Monday, 11 July (continued)
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| 'Sagolika' Sunne = 'Fabulous' Sunne |
Not far from Sunne, on the other side of the lake, you'll find Rottneros Park, another famous place associated with Selma Lagerlöf. It is a sculpture park featuring a combination of formal park areas, natural parkland and 'creative horticultural design'. It all started in the mid 1950s with a man by name of Svante Påhlson, who designed a manor house there to match the fictional Ekeby in one of Selma Lagerlöf's novels - Gösta Berling's Saga.
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| The Entrance to Rottneros Park |
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| They were selling plants at a stall close to the entrance/exit. |
The park covers a very large area, and we soon realized it would be too much for us to walk around the whole park. So we concentrated on finding our way to the manor, and from there to a sculpture of Selma Lagerlöf that I remembered from a previous visit (back in the 1990s); but then skipped the more remote parts of the park, and just explored some of the various older 'garden rooms' along our way back to the entrance again.
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| Rottneros Manor |
We walked downhill behind the manor to the lake, and finally found the the Selma sculpture - much further down than I remembered! (phew)
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| Walking back up again, seeking shadow from the trees when possible... |
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| Refreshing sculpture fountain |
Quite a long way to walk up close to this sculpture as well (even if on flat ground). And by now I've completely forgotten who it was on top of that pillar anyway! ;)
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| Diana (Roman) or Artemis (Greek), I think. (Patron of hunters.) |
I felt sympathy with this little guy - trying to extract a thorn from his foot... I think it's a bronze copy of an older sculpture from 200 B.C.
And the bronze horse below I think was a copy of an older sculpture as well.
Hello again, Selma! - Me with a another sculpture of the famous author... (This one sits in a little park between where my brother lives and the city centre, in Karlstad.)
I like all the sculptures, the classic styles and celebration of beauty as in the horse and the bathers in the fountain, and Diana. That is a great story of how the manor was designed as a tribute to the author and now people can visit it.
ReplyDeleteThanks Terra. Glad you enjoyed it!
DeleteWhat a gorgeous place! I especially like the lkae shot with the boats. What a mansion, as well! Does anyone actually live there, or is it just for touring and maybe a gift shop?
ReplyDeleteGinny, the mansion itself is private and not open to the public, so I assume someone does live there. - Checked: The grandson of the founder of the park lives there!
DeleteAbsolutely my kind of day - a manor, a park, beautiful garden "rooms", sculptures... You did well wearing sunhats, and limiting your walking to what you wanted to see the most.
ReplyDeleteMeike, for some reason your comment had been marked as spam by Blogger and was not automatically published. (They seem to do this quite randomly these days - so far I've not been able to see any particular reason, with any of the comments I've noticed that it happened to.) I did receive the email notification though, and remembered seeing that; so was able to retrieve it from the comments section of the dashboard and publish it later.
DeleteI'm sure you would have enjoyed a walk in this park, too! :)
I like all the scuptures and did yoy think of sitting on the lap of the first one? LOL... shade seekers is what all of us have become in this heat wave over the planet. this is another one I missed, I am going through all the deshboard
ReplyDeleteSandra, even if the brochure said nothing about it, I kind of assumed that senior citizens trying to climb the sculptures might be frowned upon... ;-)
DeleteMany of the names on your map bring back so many memories! I can remember visiting the sculpture park in the mid 70's, with friends we'd made who lived in Munkfors.
ReplyDeleteCG, as you've told me you've spent time in Värmland, I can well imagine that many of these names and places must bring back memories for you. :-)
DeleteIts really a joy for me to see your blog...a vacation and traveling to wonderful sites. Thanks so much for recording the photos here, and commenting on them too. Now I have another author to search out. Any recommendations?
ReplyDeleteBarbara, I'm not sure how Selma Lagerlöf's novels may come across to modern American readers - but I'm thinking that one that you could try would be 'Jerusalem'. It is loosely based on a real emigration of a group of families from a parish in the Swedish province Dalarna to Jerusalem in 1896; and there they join a group from America. There are Kindle e-book versions available in English, free or very cheap from Amazon. Or if you prefer to read in print I suppose your local library may have that one as well.
DeleteThe manor house is beautiful and reminiscient of roman architecture, I really like all the sculptures in the garden especially the fountain.
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