Turku Castle

I'll share with you some photos of the Turku Castle that we visited last summer. It is huge - endless narrow stone staircases and climbing made me exhausted. The castle is a more than 700 year old historical monument and has stood guard over the river Aura estuary since the 1280’s. Its granite stone walls hold within them the history of Finland & Sweden.

In 1556, King Gustav Vasa named his son Johan Duke of Finland. The era of Johan marked a new phase in the construction of the castle. In the 17th century, the Governor General of Finland Per Brahe held court in the bailey. Gradually the administrative centre moved out of the castle, and gave way to a prison. There were almost 20 prisoners in the same small cell at times. The poor conditions in the prison caused illnesses, diarrhea and fever. Mortality peaked in 1863, when Turku was plagued by a cholera epidemic that killed 32 people in two weeks.

 

In the 1941 bombings the castle was left in ruins. After the end of the war restaurations began and took decenniums. Nowadays the periods of construction can be seen in labyrinthine passages, walled up doors and windows and in mysterious staircases. It was a grey day during our visit, no blue on the sky whatsoever.

 

The builder of the Sture Church was the Swedish regent Sten Sture in the 1480s.

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#der natur donnerstag #gartenglück #image-in-ing #krapu 

#makrotex  #mosaic monday #my corner of the world #tuesday's treasures 

Christmas at the Sinebrychoff's Home

This is a revisit to the home museum of the Sinebrychoff family

that I visited in December 2019.  The home museum is open, but I have not been there now.

Photo: H. Aaltonen, the museums site

The roots of the Sinebrychoff family lead to Moscow but they have settled in Finland already at the end of the 18th century. The family got rich via brewing business, nowadays the brewery is owned by the Danish Carlsberg.

Paul Sinebrychoff (1859-1917) & his wife Fanny (1862‒1921) started collecting art in the 1890s. Just before her death, after almost thirty years of collecting, Fanny Sinebrychoff donated a collection of about 900 works of art to the Finnish government, as was their mutual wish. The collection is housed in their original home in the center of Helsinki, at Bulevardi. The home museum at the 2nd floor is very luxurious. It abounds with old oil paintings and antique furniture, much gold & much money. Photos are mine, except two from the museum’s site. 

Photo: H. Aaltonen, the museums site

The coffee tables were set in the luxurious saloons, silver was shining

and the table cloths were amazingly white.

The dining room was decorated with dark furniture but the chandelier was sparkling.

There  were an endless amount of expensive art treasures, as the reading monk by Rembrandt.

 Wishing you all a Merry Christmas!

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#der natur donnerstag #gartenglück #how to survive november #image-in-ing #krapu 

#makrotex  #my corner of the world #tuesday's treasures 

Greetings from Kirra

Thank you all my dear friends for wishing me good luck for the surgery ❤︎ Everything went well and I had to stay in the hospital for only one night. Waking up from the anesthesia was the worst part and of course the previous stress. You see, there is the possibility of injuring the facial nerve - but the lady surgeon Anna was skillful and my mouth does not droop a bit!

The problem was my left salivary gland that had shown symptoms and salivary stones many times before. This time the stone needed a surgery and they decided to remove the whole salivary gland. The stone’s diameter was approximately 1,2 cm! So far no suspect of malignancy. The pathologist's statement will arrive in four weeks.

Nicknamed Kirra & Kirurgi, the Helsinki Surgical Hospital / Kirurgiska sjukhuset is one of the oldest hospitals in Helsinki. It is situated in Ullanlinna near the Kaivopuisto Park. Completed in 1888, the hospital is administratively part of Helsinki University Central Hospital and there they concentrate on  examining and treating patients with ear, nose and throat diseases. We have a lot of modern hospitals in the Helsinki region, each of them have their own specialities and experts who serve the whole capital region. For instance my broken ankle was operated in the Töölö Hospital in Helsinki and my thyroid gland was removed in Jorvi, Espoo.

The cafe has an old world charm!

From Ehrenströmintie around Kaivopuisto the views over to the Gulf of Finland 

looked this dramatic early on Monday morning.

❤︎❤︎❤︎

#der natur donnerstag #gartenglück #how to survive november #image-in-ing #krapu 

#makrotex #my corner of the world #tuesday's treasures #wednesday around the world

Louhisaari Manor, Birthplace of Mannerheim

Louhisaari Manor is a historic baroque manor in Askainen in the municipality of Masku. The mansion is the birthplace and childhood home of Carl Gustaf Mannerheim (1867-1951). The house is a fine and rare example of a Palladian-style country house in Finland. During the restoration of the 1960s, the exterior was restored back to its 17th century style as much as possible. The house is surrounded by a park in English landscape style.

Mannerheim is our heroe. He was born in Louhisaari, but had to move out at the age of 13 after his father left the family & the seven children and moved to live with his mistress to Paris in 1880. Mannerheim's maternal uncle became his legal guardian and financier of his later schooling. The Russian Empire dominated the Grand Duchy of Finland before 1917, and Mannerheim made a career in the Imperial Russian Army. When Finland declared independent in 1917, he served as the military leader of the Whites in the Finnish Civil War of 1918 and as commander-in-chief of Finland's defence forces during the period of World War II and as the sixth president of Finland (1944–1946). 

The Mannerheim equestrian monument in the heart of Helsinki was sculptured by Aimo Tukiainen 

and was unveiled on June 4, 1960, on the Marshal's birthday. The bronze cast cavalry 

is 5.4 meters high and stands on a 6.3-meter-high red granite pedestal, 

so the monument has a total height of almost 12 meters.

In the park there was this beautiful scale model.

We visited the manor in the summer and were pretty much the only visitors.

It was very interesting to stroll around this impressive historique building.

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#der natur donnerstag #garden affair #gartenglück #image-in-ing #krapu #makrotex 

#my corner of the world #tuesday's treasures #t in die neue woche #wandering camera

Old Cemetery in Lohja

 

 A while ago I visited the Church of St. Lawrence in Lohja. It is one of Finland’s

most beautifully decorated medieval churches. I took also some photos of its beautiful cemetery 

where old and newer graves mix with each other.

Lohja is a bilingual city and many names had a Swedish clang

- Wikström, Österman, Johansson, Alenius...

The grave of a well-known politician and former Prime Minister Johannes Virolainen (1914-2000) 

and his second spouse is beside the church entrance.

 

❤︎❤︎❤︎

#der natur donnerstag #gartenglück #image-in-ing #inspired sunday #makrotex

#my corner of the world #tuesday’s treasures #t in die neue woche #wednesday around the world