December 19 - Thursday

Interiors from Sofiero Palace,
Helsingborg (Skåne, Sweden)

Sofiero used to be one of the Swedish royal family's country mansions. It was built in the mid 1860s for Crown Prince Oscar and his wife Sophia. In 1905, they gave it as a wedding gift to their grandson Gustav Adolf when he married his first wife, Margareta from England. They had five children together before she died in 1920. In 1923, Gustav Adolf got married again, to Lady Louise Mountbatten from England. In 1950, he became King of Sweden (Gustav VI Adolf). He still liked to spend the summers at Sofiero, until his death in 1973. But when he died, he left the palace and park to the city of Helsingborg to be enjoyed by the general public. 

 

Image of the palace from Swedish Wikipedia

The palace is surrounded by a large park with lots to explore. Inside, there is a restaurant and café, art exhibitions, and also a museum showing a bit of the history. I liked the rooms above for the details bearing witness to the palace having been "loved and lived in" - books read, travels planned (the atlas), creative talents explored, children playing...

December 9 - Monday

Red granite sculpture in three parts, Sofiero Palace Park, Helsingborg

This sculpture is in three parts. The ear was lying further away from the other two parts - too far apart for me to catch all three in the same photo, so I made this collage. When I was there, I had no idea what it was supposed to symbolize. I still don't, really - but I managed to find that the artist is a Canadian, George Rammell, and the sculpture (entitled something like "spirit of the tumulus") inspired from old Norse mythology, and the giant Ymer (Ymir). To cut a long story short, the world was created from Ymir's dead body.