Our next stop after Skärhamn (previous post) was "just around the bay" from there according to the map, and supposedly only 15 min drive or so. But it took us quite a bit longer than that to find the place - I think more like 45 min! (The time stamps on my photos puzzled me for a bit when I checked just now - until I realised that while my phone is on "summer time", my separate camera is set on normal/winter time...)
Pilane is an Iron Age settlement and grave-field from 1-600 AD; but since 2007 the site is also used for outdoor sculpture exhibitions. As the sculpture park has become quite famous, I expected several road signs and posters to point out the way to it, but that was not the case.
Finally we found one road sign with the name (Pilane) + the usual sign for "sights worth seeing" pointing down a narrow dirt road. But we drove on for quite a while on that road without seeing anything that resembled the entrance to a famous sculpture park - or even an old grave field or the kind of rocks I'd seen on pictures... Eventually we felt we must either be on the wrong road or have missed it, so turned round (when an opportunity to do so turned up). And on our way back, then we saw it, because from that angle we could clearly see the main "signature" sculpture high up on a rock...
But down by the road, there was no sign at all to mark the entrance to a major tourist attraction (or even the grave field). And on this rainy day, not all that many cars were parked in the gravel area in front of the small wooden ticket booth at the farther end either...Ah well. At least we had found the place at last! So we put on our wellies, grabbed our umbrellas and stepped out...
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▲The iron age grave-field▼
▲These might look like remains of big old trees, but are in fact (metal) sculptures by Chinese artist Ai Weiwei.▼
Below: Walking on uphill towards the gigantic head up on the top of the rocks. You can see that it's been raining so much that a brook has formed in the middle of the footpath. (Just while we were there, there was only light rain though.)
Anna by Spanish artist Jaume Plensa is a permanent sculpture on the site. (He also made one of my favourite sculptures in Borås: House of Knowledge, the big figure made up of letters that sits outside our Textile Fashion Center. It has been on my blog several times).
"I believe that the most important things in life are are always invisible; connections that embrace our body in its mysterious relationship with nature and community."
- Jaume Plensa
Anna is 14 m high and made from polyester resin and marble dust. The sculpture has been at Pilane since 2016. (Originally she was there on loan for three years, but she was built for the spot, and in 2019 they managed to buy her and keep her on permanently.)
That's me in front of Anna - holding on to my hat
in the wind, and wearing my new rubber boots... ;)
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Panorama view
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Lots of heather grows in this landscape
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▲'Cancan' by Anna Fasshauer▼
Left: (One of two)
Towers by Ingrid Ogenstedt, Sweden
Right: Pool by Tony Cragg, Great Britain
"Sculpture is important. It's not just decoration.
It helps us to think about the world" - Tony Cragg
The "Tower" sculptures are made from reeds, but the shape was inspired by Himalaya stone Towers that are supposed to have lasted for several thousand years.
We did not go quite all the way to the farthest end of the park, so we may have missed a few sculptures (or at least did not get up close to some) but I think we got a good overall view of the area and the exhibition.
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Walking down the same path that we came up. (Way down below in the background to the right you can see Ai Weiwei's "Roots" sculptures again.)
We still had more than an hour to drive to reach the motel where we had booked rooms for the night, at Munkedal. From the island Tjörn (where we had visited Skärhamn and Pilane) we drove across the bigger island Orust without stopping. We avoided going back up on the E6 motorway by choosing the older parallel road ("old E6"), but that too involved several tricky roundabouts - and we actually drove right past our motel without seeing it, because it turned up a bit earlier than we expected. But after a while realised we must have gone too far, so again had to find a place to turn around and go back - and then we had no difficulty finding it... Photo from the hotel website. Our rooms were on the ground floor in one of those buildings, and we could park the car just outside. (Reception and restaurant in a another building.)
Not sure when exactly we arrived, but by then we had a long day behind us. We did not feel like another restaurant meal in the evening, though, so after we had checked in and inspected our rooms, we drove a couple of km to a supermarket and just bought ourselves some sandwiches and fruit there. I had also brought a thermos of hot water + teabags from home which we hadn't got round to using earlier during the day. So we had a light supper in my room before we parted for the night. (There was a small table and two chairs.)
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My room at the motel
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View from my room the next morning. (Enough distance from the roads nearby that we weren't too bothered by traffic noise during the night.)
