Stockholm’s Vasa
…the Vasa headed out of Stockholm harbor on its maiden voyage. Less than a mile later it sunk. 330 years passed before it was brought to the surface again. The Vasa Museum is the current resting place where I took these (five) photos (and stitched them into one) last summer.
Parthenon Marbles in the Duveen Gallery of the British Museum
At some point the Elgin Marbles will make their way back to Greece as their presence in the British Museum seems very wrong. At that point, I’m guessing admission to the British Museum will go from free to 30 pounds as they can’t exactly charge people to see stolen property currently.
Today’s photo features marble sculpture created about 2,500 years ago on the Parthenon on the Acropolis of Athens. If you look really closely you can see holes in certain places. These weren’t from destruction in transport. Instead, these are original and were there to hold objects that are now missing like horse bridle, reigns, etc.
Rosetta Stone @ British Museum
The largest empire in history “collected” (some would say stole) many significant pieces of history. Then, in the early 1960s, Britain created a law preventing the return of anything in their collections to the various countries of origin. If it’s legal it must be ethical, right?
Anyway, people can come see these items for free so that’s something. The problem is that if you visit, like we did, on a rainy day in early August things can get ridiculously crowded. Picture the Mona-Lisa-in-the-Louvre crowded.
Autumn Morning on Lake Sortedam by Christen Kobke (NY Carlsberg Glyptoteket)
As mentioned yesterday, today we are leaving Copenhagen. Our place, right next to Lake Sortedam, will be missed. I’d like to be close to the lakes again next time, but on a less busy street. I walked, or more often biked, along this lake nearly each of the past 36 days. Although it’s summer, many days looked as gloomy as this fall day in Kobke’s painting from nearly 200 years ago. On those sunny days, between storms, the lakes looked marvelous.
On the surface Copenhagen isn’t changing at all. But the new things do stand out and surprise me when I spend a month here every few years.
So far I’ve posted about 35 photos from this trip. After deleting hundreds of photos, I still have about 4,000 to go.
Diorama in Hakata Machiya Folk Museum of the Hakata Gion Yamakasa Festival (博多祇園山笠)
I have never been fortunate enough to be in Fukuoka for the first half of July to witness first hand the Hakata Gion Yamakasa, but the display, in miniature, at the nearby museum is pretty cool.
恐竜 – National Museum of Nature and Science (Ueno, Tokyo, Japan)
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