Our Swedish National Day – has to be something blue and yellow then!
Byggnader
CFFC: Gardens
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Gardens
My favourite garden is here in Sweden…but I can sometimes dream of having a really grand garden…with big trees and open grounds with perfect lawns. And of course, in my dreams there is always a giant greenhouse with rare and exotic plants.
Yes,,,you can always dream…
Thursday Thoughts – A Kindred Soul
In Dublin there are many capturing buildings, but never did I imagine myself trying to photograph shopping centres…and with such relish.
St Stephen’s Green felt like a rather newly built, modern place, with all the light and all the windows I could dream of.
So, we went inside to explore. And I truly found a dream of white and green – the same fresh green colour dominating many of the interior decorations we saw in Ireland.
Quite the cake! We walked through the whole building and found the architecture fresh and matching in every detail.
Then we walked up to one of Dublin’s oldest shopping centres, Powerscourt. I wanted to see the old mahogany staircase – original from the 18th century.
Live piano music filled the air with dreams from another century…
…and the open court was an old style dream – filled with lovely tea drinkers chatting away…
But nowhere was the mahogany staircase to be found. We marvelled at old hat shops and new hat shops, colourful furniture, jewellery stores and old, wooden floors. Where was the staircase? When we had given up trying – we finally found it on our way out, at the back of the store.
I first saw it in the mirror, and was so taken in by it, that I found myself in the mirror as well…
In the 18th century…the wood carvers were very skilled. The smooth feeling of the wood, the beauty of colour and shine, the intricate patterns… I wonder how long it took them to finish this magnificent staircase.
I guess I loved both shopping centres – but only in one of them had a kindred soul.
Thursday Thoughts – An Eternal Love Affair
My lifelong relationship with books and literature makes me visit every library I come across. Going to Dublin meant I would be able to visit one of the most fantastic libraries I know of –
Trinity College, Dublin – I had seen the Long Room in some photos before – and of course the Book of Kells. This old library makes a perfect Harry Potter setting….and already walking through the gates, into campus, sent pleasant electrical shocks along my spine… Soon I would enter the magic…
The long Room is the main chamber of the Old Library, and is nearly 65 metres in length, housing around 200,000 of the Library’s oldest books. It also contains the oldest surviving harp in Ireland.
Just to the left of the Shakespeare bust, is the magnificent spiral staircase. And then –
So many great men and women have walked this wooden ground…
…and forever left their footprints in our world…
All books are handled with the utmost care
And the marble busts in each row – are all famous men (yes…men, of course…..)
This is indeed a remarkable Old Library – The Long Room
CFFC: Autumn – Metal
More Longings..
CFFC: Looking Up at Things
Cee’s Fun Foto Challenge: Looking Up at Things
They were fixing our roof…and I looked up at one of the guys – who looked down on me…
Thursday Thoughts – Moving a Town
Kiruna is the northernmost town in Sweden, situated in the province of Lapland in Norrbotten County. Inhabitants – about 20 000.
Esrange Space Center was established in Kiruna in the 1960s, and they also have the Institute of Space Physics.
The re-development of Kiruna is a reconstruction project, as the Kirunavaara mine, run by LKAB, undermines the current town center. Several buildings, including Sweden´s most beautiful church and the famous Town Hall, are to be moved or demolished. The whole town center is to be moved 3 kilometers to the east.
The ground deformations became apparent in 2003, and the redevelopment started in 2007. The moving of the town was started in 2014 and is expected to be finished by 2100. According to the plan, there will be a denser city centre with a greater focus on sustainability, green and blue infrastructure, pedestrians and public transport rather than automobiles.
Walking the empty streets at night, the snowy silence is almost visible, touchable, embedding you in cotton cold. I wonder how the people here really feel…knowing most of them will have to leave their homes and their familiar surroundings for something they have not chosen themselves. A great piece of history will be lost, and I guess a piece of Lapland´s soul as well.
Jukkasjärvi Icehotel
Icehotel is the world’s first hotel made of ice and snow. Founded in 1989, it is reborn in a new guise every winter, in the Swedish village of Jukkasjärvi – 200 km north of the Arctic Circle.
This winter season there is, alongside the classic Icehotel experience. ICEHOTEL 365. This hotel was built to be a permanent structure that includes luxury suites, each with private relax and bathroom, and art suites, all sculptured by selected artists. There is a large ice bar that serves champagne, and an ice gallery. This ice experience can be visited year-round and is cooled by solar panels during the summer months.
Let us first go inside the ordinary hotel and enjoy its cold beauty – 5 degrees C below zero.
As we walk down the aisle there are corridors on our left, all leading into rooms – the hotel has got 55 rooms and suites. I admire the grand chandeliers, all handmade in ice…
We approach the ice chapel, and the light is amazing. I have to walk slowly to take it all in.
The ice benches are all covered in reindeer skins, and we sit rather comfortably here. Artists made the altar and the decorations, as well as the baptismal font to the left.
The very white material making up the chapel is called snis – probably a merge of snow and ice, as that is what it really is.
The Torne river stretches 520 kilometers, and is the largest of Sweden’s four national rivers -in fact also one of the last untouched rivers in Europe.
It’s the Torne River that provides Icehotel with its ice in winter – and in the summer when the hotel melts, the water returns to its source. Natural ice requires a lot of work – before it is harvested in March, when it has grown its thickest. Months are devoted to maintaining the “ice field” and keeping it clear of snow for the ice to have the best possible conditions to grow.
Each harvested block weighs about two tons. The picture shows one of them standing.
In next post we will enter the new hotel and the cool bar…with drinks served in ice glasses. I will walk you through some of the spectacular art suites as well. I wonder if you would like to check in…? Hope to see you then!
Thursday Thoughts
This country road passes an old homestead, long since abandoned. I pass here maybe once a month, and every time I think…I really should stop and walk up that old road…
Today I drove past again…but something told me – this time I really must stop –
– so I finally did. I turned the car and parked it on the meadow nearby.
Happy to have made this decision, I slowly started walking towards the stonefences marking the road up to the house.
To the right, the fine old cellar that used to store food for the winter.
Then the house itself, on the left side of the road. I wonder who once lived here and why they left? The house lies beautifully on a hill, close to the forest and surrounding meadows.
My love for these roads with grass in the middle has a long story…all those childhood years I walked forest roads, meadow roads…and always with grass in the middle. StilI it is in me…I just have to follow them, to see where they go and what I eventually will find.
This road was very well kept, and must be used fairly often…
…at least by hunters
Another reminder of childhood days was this old telephone pole
Some finds I made, even if the walk did not last for more than 15 minutes. I was happy.
I believe we should try to do those little things…follow those whims and ideas we sometimes have. What do you think? It may take some time…but, I try to. Often with a positive outcome – for both me and people around me.
Leya 
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