Stave church (cc 1200), Norske Folkemuseum, Oslo, Norway
Stave church (cc 1200), Norske Folkemuseum, Oslo, Norway
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To my great consternation, the CD where I stored most of the photos I took in Norway got damaged and I lost more than 50 pictures permanently. The following few were saved because they got mixed up in a folder containing Sweden pictures. This one shows Oslo's Central Station. |
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The Oslo Harbor. This picture was taken from the Akershus Castle, a medieval fortress and castle built around 1300. The pictures I took of the castle and inside the fortress were among those lost in the damaged CD. |
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The Vigeland Park is Norway's tribute to its great sculptor, Gustav Vigeland. The park is grand in scale and dizzying in its abundance of Vigeland's works of mostly naked human bodies. It is said that when the sculptures were finally revealed to the public after years of construction, the Norwegians stood and stared at the works in real shock and awe. |
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The Monolith Plateau in Vigeland Park. Surrounding the Monolith are 36 groups in granite depicting the cycle of life. Vigeland did not sculpt directly in granite. He employed others to do the time-consuming work of transferring the original models into stone. |
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With 121 figures, the Monolith was carved from one single granite block, hence the name. This 46 feet high column is completely covered by writhing human figures in relief and is open to various interpretations. Vigeland modelled it in full size in clay around 1925. |
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View from the Monolith Plateau. This shows the Fountain, the Bridge, and the entrance to the park. The park by the way, is also known as Frognerparken or Frogner Park. |
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The Wheel of Life. Completed by Vigeland in 1934, this bronze sculpture is composed of human figures swirling in an eternal circle. |
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Plaza with characteristically colorful and scandinavian buildings in Oslo. I forgot the historical significance of these buildings though. |
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Excavated viking ship, Gokstad, at the Vikingskiphuset or Viking Ship Museum. Discovered in Viking tombs around the Oslo fjords between 1860 and 1904, the three boats in the museum date to AD 800. |
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Me and the 9th-century ship Oseberg. Unlike Gokstad which is more of a warrior ship, this richly ornamented 19m (64 ft.) dragon ship is the burial chamber of a Viking queen and her slave. This photo taken by a Japanese tourist is the only picture of me in Norway that wasn't lost. |
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Norwegians and tourists bask in the sun at the Oslo waterfront. In the background is the medieval Akershus Fortress. During WW II the Nazis used Akershus Castle as a prison and carried out many executions there. |
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Similar to ancient Egyptian papyrus vessel, this raft Ra II was used by Thor Heyerdahl to successfully cross the Atlantic from Morocco to Barbados in 1970. This photo was taken at the Kon-tiki museum. The pictures I took of the balsa wood raft Kon-Tiki that carried Heyerdahl in his famously documented crossing of the pacific in 1947, were among those I lost. |
