Sisu Day

I have registered for using the city bike. Still, I picked up my ancient (read: even unlocked nobody will steal it) bike from a friend where it had hibernated while I was gone. Being a Finn, even she wasn’t sure whether laughing or getting depressed would be the more appropriate reaction to the weather. You…

Precision landing…

Let’s for a moment forget the romantic Rhine and consider the fact, that the Rhine river is one of the most important shipping routes of Europe. Fully loaded freight ships fighting upstream against the current or happily speeding downstream are a standard sight in Rhine country. I know, women have a bad reputation when it…

Silakka Markkinat

The first Herrings-Market in Helsinki was organized in 1743. Still at the end of the 19th century the harbor looked very picturesque with large sailing boats docking at the quay  (see  featured image from the ©Helsinki Museum picture archive). Der erste Heringsmarkt in Helsinki fand 1743 statt. Noch am Beginn des 20. Jahrhunderts sah der…

Matching architecture styles

Modern architecture in historical city centers often leaves me wondering. I especially “love” it  in articles on new architecture when they emphasize enthusiastically how wonderfully the new building ” blends in with the surroundings”, while I  rather alternate in my choice of words between “eyesore” or “barely tolerable”. But there are those rare cases that…

Eiskunst – Ice Art

Der diesjährige Winter ist ein echtes Trauerspiel. Normalerweise ist Februar/März die Zeit für Eiskunst-Wettbewerbe oder Festivals, aber dieses Jahr sind die Skulpturen gleich wieder weggetaut. Trotzdem hier ein link zu ein paar Photos von “Art Meets Ice” auf der Zooinsel Korkeasaari: Und ein paar ältere Photos aus einer Zeit, als der Winter seinen Namen noch…

Craning your neck

Finnish “Jugendstil”, Art Nouveau,  lasted only 25 years (1895-1920). In those years, over 600 multistory apartment buildings were built in Helsinki, which changed the face of large parts of the city in a blink, from a sleepy wooden town with patches of bare rock,  to an urban environment. In a dramatic pace, these buildings were…