fell into oblivion for 135 years, but remained as a good storage facility. Then in 1921, a theater historian, looking for a painting, “discovered” the theater again. -A perfectly preserved jewel of a authentic 18th century auditorium, raked stage, stage machinery for effects and moving scenery – all made of wood. the “junk” was moved out, the theater restored and is operating today in it’s original state just as it did in its heyday 200 years ago! Sunday nite I saw a TV performance of a 1790’s opera from there, unaware I would be walking on that stage the next day. The public can’t go backstage, but when I told the guide I used to teach about these theaters from books and never dreamed one still existed, he fulfilled my dream to go backstage and under the stage to see everything. A rich, almost pungent odor emanated from all the wood under the stage and my mental and emotional feelings literally erupted and overflowed like a pot of hot chocolate on the stove.
In Oslo, we saw Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” – newly returned to the museum after its Olympic theft. – the castle fort (1300), the Norwegian Resistance Museum, and the Holmenkollen ski jump (1952 Olympics). The ski jump is so high it’s mind-boggling. TV simply can not relay the true enormity and height of this structure. Sculptor Gustav Vigeland spent his life sculpting hundreds of nude human figures in marble and bronze – and they are all on display outside in Frogner Park in Oslo. Finally, in the 50s I read Thor Hyerdahl’s books, and now I got to see his balsa raft (The Kon-Tiki) and papyrus boat (Ra II). Nearby the Viking Ship Museum houses 3 ships from 800 BC excavated from the Oslo Fjord.
We drove through 2000 miles of Swedish, Norwegian, and Danish countryside, and I loved Norway the best. I have always wanted to repeat my Alaska trip – and in Norway it almost felt like a got to do it. Norway is a real microcosm of the geography and plant life in Alaska and all along the Alaska highway through Canada. Two big differences were:
- the many, many highway tunnels from 700 ft to 7 miles! long, easing our journey across (through) the mountains; and
- of course the magnificent majestic fjords.
Even the ferry trip on the fjord reminded me of our trip up through the northwest coast along the Alaska Marine Highway on that ferry. (As a side light – we rode on 4 different ferries “just as a matter of course” – but just like the one that sank about 5 weeks later in the Baltic Sea, Ferries are a fact of life of here if you want to “get anywhere.” – but the ferry disaster was a major topic of conversation at our group picture party and gave us all pause for refection.) (Sheer mountain(7) cliffs drop precipitously and plunge into the water.) We were told that the real definition of a true fjord is that the depth of the water below equals the height of the cliff rising above it.
In places the cliffs were certainly 1000 feet or more high and waterfalls were everywhere. Even in August water leaped over cliff edges and hurtled hundreds of feet down to the bottom — or churned over torturous rocky cataracts all the way down a slightly angled slope. They were never the same, but they were always there = every few hundred feet. I could sometimes get 4 waterfalls in one picture.
Bergen, Norway, nestled on a small patch of flat land has “suburbs” climbing the steep hillside much like Logan, W. Va. Two blocks of Hanseatic 14th Century buildings on the UNESCO world heritage list line the quay and were featured in the October 1994 National Geographic.
We got a good look at Danish countryside and two small towns, but not enough time in Copenhagen. We arrived at 5 pm in Copenhagen by bus, gave a concert that Monday and again on Tuesday night and flew home Wednesday. I enjoyed most going back to Tivoli, the wonderful amusement park for both adults and children. Tivoli has bands, restaurants, shops, buildings, and fountains all outlined in tastefully arranged lighting patterns that create an ambiance reminiscent of the past.
These highlights skim the surface that my 20+ rolls of film reveal in more vivid detail.
Except for Stockholm, the time in each place was far too short and made me want to return on my own – with a car. Well, maybe if I win the lottery!